Arrived

I've FINALLY arrived in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India!

Fellow performer and bhartnatyam dancer Indira Kemp and I arrived here at 8.20 which was 7 1/2 hours ago now and nearly 24 hours after I left Scotland so I am very very tired..!! We were gratefully picked up from the airport which was crazy, especially after such a long journey - Glasgow - Dubai, Dubai - Ahmedabad. The luggage carousel had just stopped working and immediately I knew I wasn't in the UK. Rather than wait for it to start working again everyone just decided to just go into the back over the carousel and get it themselves; hurling luggage at whoever claimed it. Brilliant. Despite my exhaustion I smiled and felt very glad to be back in India. I was particularly glad that we were picked up because it's only really beginning to sink in now that I'm actually here. India. WHAT?!!!??!!!! I can't quite believe it...my head was left in yesterday all morning and my brain is only beginning to catch up now.

We were taken to The Retreat which is a selection of houses in this haven from the city owned by the Sarabhi family. They're grand old school houses and we have the gardener, his wife and family here who look after us; cook if we want them to and do our washing. No heating or fancy/ nice bathrooms, dusty windows and bird poo everywhere. It's a beautiful house. The streets outside are heaving with people, rickshaws, cars, cows, camels and I even saw an elephant on the dual carriage-way underpass, but when you step inside the Retreat you enter a dirt path surrounded by green trees and bushes and lots and lots of peacocks. The noise of the street is left behind, replaced by the chorus of birds. It's so beautiful and I'm trying to take as many pictures as I can, but I only wish there was a way I coud capture the sounds. The smells. Like nothing else on earth. We went to the theatre after having a quick shower and saw the dancers who I mostly remember from the last time I was here. The stage is an open air theatre. The seats are huge concrete steps overflowing with ants. At the top of the seats, right at the back, you overlook the river. And a set of red silks hung at the back of the stage. SO EXCITING!!!! I can't wait to train with Papin (brilliant dancer) and Puja who I haven't met but she comes back on Friday and is apparently amazing at silks. When we arrived at the theatre Indira and I hadn't slept for more than 24 hours and at this point we were fading fast. We had a quick lunch, a masala dosa and some chai (YUM) and were told us about how much the project's developments have changed since the Director, Kim Bergsagl, has been here (December).

The main focus of the show will be the same: Amrita Devhi's story about her hugging the tree and saving the forest. But Kim doesn't want to portray India as completely traditional as she's been shocked on her arrival here of how much old trades are being lost as the young ones in the family aren't interested in passing it on. There's much more she wants to touch upon; traditions, western and Indian culture (comparing the harris tweed industry to looming here), the environment and other things which are very very loosely related to the original idea. I'm not sure how it's going to work so I guess we'll have to see what happens when we start on it tomorrow. There have also been other developments as well in terms of funding and planning. Mallika Sarabhi, who owns Darpana Dance Company, is going to co-produce the show so she will be handling the British Council side of things over here which takes a huge amount out of mums hands in a positive way I think. In exchange we are going to use two from her theatre company instead of 1 (so maybe in total there will be 2 aerialists). She's also interested in putting on the show at the Vikram Sarabhi Festival (a festival dedicated to her father, Mrinalini's husband - she is a very great and famous bharatnatyam dancer who everyone calles Amma which means mother and you bow and touch her feet when you see her). The festival is on in December which means if this goes ahead I'll be coming back to India in the beginning-middle of November!

This project could be kicking off in India then going to Manipulate Festival in Scotland before touring in 2013! Who knows?? I still haven't slept and it's a lot to think about.

It's quite different here and yet the same. The smell as soon as we stepped off the plane was India. The madness of the disorganised system was India. The traffic, the looks, the constant horn honking and wreckless driving was totally India. But, then there's much less hassle. The beggar kids who come up to your rickshaw as you sit in traffic and pinch your leg and hit you so you can't ignore them are almost gone. The shanty huts by the side of the river are gone. Where have these people gone to? I can't lie and say I miss this particular sort of hassle, but it's disconcerting when they make people disappear. It's a very western way of dealing with poverty...just because we can't see them anymore doesnt mean they're not there. And there's a lot more western clothing. I don't exactly blend in though...the bleached blond hair doesn't help.

After each rickshaw drive my heart is pounding. This place is beautiful in all of it's crumbling, bright colours, people staring, people waving, wearing amazing clothes and offering amazing food and drink.

When I was first here I was 10; my parents were making a television show with puppets, my brother and I went to school here surrounded by monkeys and it was a huge, amazing, very different place.

Then I was 18. I had just left school and was on my way to university. It was the start of a world ticket trip with my family again; taking a shadow puppet version of the Tempest from India to Japan. I was a teenager. There was now a cinema in town.

Now I'm 25. An adult. My mother is the director of Embrace so I've still not left the nest quite yet. But, this place is different, I'm different, and yet so much is so familiar.