Chapter 3: “On Tuesdays We Go Shopping” –P.S.B.

I spent last Saturday wandering around, poking my head into stores with more thought of purchase than before; mostly focused on bookstores. I found a few great bookstores, including one that was only slightly larger than the musician’s shop. I am not certain if it had walls and only a small portion of the floor was visible. It was the wrong place for wearing a backpack, as the square pathway was only one foot wide. Books were stacked within a psychic reading of the ceiling. Grabbing a potential paperback was worse than finding a good orange at the bottom of the stack in the Super! Market.

After acquiring some good reading material, I decided to hit up the store on the tourist infested, over priced, Brigade Road where I had seen some cool clothes. I figured, overpriced here is under priced at home. Screw it. I went in, tried on the shirt I’d been checking out for three weeks, and argued on the price. The “made me a deal” of taking 5% off. I offered 65% of the price. I was ordered to always offer 50% of what they ask no matter what. Even though 650 rupees is expensive in India, I had to remind myself that that was only ~$14 USD. Still, I want to try and make sure I don’t get taken. I don’t mind paying more, I just mind being a tourist being taken advantage of and scammed.

I told them “I have to think about it,” to see if they would try to get me to stay by making a counter offer. It didn’t work! When the hell does that line not work? Well, to be precise, when you are in Bangalore, which is booming like Silicon Valley in the late 90’s.

I decided that I would walk the 15 minutes to Commercial St., where the locals shopped, and see if I could find similar shirts there and compare the prices. I wandered around, going in and out of shops, turning down a wooden snake by a street vendor, and eventually stopped at a Posh store which had a scarab-green shirt. It was groovie. It was a shiny beetle green that shimmered and changed to black very slightly when the angle was right. Alas, it was cut like a normal, baggy, standard dress shirt. A complete waste of great fabric.

After the girl working there, which had apparently shopped at Melrose before from the way she pushed the most ghastly items on me, tried endlessly (yes, there should be no “after” if something is “endless,” but just keep going with it) to get me to purchase the damned shit, I noticed a rack of ties. Ah! Great iridescent crushed silk ties for 600 rupees a piece. Expensive, but totally worth it. Fuck the shirt, I want two ties.

After I decided that Commercial St. didn’t exactly have the shirts I wanted, I figured I would just bite the bullet, head back, and offer the guys a few rupees less than what they wanted (you know, just to make sure they knew I wouldn’t be had like all the other tourists, right?) and just get the damned shirts.

Once the deal was made, things immediately changed. “You want a soda? Tea? Something? Have a seat.” Then, pointing at another employee, “Get this man a soda!” The employee had the “What?! Can’t you get a fucking runt kid to do that like all the other merchants do? You are going to deface me like this, and all I can do is give you this look since I don’t want to loose my job” look on his face. He went out the front door in search of a near-by vendor to get a bottle of Pepsi for this odd looking westerner. I sat, waited for my soda, chatted with the merchants, drank my soda, and continued chatting with the merchants. They went from Hard Bargainers to Happy Indians who wanted to find out more about this weird looking American. (Or did I tell them I was from Canada? No, no, I didn’t do that until later in the day.)

That is me in Rishikesh wearing the shirt I got.

I wandered back to the park I had found. I grabbed a bench beneath a tree and got hard at work at sitting around. Look at the ants. Big ants. We don’t have ants that big at home. Wow. Fun. I ended up taking my shoes off, reading a book I had just gotten (The Dead Zone), and poking the skin on my nose.

The park.

Lobster; My nose is a fucking lobster. Like a complete idiot I didn’t put on any sunscreen that morning. Great. Not only am I Caucasian; A Caucasian with dreadlocks; An obvious tourist Caucasian with dreadlocks. All I needed now was shorts, short sleeve button up shirt, a girl to hold hands with (which is a big no-no in public), and a camera around my neck. I did a fair job of keeping my camera hidden in my bag, and my Too Young To Shun Indian girlfriend hadn’t shown up yet.

I ended up sitting at the outdoor coffee Barista by myself sipping cappuccino and smoking cigarettes; Not because I craved them, but to kill the time. It was then that an odd thing happened.

The sun had gone down, but it was still hot. Droplets of sweat collected on my upper lip and my forehead. A woman came walking around the bend from behind me quickly while grasping her cell phone. She walked straight for me and said, “Do you have a moment? Do you mind if I sit and chat to you?”

“Not a problem at all.”

She pulled a chair up like she meant business, which was exactly her point.

“I am the casting director for a film. Have you heard of Lagaan?” I had no idea at the time what the hell she was talking about. I knew nothing of Indian film.

I fumbled with my mouth a bit trying to not look like a stupid tourist and probably failed miserably.

“It won an Oscar last year, you remember?”

“Oh yea, now I remember,” which I, to some extent did. I remembered vaguely hearing about some Indian flick that had won some big American/Hollywood award. Guess it was the movie she was talking about. Why not?

“Well, the producer of that movie is working on this new film that I am the casting director for. We are going to try to go for an international market, so it will be in English. We are going to try and hit up the festival in Berlin and the Cannes Film Festival.”

Ah, this sounded interesting! I still kept my Get Out of Being Scammed Free card in my back pocket.

“It is a film about a gang of Nihilists, about 50 of them, who follow one guru. You know ‘guru’?” she asked.

“Yea yea yea.” C’mon, I read Pinkwater’s The Last Guru when I was a kid.

“Well, all of the members, since they are Nihilists, have to stand out as individuals. Do you know Nihilism?”

“Yup.” C’mon, I’ve seen The Big Lebowski enough. ‘Give us the money, Lebowski!’ or ‘I will have dee lingonberry pancakes.’ ‘Ja, and she will have dee lingonberry pancakes.’ ‘Ja.’

And I look like “…an individual that stands out in a crowd.”

A gang of Nihilists? Following a guru/leader? Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of being a Nihilist?? In addition, my seriousness was about to falter, as I would be biting my lip in the near future to avoid coughing up a laugh into her face.

“The name of the film is going to be Black Sugar.”

My lip hurt. Could she see the blood in my eyes, as I didn’t breath for fear of laughing a stream of spittle into her face? A young Pam Greir was romping through my mind wearing a few strands of torn garments being whipped by a Vietnamese prison guard trying to get her into the shower with the rest of the topless women. And a heavy set blacksploitation narrator’s voice said, “You don’t wanna mess with Black Sugar kuz she’s gonna get yo ass.” Then the inevitable fight scene followed that conveniently removed Pam’s clothing…

Now THAT is ‘black sugar’!

I just could not tell if I was being scammed into an Indian porno, or if they just didn’t see the obvious hilarity of the title they had chosen.

We exchanged numbers and she agreed to call me the coming week to set up a meeting with herself, the director and the costume designer. They will be shooting for about a week, sometime in June.

"Hello. Meine dispatcher says there is something wrong mit deine kable?"

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