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I sat in my hotel room painting a small sign that read "मुक्त चित्र", google-translate's rendition of "free portrait". The year prior in Korea, my free portraits were a tool to help engage with a new community. It had been awesome in Korea so I figured it might just do the trick here in Mumbai... but why was I scared?
I left the Milan International Hotel in the northern suburb of Santa Cruz, a name I would have expected for a neighborhood in California. I was open, ready for social interaction and a learning experience. I got roughly twenty meters from the hotel entrance before being called at by a group of kids playing badminton on what appeared to be a pile of dirt covered in garbage, with a few cows watching over as referees.
"No fear, no rules" I told myself as I walked over to the group. I sat down on a ledge beside their game and pulled out my new sign, a clip board and a few sticks of graphite. "You can draw my picture?!" an enthusiastic boy shouts to me. "Yes?!" I reply, taken aback by his cool and confident use of my native tongue. He grabs a stool and positions it in front of the ledge with a smile on his face and a few younger children hanging on his arms. I got to work sketching. The war chiefs, the older children, maybe eleven or twelve years old, pulled out their old Nokia phones and started playing American pop music and talking about musicians that my uneducated brain had little knowledge of.
The kids all spoke English, were full power and awesome to hang out with. Afterwards they gave me a tour of their small neighborhood, introducing me to their moms and their cows.
VICTORY! Free portraits prevail once more!
