Modern Lives, Sacred Hills

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Like a lot of families these days, we've grown apart. My brother lives in Japan, I am constantly working, and it seems none of us has had the time to get to know each other as adults. Life has a way of taking us so far from ourselves that everything gets blurry. This brush with mortality has focused us back in on the things that should matter. Things change when people get sick. I had originally planned to make a documentary about my father going to India to make his next film, but in the midst of it all my mother asked us to make a pilgrimage, as a family, to a place called Tirupati. She's never asked us for anything. Ever.

With this one request, she has become a new person to me. A person with her own needs, with a past and a faith. None of which, I'm realizing, I know anything about.

INDIA. MYSTICAL, MAGICAL, and overwhelming. The land of swamis, gurus, and my family. At the airport, the customs officer shoots me a puzzled look and asks, "Are you Indian?" I don't quite know what to say. Two minutes later we are beeping and weaving our way through the freeway into the heart of the city. Markets spill into the streets, traffic spills into the market, and everything flows together. All of humanity seems to bubble over in the cauldron of Hyderabad. Beautiful minarets tower over us as we find our way into the heart of the Charminar Market. This was where my parents first lived after they married. I feel myself transplanted in this new world where everything is chaotic and strange for me, yet for them it's home.

I am gaining a new kind of respect for my parents. I've taken them off the pedestal of parenthood and try to imagine myself in their position. I am 6 years older than my father was and 12 years older than my mother was when they had their first child. When they began with nothing and started to build their life, our life. It's a sobering and humbling thought. I wonder who I would be in this India had we stayed.

India is the seminal experience that is challenging the very foundation of my self-concept. Each moment is filled with meaning; each sight triggers a feeling or sensation that I didn't know existed in me. The indiscernible sound of locals slowly yields to my curious ears and becomes a language. A language I've used only unconsciously to listen in on household conversations is now connecting me to the 76 million people of this province.

I've romanticized this country in my dreams, but being here is a completely different story.

Each of us experiences our own India. For my father, India is a playground -- a hustler's paradise. My sincere but self-indulgent moments of reflection are squished by his comic audacity. As I ponder my ultimate truths, he vanishes for hours only to reappear in the hotel lounge with a cell phone and some film cronies cooking up a deal. Andhra Pradesh does have the second-largest film industry in India.

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