Bangalore Profile
Not really much to report right now, I spent most of the weekend resting up and nursing my cold - its been quite a while since I've had a cold, and I always forget how annoying it is. I feel worse for the people around me, which is why I've avoided meeting people - with the exception of Pavi on Saturday night. Trying to keep up with my profile of various people, this post will be about Pavi [Pavitra Chalam] --- figure she'll be famous soon, and I need to publicize that I know her ;-) for the record!
Pavi came over on Saturday evening [she was s'posed to come over for dinner on Friday and the plan was to watch movies and films all night, didn't work that way!] just in time for dinner;Pavi's always been my guinea pig ... I think that she'll eat just about anything though ;-) I experimented with a recipe that I've been holding on to for a while - its the mongolian beef from pf changs - I was actually pleasantly surprised with the outcome. This just might be my favorite recipe from this day forth!!
Anyhoo, people ... right. Pavi and I have known each other since 10th grade - we were never in the same school together, much like Jay and I, but became friends through some random series of events and actually kept in touch! Out of school, she was all about becoming a journalist - and while others with similar ambitions went straight for the bachelors program in journalism, she took a slightly different route. Instead, Pavi studied history, political science and economics. I couldn't understand WHY she made this choice ... I mean Pavi was the cultural guru [while moonlighting as an athelete]... star of all the literary festivals, writer extraordinaire, why in the WORLD would she choose such dry subject matter [or so I thought at the time!] I later learned that her choice was made upon the advice of a relative [himself a journalist], and now understand what a good decision it was. Her choice allowed her to explore the foundations upon which most of her subject matter would be based. Pavi turned out to be the GURU of cultural gurus --- and her life has taken many interesting twists.
Though a student of history, Pavi continued to explore the arts -- participating in several theatrical performances through her bachelors. Upon graduation, she was immediately recruited to join a broadcast journalism program in Chennai [I believe it was a BBC sponsored program], word on the street was that she'd join NDTV or the BBC, or something cool like that. Nu--uhhh! Two years ago I get a phone call from my mom telling me that there was an article in the paper about Pavi traveling to Karachi with a group called the "Youth Initiative for Peace" where a dozen or so Indians and Pakistanis [students] got together in Karachi for two weeks, to build bridges between the two societies - culminating into a short documentary, produced by none other than our very own Pavitra. Coming out from that experience, with a short film to her credit, Pavi shoots to Morocco for the World UN Congress [I don't even know how she landed that gig!], where she is a delegate, and in some bizarre twist, is asked to report on the event for a local news channel - in Arabic. Oh yeah, she doesn't know Arabic!
I'm sitting in Washington, following the email traffic about all of her exploits ... in utter disbelief, my mind going back to all of our "what I want to do when I grow up" kind of discussions. We didn't realize it at the time, but this is what Pavi was meant to do. She's the kind of person that was meant to be the ambassador, document her interactions, digest them, and convey the message - at some point, she decided to do it through film. Over the last two years, Pavi has traveled from Morocco to Ireland to Italy[working with Global Vision for GM-Free Ireland], and back to namma Bangaluru [our bangalore] - doing what she does best. Now drawn to the bright lights of the big apple - Pavi heads to the NYFA in August - where she will no doubt wow her peers and professors, starting off her illustrious career as a filmmaker devoted to socially relevant issues such as potential dangers of genetically modified crops, importance of cross-border dialogue, and whatever the needs of the hour may be.
I got to watch some of her short films on Saturday night. I was amazed - especially with her collaboration with our artist friend Raghava on two of his projects, Anthropomorphism and Art in Motion. I don't know how anyone will get to see them, but if I ever get hold of them -- you can ask me!!!! They're REALLY REALLY COOL!
So, I've just spent the last five paragraphs discussin Pavi's achievements -- how does any of this fit into the blog - well, she's a quintessential Bangalorean. Her background and activities over the past few years, are a testament to Bangalore. All this IT mumbo-jumbo you hear about nowadays - Silicon Valley of the East and all that junk, none of it is true Bangalore -- Bangalore is a city with few great monuments and landmarks, but Bangalore is its people. Banaloreans are film and theatre personalities, atheletes, photographers, artists, IT-gurus [can't deny it, Bangalore has the highest concentration of Engineering schools in the world], random joe's, kitty mom's, mohammed mama's, kamala's ... they all play into the mix, and make Bangalore what it is [or maybe I mean was]. Unfortunately, as the skyline changes, the flyovers go up, and the call centers continue to pour non-Bangaloreans into the city - these factors coat the city that was once the Garden City and the Pensioners Paradise, and mask the faces. One used to be able to walk around, and see what we like to call the familiar "Bangalore faces" -- don't see that many of those nowadays. But Pavi's definately one of the few faces that you do see ...
Random - speaking of faces, I'm not the only one that talks about familiar faces. There's a photojournalist that is working on documenting Bangalore faces in a collection centered around a Bangalore legend - Koshy's. Can't wait to see the end product.
Pavi came over on Saturday evening [she was s'posed to come over for dinner on Friday and the plan was to watch movies and films all night, didn't work that way!] just in time for dinner;Pavi's always been my guinea pig ... I think that she'll eat just about anything though ;-) I experimented with a recipe that I've been holding on to for a while - its the mongolian beef from pf changs - I was actually pleasantly surprised with the outcome. This just might be my favorite recipe from this day forth!!
Anyhoo, people ... right. Pavi and I have known each other since 10th grade - we were never in the same school together, much like Jay and I, but became friends through some random series of events and actually kept in touch! Out of school, she was all about becoming a journalist - and while others with similar ambitions went straight for the bachelors program in journalism, she took a slightly different route. Instead, Pavi studied history, political science and economics. I couldn't understand WHY she made this choice ... I mean Pavi was the cultural guru [while moonlighting as an athelete]... star of all the literary festivals, writer extraordinaire, why in the WORLD would she choose such dry subject matter [or so I thought at the time!] I later learned that her choice was made upon the advice of a relative [himself a journalist], and now understand what a good decision it was. Her choice allowed her to explore the foundations upon which most of her subject matter would be based. Pavi turned out to be the GURU of cultural gurus --- and her life has taken many interesting twists.
Though a student of history, Pavi continued to explore the arts -- participating in several theatrical performances through her bachelors. Upon graduation, she was immediately recruited to join a broadcast journalism program in Chennai [I believe it was a BBC sponsored program], word on the street was that she'd join NDTV or the BBC, or something cool like that. Nu--uhhh! Two years ago I get a phone call from my mom telling me that there was an article in the paper about Pavi traveling to Karachi with a group called the "Youth Initiative for Peace" where a dozen or so Indians and Pakistanis [students] got together in Karachi for two weeks, to build bridges between the two societies - culminating into a short documentary, produced by none other than our very own Pavitra. Coming out from that experience, with a short film to her credit, Pavi shoots to Morocco for the World UN Congress [I don't even know how she landed that gig!], where she is a delegate, and in some bizarre twist, is asked to report on the event for a local news channel - in Arabic. Oh yeah, she doesn't know Arabic!
I'm sitting in Washington, following the email traffic about all of her exploits ... in utter disbelief, my mind going back to all of our "what I want to do when I grow up" kind of discussions. We didn't realize it at the time, but this is what Pavi was meant to do. She's the kind of person that was meant to be the ambassador, document her interactions, digest them, and convey the message - at some point, she decided to do it through film. Over the last two years, Pavi has traveled from Morocco to Ireland to Italy[working with Global Vision for GM-Free Ireland], and back to namma Bangaluru [our bangalore] - doing what she does best. Now drawn to the bright lights of the big apple - Pavi heads to the NYFA in August - where she will no doubt wow her peers and professors, starting off her illustrious career as a filmmaker devoted to socially relevant issues such as potential dangers of genetically modified crops, importance of cross-border dialogue, and whatever the needs of the hour may be.
I got to watch some of her short films on Saturday night. I was amazed - especially with her collaboration with our artist friend Raghava on two of his projects, Anthropomorphism and Art in Motion. I don't know how anyone will get to see them, but if I ever get hold of them -- you can ask me!!!! They're REALLY REALLY COOL!
So, I've just spent the last five paragraphs discussin Pavi's achievements -- how does any of this fit into the blog - well, she's a quintessential Bangalorean. Her background and activities over the past few years, are a testament to Bangalore. All this IT mumbo-jumbo you hear about nowadays - Silicon Valley of the East and all that junk, none of it is true Bangalore -- Bangalore is a city with few great monuments and landmarks, but Bangalore is its people. Banaloreans are film and theatre personalities, atheletes, photographers, artists, IT-gurus [can't deny it, Bangalore has the highest concentration of Engineering schools in the world], random joe's, kitty mom's, mohammed mama's, kamala's ... they all play into the mix, and make Bangalore what it is [or maybe I mean was]. Unfortunately, as the skyline changes, the flyovers go up, and the call centers continue to pour non-Bangaloreans into the city - these factors coat the city that was once the Garden City and the Pensioners Paradise, and mask the faces. One used to be able to walk around, and see what we like to call the familiar "Bangalore faces" -- don't see that many of those nowadays. But Pavi's definately one of the few faces that you do see ...
Random - speaking of faces, I'm not the only one that talks about familiar faces. There's a photojournalist that is working on documenting Bangalore faces in a collection centered around a Bangalore legend - Koshy's. Can't wait to see the end product.
posted by zai5h at Monday, June 27, 2005
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