Immersion

We met up with Uma for lunch at her house. Her mom had prepared some traditional Kerala cuisine that consisted of rice, vegetable curry, and beet root, and poppadoms. All of this went on our plates and we mashed it together with our hands before balling it up and eating it.
*Dear mom, we all washed our hands first. All of the ingredients were either fried, baked, or cooked. I took pepto.
There was also some curd (yogurt-like dip) to add to the mix as well. After a few servings, we all had rice pudding.

Afterward, we walked around Uma's neighborhood as she pointed out the different buildings and shared a little bit of the history of the area. We walked inside the house behind Nicole in this picture, which is like 800 years old or something crazy like that. The building was in a state of disrepair, but interesting to see nonetheless. We continued walking around the neighborhood. It was all very relaxing and surreal.

When I think of cultures and places that are a complete 180 from my own, I think this is it. And yet here we were, thousands of miles from home, casually walking through a neighborhood of a small town in southern India. While it was of course amazing to see a famous site like the Taj Mahal yesterday. Today, I feel like I really saw India -- which was a much more interesting experience that was (quite literally) hands-on. Nicole was on her best behavior as well and was willing to try new things. You should all be very proud of her.


We had an afternoon snack of tea and bananas, that were picked from across the street. We talked about filmmaking, the differences between the American and Indian film industries, and how women are perceived in each one, which surprisingly or not is probably not all that different. Then as chance would have it, a photographer for The Hindu, an Indian newspaper wanted to do a photograph for an article regarding Nicole's and Uma's film, so we got in the car and went to the town center near a Hindu temple to do the pictures.

For whatever reason, I somehow ended up being in some of the photos. It was not clear why, but I was instructed to do so. I thought it was because of confusion. Perhaps I was perceived as being the producer or something because I am a man. That is where my mind went anyway. It could be completely false, but I couldn't really disprove the theory because there was a language barrier. I could end up in a photograph in an Indian newspaper without knowing why, but after all I am one half of Bricole (everyone's favorite celebrity couple). This brings me to a small anecdote from our walk earlier.

Two women who knew Uma stopped her in the street to ask about Nicole and I. The exchange took place in malayalam so we didn't really know what was being said. We just smiled and waved. Apparently they were asking what our story was. Were we brother and sister? Were we to be wed? When is the wedding date? When Uma translated it for us, we were somewhat surprised that a conversation that went on for little more than 10 seconds had somehow already discussed marriage. Even my most pushy relatives wait at least an hour or two. It's a fascinating cultural difference that puts so much emphasis on the need to marry, but not dating. To be fair, most Americans probably find Nicole's and my situation unusual. And I think things like that expose a lot of cultural bias within our own society and without. Thrissur, India is certainly very different from the westside of Los Angeles, and I'm sure people in America would be quick to judge the practice of arranged marriages in India, but folks in the U.S. are just as quick to scoff at the idea that Nicole and I have been together for more than seven years and are not engaged. So there you have it -- everyone thinks we're ridiculous, despite being everyone's favorite celebrity couple.