And there’s a photo of me somewhere, with that famous ‘Hollywood Sign’ on the hillside, behind me. It is so far away that you need a microscope to see it in the background, but it’s off my checklist anyway, and that’s that
Illustration/Uday Mohite
Aha, so I’m in Los Angeles, for the first time. Pehle se hi, there is a heady buzz about it. I have a few work meetings, old friends with whom to catch up, and sights to see. I have been warned that LA is a very spread-out city, and a thoroughly useless city in that there is no decent public transport. It runs on an economy of private cars, which is appallingly decadent and environmentally suicidal. So, I know I will be spending the next few months’ earnings on Ubers everywhere. But beyond that, LA is, of course, the heart of the international film industry, with Haaalywood, the big studios, glamorous stars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, the Oscarwallahs), and much more that is exciting.
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An assortment of guardian angels drove me everywhere in Los Angeles, showing me their city—the very impressive Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the spectacular Getty Center (of art; with Richard Meier’s modernist architecture atop Santa Monica’s hills in California), the very fancy Bel Air Hotel (ultra luxe, apparently owned by the Sultan of Brunei, one of the richest men in the world); Venice Beach; the wonderful, sprawling Huntington Gardens; Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills and Brentwood, where Hollywood stars live or lived, including Joan Crawford, Steve McQueen and Marilyn Monroe.
The Walt Disney Concert Hall, with giant metal flat and curved plates flirting elegantly with each other, with the sun and shadows, designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, is so jaw-droppingly breathtaking, that I start to giggle and am on a giddy high. And there’s a photo of me somewhere, with that famous ‘Hollywood Sign’ on the hillside, behind me. It is so far away that you need a microscope to see it in the background, but it’s off my checklist anyway, and that’s that.
A friend I’m staying with—let’s call her SP—makes me a delicious, massive breakfast: freshly squeezed juice of sweet California oranges, with fleshy flakes. A fluffy omelette with eggs, mushrooms and onions, a side of stir-fried delicious dandelion leaves, and hatch cornbread with juicy corn bits that she had specially baked for me, with two strawberries alongside, all on a blue pottery plate. And ‘Pukka tea’ (with three kinds of ginger).
At Habitat Coffee, the charming “neighbourhood coffee house,” I ask the good looking Iman Arba, seated at the next outdoor table, for directions to my next meeting. His roots are Iranian—originally from Tehran, but his family is from Vancouver. He is eating a wildly healthy salady lunch with beets and greens, without taking off his cycling helmet. I think he said he works in augmented reality or somesuch, involving artificial intelligence, he’s trying to get some exercise in the lunch break: his smart cycle even has a contraption to hold a bottle of healthy Kombucha. I haven’t met enough Indian men who are good looking, intelligent, seriously healthy—and kind. Kidhar hai?!
Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist.
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com
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