Camels and Tigers

After wandering around the house looking for something to do, I drove to Azusa…which is not named after A-to-Z-in the USA, never mind what anybody says….and wandered around Jo-Ann’s, looking for fabric to make a Choli.

Choli does not mean a group of Cholos or Cholas. It means a full skirt worn by Gujarati women. I want to make one, as well as a Chunya, which is a midriff length blouse, only mine will reach to my high hip. No one needs to see my midriff any more. *** Before I move on to my main topics, I must insert a full disclaimer. Anything I write about India or Indians is based entirely upon watching Indian movies and then Googling details. I know absolutely nothing first hand and I apologize profusely in advance. I’m pretty sure I’m going to accidentally offend someone about something. *** When I came home, I checked my FB Message to a non-government supported home for mentally disabled adults in a small town in Gujarat. How do I send money from the US? Why do I want to send money from the US to a town I can’t remember in a place I’ll probably never visit? Because a talented young Indian actor who I follow on FB suggested that his fans might want to check it out and possibly consider donating. Sir, yes Sir! I got hungry and, still in Indian mode, heated up a frozen dinner of Butter Chicken and Basmati Rice. “Authentic Indian Recipe” said the box. “Product of Canada” said the box. Thinking about Canada made me wonder if there are more NRIs living in Canada than in the US. NRIs are young intellectuals who go abroad to finish their education and then never leave, except to go home to marry someone whose parents who want their boys or girls to marry an NRI and live abroad. As mentioned earlier, I think I know these things from years of watching Indian films with English subtitles on Netflix, which thinks I’m Indian. Sometimes it sends me Indian movies without subtitles. I return them without saying anything. Netflix is so sure I’m Indian it has created 8 rows of Suggestions: Hindi comedies, romance, actions thrillers, TV shows, even an entire row of Marathi films. Once in a while they add in a Bengali, Gujarati, or Pakistani movie. I don’t watch dramas about Afghanistan. My entire purpose for watching Indian movies is escapism. Who wants to escape to Afghanistan? Regardless of Afghanistan and thanks to Netflix, I now have Indian friends on FB who are gracious enough to reply to my comments in English. I think most people in India speaks at least three languages: English, Hindi, and the language of whatever state they live in. It’s rather like living in Monterey Park, where the police used to (maybe they still do) carry a pamphlet printed in 26 languages, with the names and telephone numbers of interpreters under each language. The Monterey Park police officer handed the pamphlet to a person who turned the pages until they recognized something familiar and pointed excitedly to it. The police officer then called an interpreter who would tell the excited person their car taillight was out. This pamphlet was standard issue in Monterey Park, along with gun and holster. This was true. You can’t make this stuff up. Anyway, thanks to our beloved and now under siege FB, I have been able to become an avid fan of 2 Indian film and TV personalities - one in Mumbai and one in Ahmedabad. I call them my Muses or Angels because they inspired me to start writing again. So here I am, with 12 words of Hindi in my mental database, writing a pitch for an action adventure Hindi film. Eventually I will find out if I need to write more script or if I can just turn it into short story for young adults who like to read about war. In English. With illustrations. Last night I told my nephew Brian that if we ever play Never Have I Ever, he should say, “Been Bitten by a Camel.” If he does, I can nod and take a sip of my fruit juice. My guess is I will win that round. You see, I was thinking about why my Indian story/film has to have Mongolian Horses or Polo Ponies. That made me think about horse racing, which made me think about camel races, which caused me to remember that a camel bit my finger when I was a child. Not every Californian can say that. My life has been fraught with lessons. One was when Daddy takes you to the place where they keep movie animals and you try to pat the camel’s nose, it will most likely bite your finger. I was lucky the camel did not bite my finger off. My mother would have been even angrier at me than she already was because Daddy never brought her along on our fun outings to see wild animals being trained. Daddy was sort of an ass. My camel lived at the World Jungle Compound in Thousand Oaks, which took long, sweaty hours to reach if you lived in Los Angeles in the early 1950s. Air Conditioning in automobiles had not yet been invented, at least not in our automobile. During one visit to the WJC, I got to see Mabel Stark training tigers. She became my role model thereafter. Mabel Stark had 78 tiger attack scars on her body when one of her pack managed to finish her off. She was a pioneer, the first woman in the world of tiger circus acts. She kept her first male tiger in her circus train car, not in a cage. Her boyfriend made the mistake of stepping inside the car while Mabel was not present. Mabel lost two boyfriends that day: the human one and the big cat who thought Mabel was his bitch. Emulating Mabel, I picked up my child-sized chair and my toy whip and trained my Manx cat to try to attack me. I was successful. From that point until the day I married and carted him off to live with me elsewhere, I had to make a flying leap from my bedroom doorway onto my bed before he had a chance to attack my ankles. I learned to never, ever allow my arm to dangle off the mattress. The World Jungle Compound closed. Mabel Stark died. Manx died. The camel died. Yet now that I think about it, those bits of childhood imprinting, as well as sitting in front of the TV with my mother, both of us drooling over gorgeous, irresistible Korla Pandit in his turban and Raja’s clothing, may explain why my first movie pitch is an Indian action adventure story set in a sweaty wilderness.