Apnu Hollywood

By editor on Sunday, 24 February , 2008 - 12:30 am

Ahmedabad Mirror article by Pascal Chazot:
One of the most distinctive features of Ahmedabad is the place called Hollywood near Ambavadi. Years ago when I arrived in this city, I was baffled when people casually referred to this ‘Hollywood’. Whatever I might have been expecting, nothing prepared me for what I saw. Why is the place called Hollywood? I think it was Ashish Lakhia who once told me that it was while a firang couple was being taken around the city, they were fascinated by this place where everything happened in the open. According to legend, they said that so many incredible things can only happen in Hollywood. Since then, the place was christened thus.
I pass by Hollywood everyday and somehow, this place puts everything into perspective. Sprawled along the length of the road, outside their fragile huts, there are men, women, children, goats, camels, cycles, laaris, charpais. The women bustle around in traditional skirts and nose rings distinctive to their community. Children run around in the dust excitedly playing with their tyre tubes. Groups of people cluster around talking, some lie on their charpais watching the world go by. There are small groups of women who are seen gossiping, some going about their errands buying in the tiny shops nearby, some sprucing themselves up combing their hair, occasionally a crowd gathers when a brawl takes place. There are temples within where lamps are lit, the ringing bells demonstrating how spirituality occupies an important place. Each scene is a frame of reference.
The most surreal sight is during the Ganesh chaturti, when the white plaster of Paris statues spring up magically and sit majestically on the street jostling for space waiting patiently to be carted across the country. The statues are a silent testimony not only of their creative skills but also of the manner in which the entire community works as one.
So why is Hollywood such a lesson? It’s a lesson for parents who shower their children with plastic toys, overburdening them with tuitions and classes forget the pleasures of inventive playing, open spaces and free time. It’s a lesson for professionals to see this community build larger than life Ganesha statues which they protect from the rain with strips of plastic while they work, live and sleep in the rain themselves. It’s a lesson for women to see open brawls take place between men and women and the women fight right back. There are marriages and deaths in the same street. Whatever the season, whatever the festival, whatever the time of day, this place has a joie de vivre, an energy that effuses through. They appear to be absorbed into the moment and live it to the fullest.

My Parisian friend walks through Hollywood often and has made many friends. They salute him in Gujarati while he replies in French. They ask him the time or about his country, his life. They communicate effortlessly. It is a delicious coincidence, that my friend is an Executive producer in the French Cinema and knows the real Hollywood guys. Well, that’s as close as it gets!

Category: Blog

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