SANA Conference 2017 Saturday

I had stayed up until 4am the night before, putting the finishing touches on my presentation video for SANA, a Sindhi conference where I was to present on my puppet film, Risalo, based on the poetry of Shah Latif. It is difficult to boil down a huge undertaking with so many facets to connect just those key points that you think will not only interest your audience, but mobilize them to help.I finally figured out how I wanted to present my project and what might be of interest to SANA attendees. I ended up making some small additional changes in the morning thanks to my wife's suggestions and a couple of things I saw in addition to that. It felt good though, to feel that, while not perfect, the video would tell the story I needed to tell, in just over 8 minutes.I arrived at the conference and sat at the registration table for a while. I met the daughter of a Sindhi scholar who had written an english translation of Shah Latif's book of poetry, Shah Jo Risalo. The daughter had shipped the books from Pakistan at significant expense, to sell them to raise funds for SANA and spread the poet's words to people.I met some more volunteers and waited for a session to let out. I met the scholar's daughter's grandchildren and her daughter. That was a joy. They were incredibly sweet children, helping with book sales, walking around letting people know about the book. Talking to children can often brighten my day.My talk was listed in the program guide and several people were interested in it, for which I was grateful. I walked around a bit, after the session let out, tested the video and audio on the projector thanks to Arshad Ali who single handedly set up sound for the evening performance.I walked around a bit aimlessly after that and really had no idea what to do with myself during the break between the last session and the dinner program. I'll add another post about the photography experiments I did in between. After that, I made my way back to the conference and was greeted by Aziz Narejo, whom I met last year. He took me under his wing and I joined at a dinner table with the present and several past presidents (chairpersons) of SANA. Some people remembered me from last year and Aziz was kind enough to take an interest in my efforts on 'Risalo' and I really appreciated the thoughts and connections he helped me with.I ended up going on a bit earlier, but I was ready and really it was perfect timing as the room was packed after we had a delicious dinner with adults and children. It was the perfect time to share my project. There was a lot of talking going on in all the sessions, but hopefully I connected my journey and plea for help on 'Risalo' to some interested people. It is hard to really know. My table mates were kind and congratulatory of my efforts and presentation. I sat and enjoyed a skit, some songs, poetry and took some photos.At a bit before midnight, I felt quite tired and unsure of my ability to gain the support I need to finish the film. I did my best, I decided I needed to go home and rest. As I walked out, and down the hall, two young women, Kiffa and Rebecca stopped me. They appreciated what I shared and told me about their own interests. We brainstormed and shared common experiences of how we connected to culture through music by different bands and how that lead to an interest in more. I got some good suggestions for how to engage their age group with what I was doing, and I appreciated the confidence boost, before I thanked them again and made my way home to sleep, with mixed feelings at how I did and how much longer I could keep pushing with so little outside momentum and yet I am grateful.

Doctors and Engineers at the CSU Fundraiser

Here are a few photos of Doctors and Engineers performing at the Community Services Unlimited fundraiser. Most of the day I was supporting rHope and a little chubby fella with a cool hat. I managed a few shots with a vintage Tokina 80-200mm f2.8. It is an amazing lens to get some nice shots of the stage from a distance.

Antelope Valley, California, Poppy Fields

I visited some poppy fields in Antelope Valley a few weeks ago and photographed them with vintage lenses on a Sony a6500. The wind was very strong, so I played with higher shutter speeds to freeze time. I got a few nice macro shots with a Vivitar 90mm f2.8 and most of the others were shot with a Vivitar 28mm f2.0 and a Rokinon 14mm f2.8. I did a bit of minimal color and contrast adjustment using Camera Raw in Photoshop.

Show up

The protest at LAX today was reaffirming for me in the power of people coming together for positive change. I am glad for the friends who joined and all others who are working in their own way. It is something we have done before the current US elections and will continue to do long after, and it seems with more urgency. Perhaps the marginalization of so many by this administration will lead to stronger coalition building and efforts to make real change. We truly have no choice. This morning before joining in the protests, I put down some of the thoughts below. Every wave of immigration in the US has been opposed and yet immigration is what has made this country great, despite many serious challenges that are yet to be resolved. The topic of immigration has always been an easy way to prey upon the xenophobia, that fear of the unknown, the other, to placate the existing population, not by improving their lives, but by maintaining the status quo and creating a false sense of proactive action for their benefit.Today, people who have gone through the extremely difficult vetting process to obtain a visa or green card to be in the US, and gathered the very large sum of money it takes to fly here are being detained at the airport and even being sent back. Imagine that you, or someone you care about is coming here and upon arrival they are detained. Their names may be released now, thanks to the efforts of the ACLU and other lawyers around the country. At least now, we can know they exist and lawyers can fight for their rights, but this won't change without all of us. If you stop yourself from taking action now, who will take action for you when this precedent affects you directly?Many of the best minds and hardest working people from around the world have borne incredible hardship to come here to the United States, and despite racism, and politics that all too often tells them they don't belong, they have made this their home and done so much to contribute to society. One who is born into legal protections does not appreciate their value as much as those who have gone without and made that almost impossible struggle to leave behind everything, for the sake of a dream to have opportunities and basic protections.Those protections were not handed out. They were earned, through the struggle, lives and strength of all people who make this land their home. Social progress has always been held back by politics of division, a lack of desire to truly address the needs of the population, covered by pointing at marginalized communities as the enemy to pass legislation that ultimately will be used against those who quietly go along with it today.What has such and such community ever contributed to this country? Maybe it is up to us to look around and see those contributions, rather than demanding that every human being seen as other make the case for their right to exist. A lot of legislation is being pushed through without people having the opportunity to question or scrutinize. Yet there is a legal system in place for the moment. It still exists, but we need to support those protections and that process in the face of legislation that threatens to erase it while we sit and question the victims of injustice rather than the perpetrators of it.We still have the ability to make our voices heard. It requires that we inconvenience ourselves to show up and speak out against the reversal of hard fought social progress, on the lives of the many who died to push for the rights we take for granted today. Thanks to the sacrifices of so many, all we have to do is show up.

Doctors and Engineers EP Release Tropico De Nopal

I went to see my friends Doctors and Engineers at their EP release show at Tropico De Nopal. These are friends I have known for years and it was so fantastic to see the fruition of much labor. People don't often realize how much it takes to put together music, record and create an event. It's a ton of after hours blood, sweat and tears to hone skills and create something incredible, somehow between all else that life throws your way. I was so glad to be there and enjoy the incredible lineup of King Kang, El Haru-Kuroi, Discostan and headliners, Doctors and Engineers. After the shit show that has been this election, it was quite amazing to be in a room that represents a cross section of what this beautiful city has to offer. It was a gathering of cultural, ethnic, linguistic, artistic diversity, with all genders, orientations and simply fantastic people doing what they can to better the world around them in those on stage and off.Many around the US don't seem to understand or care about the ramifications of what just happened. Bigotry, misogyny and a complete lack of relevant experience was rewarded with the presidency. Overwhelmingly white America sold out the rest of the country in the hopes of possibly reclaiming some tax dollars, cutting out healthcare and in many cases being able to be a bigoted piece of shit without guilt. I'm thankful for spaces like this show, because so many of all races have fought to get us all that we have, and in this beautiful, musical release, I felt like this was a window into that richness that we're going to fight to protect. If you don't see the problem, check out this link.Here are some sketches I made during the show, while peeking from behind heads, dodging elbows and trying to see in the dark.

SANA Conference 2016

In order to raise awareness and try to garner support for my puppetry film; "Risalo", I went to the annual SANA conference for the first time. This year, it was held in Detroit. So after work on friday, I came home, grabbed my bag, got a ride to the airport from my wife. I flew out over night. I must have managed about 3 hours of sleep by the time I got to Detroit. From there, I made my way past the long line of hotel and rental car buses, before I came to a lonely spot where the public bus arrived hourly. Eventually the bus came and I was on my way. Then I was at the stop for the next bus and well, you get the idea. It took a while to get to the convention center, but that's how you do it low budget, grass roots artist style.

I had created some t-shirts, inviting people to ask me about "Risalo" with some information about the poet as that was particularly relevant to this conference. I purchased a ticket and told them about my project. They introduced me to the president of the organization (SANA) Jamil sahib, who graciously agreed to give me a spot to speak on a panel on sunday. Throughout the day, I attended panels, learned about efforts by Sindhis abroad, doing work to help Sindhis in Sindh. I spoke to a few people, briefly about my project. People were surprised that such a project was being worked on.The next day I was given some time on a panel to share a brief introduction and a 3 minute video on my efforts to create a film based on the poetry of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, the great Sindhi poet. The audience was gracious and throughout the night, a few people came up to me to encourage and connect regarding the film. There is a big divide, between those who grew up in Sindh who are still deeply attached versus the younger generation that was raised in the US. The younger generation is bright and caring, but through no fault of their own, is not connected to Sindh. What does that mean for the future of an organization that was started in the face of persecution of Sindhis and threats to the people and culture's future? Based on my own experiences teaching in Sindh, I know how important education funding and quality is to a young population, eager to learn, despite the corruption and lack of resources. There are serious environmental and political issues.All of these are issues that different people are trying to work on and still there is plenty of room for more efforts. At the same time, that very thing that guides a group of people, to strive for better things, the intelligence and beauty of their culture is in danger of disappearing. This is where I feel "Risalo" can be of benefit in not only supporting traditional artists, but in bringing that wisdom and pride in something truly positive in the culture to those in Sindh, as well as all people around the world.I have already done so much work on this project, recording music in Sindh for more than just this 1hr and 15min film. So much of the work has been completed on that initial shoe string budget, raised via Kickstarter and my own meager funds. Now I need help to raise the funds needed to shoot the film. I know of no other project that is working with this culture in this way. I work day and night before and after going to my job daily to piece this film together, but I can't do it without financial help. I hope that the conference will lead to some funding support from the Sindhi community, though nothing has materialized as of yet.Each night, at the conference, I enjoyed delicious food and live music at night after a day of panels. Some friends of my mother's from college were in attendance, so it was sweet to spend some time with them as well. I really appreciated that there were real Sindhi folk musicians like Allan Faqir Jr, Deba Sahar. On the final day, I met one of my backers on Kickstarter. I did not know him, but his name was on a panel, so I made a point to meet him and express my thanks. I was really glad to know that he is following the updates I send out and appreciates my efforts in bringing this film to life.After the panel, I spent some time with Mohammad Punhal, who is a photographer and aspiring filmmaker from Hyderabad, studying in Green Bay on a state department scholarship, learning filmmaking. We were joined by Soh Suzuki, my new friend and host in Detroit thanks to a connection from my friend Preeti Sharma. Soh was incredibly kind to give a traveling artist like myself a comfortable place to sleep while in the Detroit/Dearborn area. I was so glad to meet this fellow artist and activist. He was working an early morning shift at a bakery, yet despite that he made time to help me.I can't thank him enough. It's hard to convey to people how challenging it is to be an artist, working freelance, constantly looking for work, trying to support a growing family and struggling to do meaningful cultural work on the side. A few thousand dollars may not be much to some, but for people like myself and so many others, we just don't have the extra funds. So when people like Soh open their doors, it makes a huge difference in my ability to do this work. I met a fellow Adnan as I was walking out the convention to catch a bus home when it was still daylight. Detroit is in a horrible situation, and waiting for buses at night is just a terrible idea. During the day it is a bit sketch, but I wasn't going to risk it at night. That's why I was leaving to go back to Soh's place that evening. Adnan Siddiqui had heard me share my project and gave me some appreciation and encouragement. Then he offered to drop me back later so I could stay for dinner that night and talk to more people about my project. For me that was a huge help. My point is that I feel humbled and grateful for every bit of help on this journey. The need is very real.After the conference, Soh took Mohammad Punhal and I out around Detroit for the day. It was nice to just talk and walk around. I am so glad that I got to meet these new friends on this trip. I also met a lawyer named Charles, based out of Chicago, who invited me to lunch with him when I got there, as I was flying out from his city. He was very interested in folk music and the efforts I am making to support it.

Risalo Photo Updates August

I've continued to take photos to test out and plan scenes for my puppet film "Risalo". Here, you can see lighting for a burning village, regular village, early morning in the desert and one small glimpse of a sandstorm.

Fuzon and Fareed Ayaz and Abu Muhammed Qawwal Party at Grand Performances

What an amazing show. I got to see two incredible musical acts at one of my favorite music venues in Los Angeles; Grand Performances. Thanks to all the hard work that made it possible. It truly is a treat to be in a city where you can enjoy world class musicians from around the world at free concerts, in perfect weather. Next time I need to stop down the lens. Some of the Qawwali photos are glowing a bit. As always, good practice for my puppet film; "Risalo".I drew a few sketches of Fuzon and took some photos of the performances. You can see my sketches of Fareed Ayaz and Abu Muhammed Qawwal Party from a few nights ago here.

Fareed Ayaz and Abu Muhammad Qawwal Party Grand Performances Jam

Thanks to Leigh Ann Hahn and the wonderful people at Grand Performances, I got to enjoy a little musicians jam with Fareed Ayaz and Abu Muhammad Qawwal Party, all the way from Pakistan right here at Inner City Arts. I've enjoyed their soulful music for years and got to see them a few years ago at a concert put on by the Pakistani Arts Council. It was a real treat to see them in such an intimate setting and to spend time and talk to them as well. Did I mention there was delicious Pakistani food catered at this little jam session? How could anyone pass up such an incredible opportunity on all levels.I can't thank Grand Performances enough for making opportunities like this possible. Don't miss their public performance on Sunday at Grand Performances in downtown Los Angeles!Here are a few sketches I made during the performance.

Kristeen took some photos and video with a cel phone:

You can see where friends Sheila Govindarajan and Sri joined in. Also in that last, unfinished sketch, you can see Tasneem with a saxophone on her lap and a tuba next to her.

Vivitar 28mm f2.0 Komine lens tests

Recently, I've been enjoying experimenting with vintage lenses. I admit, I became a bit obsessed with finding all these great ones on ebay, but what good are these unless you use them? I've been using them for test shoots for my puppet film "Risalo", but it is always fun to take them out into the real world and play. So, here are some recent photos taken on my simple Canon T4i using the Vivitar 28mm f2.0 lens. I like these vintage lenses. I have a newer Sigma lens, that is all plastic and I really don't care for it, compared to these metal lenses that just seem to be built way better.This one is a bit rarer than most. Thanks to the internet, I was able to research and figure out which one to get. Lenses can be different depending on the year they were made and which factory they were made in. This particular one was made by Komine for Vivitar. Basically, it is a great fast, sharp 28mm lens with wonderful bokeh. I love how easy it is to focus and 28mm gives me a good wide view for photographing in a crowd, or even some landscapes. I guess this would be about a 45mm lens equivalent on my crop sensor camera.

Risalo tests - Beginning with lights

These are photos of some tests from last month for my puppet film "Risalo". It is fun experimenting with lenses, cameras, lights and these beautiful puppets. Thanks to my friends Peyton Skelton, Michael Levine and Raja Gopal Bhattar for the light kits. I had a couple of soft boxes some arri frenels, small leds and some photo lights. Coupled with stands, my own and borrowed, I have a little setup going. I've been researching and picking up some vintage camera lenses off of ebay. If you are good with manual aperture and focus lenses, you can get some fantastic lenses for a pretty good price. I do some quick web searches to read up on lenses to see sample photos and get some thoughts on them from other photographers before purchasing.This way, I've been able to pick up some f2.8 lenses for Pentax, Nikon and an M42 mount which I could use on my little Canon t4i with simple adapters. I tried my old Minolta lens, which worked great on my friend Gagan's Sony A mount, on my Canon with an adapter with some glass in it to make it work. It looked terrible. Wide open, I got a lot of glowing, which defeated the whole purpose for me. I also tried out a little macro tube, but did not find it particularly useful for video. Thanks to Amazon, I was able to get a refund on those.Besides a few kinds of lenses that don't work so well adapted to Canon, there are many varieties to choose from that use simple metal adapter rings with no glass. This is what I want. The idea is that if a a type of lens has a distance greater than that of Canon lenses to the sensor, then an adapter can be made for it. Minolta, Sony, Canon FD, MFT and some others do not work at all or require adapters with glass to compensate for the distance to the sensor and I don't think that works well at all.I've started reading a nice book on lighting called Painting with Light, by Anton. Getting the tools is only a part of the process. The real work is in shaping the light and creating with it. I'm mostly very busy with my job, and it takes time to test, study, order a few selective items and test some more. It takes time to make progress, as I also alternate between working on animated portions of the film, applying for funding and a whole host of other tasks.I've started separating the lights, using angle and barndoors. I have one light illuminating the backdrop, and a key on the character, with other lights added as a rim to pull the puppet off the background and some fill, whether from lights or reflectors. I found that I needed to create more contrast and interest. I took an orange dupatta cloth, which I plan to use for set dressing and held it at a safe distance from the light on the backdrop. That created a really nice bit of contrast and added a great deal of richness to the scene. I put in an order for some simple gels to start working with color.For the lights, one important task, was to create sandbags so they don't fall over. Again, I approached this in the usual DIY, frugal, independent filmmaker way. I picked up 150 lbs of sandbox sand from a hardware store for $15 total, some gallon ziplock backs and some empty sandbags for film off of Amazon. A few tedious hours for each batch and I had put together 12 12-15 lbs sandbags to keep all the lights and people/puppets safe on set.

Cameras and Lenses

An assortment of lenses and cameras.

Simple daylight test. 50mm 1.8. T4i (650)

I'm working on funding, and various other aspects of "Risalo" before I can put together the puppetry shoot, so I have a lengthened schedule. To take advantage of this, I want to refine the storyboards or animatic for the film with another draft. This time I want to incorporate lighting and the actual sets. This is another important step in the process of testing out all the set pieces and polishing them. To this end, I've been borrowing camera gear and some lights from generous friends.Creating space for the camera and stage setup is not too difficult in my studio space. Once I get lights added to the mix, it will be much more difficult to fit everything. I shot tests with a Canon Markii (full frame camera), a Sony A33 and my own little Canon Rebel T4i. I worked with several lenses, a Canon 50mm 1.8, Canon 16-35mm 2.8, Canon 70-200mm 2.8, Rokinon 16mm 2 and a Minolta 50mm 1.7.

Mark II 16-35mm F2.8

T4i (650) 16-35mm

I found that wider lenses like 16mm to 35mm tend to create too large a field of view. Everything looks tiny and your shot choices are quite limited as the edges of the set quickly become visible. Those same lenses give fantastic depth when shooting out on a trail or in other larger spaces. They also work great when you are in a crowd and can't get far enough away to frame things that are relatively close at human scale. When you get to puppet scale, with the size of my backdrops, it makes the world appear too small.Working with the 50mm lenses was a lot of fun. They have wide apertures, so they let in lots of light. The depth of field looks beautiful too. You get really nice bokeh and sharp in focus areas. The camera has to be closer to the puppets to get it all, but I can be a foot or three away and compose some nice shots. I can't get extreme closeups of the hands and parts of the face, but I can see these lenses being used a lot.

Minolta 50mm 1.7 on the Sony a33. Love the sharpness and the look of the bokeh.

Minolta 50mm 1.7 on Sony a33.

50mm 1.4 on t4i (650) with some glass for blurring effects on lower portion.

test with some lights.

The 70-200mm was great to test with. It is a large and heavy lens, but it let me get an idea of what kind of framing I could create up to 200mm. You can't focus if you are too close, but if you go back a couple of meters, you can frame some nice shots closeup. It is heavy and can be difficult for moving shots, but a lighter lens around 135mm or so may be perfect for some of these kinds of shots.

more lighting. Got to see what I can do to knock down that shine.

All the lenses were really good quality. Thanks to my friends, I got to try out a good range of focal lengths. That was the main purpose of these tests. I also started to play with imperfections. I started reading about vintage lenses, which are much cheaper in general and can be of really nice quality. Some tend to flare more or have other imperfections that can be utilized to artistic effect. I ordered a few lenses, which I will experiment with further. I want to try a macro extender to try and focus at a closer distance to the puppets with the lenses that I have. I felt like I could create really sharp images with the 50mm lenses, and perhaps with some lighting, I can get sharper images out of the other lenses as well. It can be difficult to manual focus in the viewfinder. It is also challenging to arrange the shot, and not really be able to see it clearly through the camera as you move things, being a one man crew. So, I think I will get a mini hdmi cable so I can see what I am doing on a monitor, especially as I am beginning to work with lights.

experimenting with lights and space.

I also tested with some amazing Zeiss CP2 (Cinema) lenses. One was an 85mm and the other 28mm. They are far more expensive than all the gear I am testing combined, but it was a treat to try them. The focus and aperture rings on them are great for shooting films. I don't think I will need to change aperture mid shot for this project, but for a live action scene moving from one light setup to a drastically different one, it would be essential. Some of the older lenses have aperture rings that can be declicked to get a smooth rotation as well. The other thing with the lenses I am testing versus cinema lenses, is that regular lenses come in all variety of sizes and lengths. This is not ideal for putting them into a rig to shoot a film, while the cinema lenses of a given line are all one size, built specifically to be put in those rigs.

sunset, light filtered through the window.

more experiments with glass in front of the camera lens for distortion.

 

firing away mark ii and t4i (650).

I picked up several light kits from friends as well, so I've spent the last few days arranging and rearranging and re-positioning the stage setup to keep the apartment livable and get enough space to set things up. It is challenging to work a few hours before and after work when I get time on this. Being able to keep things setup or more or less setup in one safe spot will help save a lot of breakdown and setup time and let me focus on trying to create the lighting setups I have chosen in reference images with the puppet sets. After coming back from Pakistan, it has taken time and effort to keep things going, but I've already received all kinds of generous support from friends who have entrusted me with their fantastic gear, to make this film. That was a point where I was really stuck in Pakistan. I knew friends of friends who were in the thick of the production world, but it was out of my reach to afford to rent gear and get any real help in the shoot. So many friends helped with places to stay, moral support, introducing me to people and providing access to whatever they had at their disposal. I think of all of this support as I continue to chip away at this beautiful project.Thanks to Gagan Malik for the Sony camera and lenses. Thanks to Arturo Aguilar for the fantastic Canon lenses and Mark ii camera. Thanks to Snehal Patel for the CP2 (Zeiss Cinema Lenses). Thanks to Peyton Skelton and Raja Gopal Bhattar for some lights, which I will talk more about in upcoming posts. Thanks to my father for the beautiful Minolta 50mm lens, which worked beautifully on Gagan's Sony a33. Thanks to Melisa Acoba for lending me her Holga. While I did not shoot any film, I've researched each piece of gear and there are lots of "imperfections" that could be really interesting, whether using the Holga or other means.

Studio

It has taken almost 3 months of crashing at friends places since returning to Los Angeles with suitcases full of puppets, backgrounds and all the other material to make "Risalo". I finally setup my studio in the apartment we moved into last week. This journey has taken lots of twists and turns, but now I have a space to regroup and rebuild. It feels good.

Background character from “Risalo”

Background character from “Risalo”

Background characters from “Risalo”

Day in Gujrat

I woke up in the comfortable Gujrat University guest room. The view outside was beautiful. The sun was still low across the fields, and a thick fog lay over everything. I took my time getting ready, and by about 10 am, went to meet my friend Anwar for breakfast at the canteen.Afterwards, we walked over to the fine arts department, where I got to visit with a few more staff members and check out some of the various majors. There is an FM radio station, as well as pottery, ceramics, printmaking, industrial design (complete with 3D printers), multimedia and much more. It was fun to see some of the work these students are doing.By then it was time for my presentations, so I went to the multimedia lab and shared some of my professional work and then my short film “Gul” and the design process behind it. The part I enjoy most in this presentation, is sharing the process of taking a vague concept and developing it through clear visuals into a finished piece. It is a lot of fun to have a conversation with the students to learn about their own interests and to see what aspects of what I am sharing interest them most. I had a lot of fun sharing with them.Speaking to some of the faculty, I heard a lot more about the usual administration issues. The problems are very real and quite serious with all of the institutions I have come across. I have faced a number of challenges in my work that really made it hit home for me, how corrupt the system here is. So in that sense, it is understandable why people vent and certainly have legitimate things to complain about. However, it does not make sense to do that with someone who just arrived. Almost everyone I met, after a brief introduction, went into what a mess things were and how impossible it was to get what they would like to do done in this environment. That’s great, but not really appropriate to dump on a guest. This happens a ton wherever I have been. When it is a friend sharing something with me, that is different, but so many places that seems to be the very first and only thing people share, is all the horrible crap they are dealing with and how things are so awful and hopeless.It is not that what they are complaining about is untrue. I think a lot of it is very accurate, however, when I look around and see all of these young students here to learn and quite clearly being taught well by these same professors, I feel like they should share more of that with me instead. After lunch, Anwar showed me some beautiful displays by the industrial design and ceramics departments. The work looked beautiful, and it was quite clear that the staff really do care about their students. From there, I got a high speed ride into town to the local bus stand. I hopped on a little wagon (van) for Rawalpindi as there was no direct bus to Peshawar from there.We had only gone a few miles, when the wagon stopped by the side of the road. There was some kind of issue, so another one was called and eventually we all piled into it and were on our way. I kept dosing off and being jolted awake by the sudden starts and stops. There was an older man next to me who kept mumbling things that were hard to understand. At one point hey yelled out to the driver to let him off at Mundra. Eventually we got there, and the driver pulled over. This guy starts asking everyone whoever wanted to get off at Mundra should get off. He kept asking who it was over and over. Finally someone said, you are the one who asked to stop here. He seemed to have forgotten but since so many insisted that it was him, he relented. He was kind of entertaining like that, announcing stops from there on and giving advice to people on where to get off and which route to take the rest of the way. It was all pretty funny.Eventually, I hopped off in Islamabad and got on a van for Peshawar. It took a while for passengers to fill up, but after an hour we were on our way. It was dark and my suitcase was wedged on top of my lap. I stared out the window at blobs in the shadows, between dosing off for a few moments and looking for signs to see how close we were to Peshawar. Once at the station, I called my friend who came and picked me from the Daewood stand down the street. We drove past a ton of secured areas that had been attacked by suicide bombers in the past, including the school bombing last year. This city has been through a lot.We met up with some more friends of Abdur Rahman’s at a studio, then went out for some food. The restaurant was closing, but we were in luck, they had one prepared chicken left. It was seasoned more or less with just salt, green peppers and lemon. It was really delicious and much more subtle on flavors than spicier food in Lahore.From there we head back and I went to sleep.

Gujrat University

I got a call early in the morning that my ride to Gujrat University had arrived. I finished getting ready and head out to meet Fayaz in an empty lot off the main road, since the place I am staying is in a narrow lane and there are no street names or house numbers to speak of.We had been driving for a bit when a breaking sound came from the engine and we pulled over. Luckily, there was a motorcycle repair shop by the side of the road. After a bit of back and forth, they patched up the car. Like most cars on the road, it was just barely held together enough to run, so we were on our way again. I watched the landscape change and a few small towns and farm land lead us to the outskirts of the city of Gujrat (in Punjab, Pakistan). The campus had beautiful buildings and wide open spaces with lots of greenery.I met up with Anwar, a lecturer there and had been a student when I met him at CEAD in Jamshoro, Sindh years ago. I got to meet some of the staff and walk around a bit. We grabbed some breakfast at the canteen before I gave a lecture on my work. It was fun to share. We scheduled another lecture for the next day, then went out for lunch.In the evening we visited the tomb of the man who bequeathed this land for education. It was overrun by grass. After that, we visited some old buildings in the city.

Books

I spent the morning at the Landa Bazar, looking for some cloth for a river bank for “Risalo”. I have been here so many times over the course of this project. It is great to see the finished backgrounds, neatly framed in cloth. Umar has done a beautiful job of helping to design these backgrounds and hand stitching and figuring out the many challenges to bringing the designs to fruition.I took one of the finished backgrounds to the bazar to match some colors. Most of the people selling cloth in large heaps could not be bothered to talk to their customers, but as I looked through the stacks at one stall, I chatted a bit with the owner as Umar and I have come there quite a bit. I opened up the background and showed him what we had been up to with all these pieces of cloth that we had purchased here. He was really happy to see it and told the neighboring shopkeeper all about it and called him over to have a look. They really appreciated the hard work that went into piecing it together. It was fun to share.I spent the rest of the day hanging out with my friend Kabir, sifting through stacks of old books at the Sunday book fair and then heading over to Ferozsons book store. They have opened the whole back area of the store again, having rebuilt it after an electrical fire years ago. I grabbed some ice cream at Chaman, then sat down with some book collectors and sellers. Over tea, it was interesting to learn about big estates in Lahore that housed huge libraries that ended up being sold for their weight in paper, rather than the true value of all these antique books that had made their way into the hands of a private collector from all over the world.

Azam Gardens

I caught a wagon to Azam Gardens. From where I am, it is fortunate that I can get a Qing Qi to the main road and then walk a ways and hop on a van to some far off places. Vans are pretty cramped and it takes a while, but once I was in, we were on our way.We made it about a couple of kilometers, before a bunch of scrawny M.A.O. College snots came by and insisted that everyone get off the van and go to another one so these pieces of shit could go on a joy ride at the driver’s expense. They don’t want to deal with these kids damaging their vehicles and this is their route, so we piled into the next van and were on our way. The conductor on the second van told us about how these college students do this stuff.After that we were on our way once again. Eventually I got to the neighborhood I was headed to. I spent some time at a couple of houses. People were a bit busy or sleepy, so I ate, made small talk, slept a bit and then no one was really around when I woke up, so I left.It was dark by then. I walked out the neighborhood, to the main road and crossed the many lanes of traffic. There were no wagons stopping there so I just kept walking for several miles until I got to some crazy intersection, crossed it and hopped on a wagon. That took me to the Qing Qi which took me home. Good times. I am ready to be done with this trip.

Not buying

I woke up and made some tea. My friend Imran’s home is rather quiet most of the day. Umar works at night, and Imran heads out for work in the morning, so for most of my time, it is just me and my thoughts. When I was preparing to shoot “Risalo”, things were quite busy, struggling against constant load shedding and piecing together storyboards and resources. Since I decided to take this production home, I have put all of that on hold.My mind still swims around ideas of how I will make use of this extended time and the potential resources I can piece together in Los Angeles to make this film what it truly should be. There is also that lingering self doubt as to whether I can pull together all of these beautiful elements into a worthy whole that expresses the ideas and experience that I am working so hard to create.Other than that, I made the rounds visiting more relatives before I leave. This time I visited a few families that live near where the Prime Minister lives. This makes for challenges when you are coming by bus and walking around, looking for an address. Eventually, my aunt and uncle drove up and got me from a market in the area.I found it interesting that with the older generation, conversation went to religious stuff and eternal damnation if one does not choose the right path. None of my generation had that to say. Other than that, there was the usual asking about the rest of my family which is sweet, eating lots of food and many, many long and awkward silences. I don’t understand this obsession with eternal damnation and fire and brimstone, so I would try and ask about grandkids or other more lovable family members. I was surprised that they had nothing to say about that and the conversation would go back to the necessity to follow the exact correct belief. Seriously, that is some headache inducing stuff. How can you enjoy good food, and have such nice little grandkids and still be obsessed with just hellfire and earning brownie points for the afterlife? I mean, I get if you have a pyramid scheme, you just have to blurt it out once, maybe twice, but then I would figure the mention of grandkids would bring a little joy to your face and a harmless silly story or two.As religion obsessed as people are, I wonder where that appreciation for their quality of life and love went and why people feel that this is the best way to “sell” their beliefs to others? I try to respond less to these things as I am older now and not under anyone else’s thumb, but I do find myself pouncing on certain remarks with some rebuttal, and in that way refrain from the four letter responses that are running through my head.Interestingly, I feel that the adult children of those same relatives are quite different. They too love their religion and practice to varying degrees, but I have not seen that same obsession with punishment, damnation and salvation. Perhaps in that there is some hope.

Phool Patti and Faiz Festival

Haider Ali and Ali Salman of Phool Patti dropped by in the morning. I went out to pick up some halwa poori, while Umar fixed up the place and made some tea. I must say, he is really good at uncluttering the place when he needs to. I can't say that about myself.Haider and Ali Salman are as usual up to great things with Phool Patti. As a truck artist, Haider has pushed his way past so many barriers to develop his skills and then rise on the merit of his hard work. Painting trucks has been in his family for several generations, but from his teen years, he made a point to seek out training in all areas related to his work. He went to cinema board painters to work on portraiture and landscapes, and studied with sign board painters to push his calligraphy skills. He wished to insure that he could cover all aspects of his art, and never be at the mercy of someone else. I feel very connected to that. In working on my own projects, I try to pick up as many skills as I can, and while I may not become an expert at everything, I want to at least be able to put things together. This helps a lot in directing and collaborating with other artists as well.In hearing Haider talk about his own journey thus far, I see a lot of the same obstacles that I hear from other artists or experience myself. Yet despite all of that, here he is, pushing and creating connections and opportunities for himself as well as the team he has created, traveling the world, breaking all of those barriers that others have tried to set, particularly on artists who don’t have recognized academic training or the benefits of other bars to admission in this very hierarchical and incestuous system. On the other hand, I have a lot of those benefits, but I recoil in disgust at a lot of that whole scene, while leveraging it in a way that better suits my temperament. He is an internationally recognized artist, yet if he had more of a snooty attitude about his art, and some inflated degrees; an acknowledgement to the academic gate keepers of art, then he would be Haider Ali sahib and not referred to as Haider bhai. What a bunch of crap. Despite all the nonsense, it brings me a lot of joy to see him and his team traveling the world on the merit of their work.After some food and sharing some music and artwork from “Risalo”, I head over to visit some relatives. I returned later towards evening, and took a series of buses and qing qis to get to the hotel Haider was staying at. We sat down for some green tea, then Umar and I saw them off at the railway station. That one sentence sounds so simple, but what it actually entails is so much more. We crossed several lanes of insane traffic from all directions, navigating potholes and open sewers (covers are often stolen), the public latrine (any wall or corner), misdirection on the train platform (running around with heavy luggage up and down stairs to every which platform we were directed to in a huge mass of people), then squeezing aboard the train and ignoring incorrect and official sounding pronouncements of being in the wrong berth, then walking all the way back through all of that to move on.Umar and I head to the bus stand and waited for a bus to Alhamra. Our friend Imran was there at the Faiz Festival, in honor of poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz. We sat for a while, watching a beautiful solo dance performance to Faiz’s poetry, intermixed with other songs and pieces that pulled together readings of letters between Faiz and his wife during his imprisonment. There was a lot of humor in their exchanges through what must have been such a heart wrenching experience. I felt a bit sad, thinking about all the struggles, apathy and lack of a genuine desire to do your part to make things better that I see here and certainly back in the US as well. There are so many people who do care and are doing incredible things to make the world a little better, but overwhelmingly as was before and as is today, our goals and purpose in life are to accumulate wealth for tomorrow or brownie points for the afterlife.We took a walk through the beautiful Lawrence Gardens at night, before heading home to enjoy some delicious food courtesy of Umar’s sister.

visiting

Umar and I visited my friends Haider Ali and Ali Salman Anchan of Phool Patti. They had just returned from a trip to the Pakistani High Commission in India, where they had painted some walls in their truck art style.We caught up, then head to the train station to book their return tickets to Karachi. From there we grabbed some lunch at a little dhaba, before heading to Olomopolo, an interesting open arts space where they had a meeting scheduled.I walked over to visit Sohail sahib at Checkpost and the rest of the group went their separate ways. It was a bit of a walk to get to Checkpost, but I felt like just walking. After my experiences with production people here, I really wanted to just get back home and move on with the next stage of things. After all I have been through to accomplish whatever I have for “Risalo” so far, I just wanted to get back home. I had gone over some more details for the last river background with Umar that morning. I planned to be out of town for the next week. That is a bit risky as the work may not get done, but so be it, I don’t want to sit around here waiting another week, just trying to bide my time.It was good to catch up with Sohail sahib. I shared the reasons for my decision to go home and not shoot “Risalo” in Pakistan. The director of “Manto” dropped by to see some progress on a project he was working on. I felt very fortunate to get a chance to sit in on the session and see some previews of a very lavish production that he has been working on. It makes me feel good to see projects that are raising production standards here.We had some coffee cake, courtesy of Hamza Imam who recently became a father. Hopefully I can stop in again before I leave, but I certainly appreciate all the friends at Checkpost, who let me use their resources for weeks on end to digitize DV tapes for the music portion of “Risalo”. Sohail introduced me as being someone of some significance in relation to my work, but I feel quite the opposite. I look at the work around me and see funded projects with entire crews, and on one side I see myself, quite battered by the experience of trying to make this film. What I am trying to make is certainly an oddity. I don’t see something like “Risalo” being made at any point if I don’t do it. That does not necessarily mean anything of any significance, it just is. Sometimes you just make stuff, because that’s the stuff you want to watch, and whatever with all other considerations.I took the usual long walk to the metro, followed by a bumpy ride home via bus and qing qi. I have a few lectures lined up in different cities for next week. I might as well do something useful before I leave. That should pretty much take me through to the date of my flight. I am tired of waiting and thinking, so hopefully this will help.