‘Tis the Season of Garba/Raas.
If you’re Indian or have friends who are, you may be headed to a large Indian/Hindu community dance event called Garba. Instead of writing out an explanation, hop over to youtube to watch short documentary by clicking below. Back in the day when I was an assistant to a film producer in Hollywood, I was getting a bit frustrated that I didn’t have a creative outlet, especially in the documentary field. It had been a focus of mine in college, and now I felt like I was ignoring that side of myself. So my best friend (Indian American with family from Gujarat), another friend willing to hold a camera, and I set off to make a $0 budget documentary with the UCLA competitive Garba/Raas team back in 2009 (?). I met some incredible people and had a great time. Of course, I would change a million things now if I still had the raw footage. The graphics make me cringe a bit, and I still beat myself up over the interview with Kaiwan – the footage from the A cam was corrupted somehow, so all we have is B cam footage with him completely off the mark. But I try to remind myself how young I was and that the fact that we completed it was a miracle in itself. So take a look if you’re interested 🙂
RAAS REVOlUTION
A short documentary following the Bataaka Nu Shak, the UCLA Garba/Raas team.
Samosas & Sunshine 