Actor Patel is more than a person. More than an actor, really. He is an experience. He is the kind of guy to blast Hindi music at seven in the morning, break out in dance and song for no apparent reason and incessantly take pictures of nothing at all. I tried to video him to give all my readers a taste of what he is like, but he froze because he was speaking to a camera and not to his audience, which is really anybody and everybody who is surrounding him.

Actor Patel (who really calls himself Actor Patel — we call him “Actor” for short) played a character in the movie I was shooting in India. He was not staying at Vijay Vilas, the lovely beach resort where most of the actors were, and was instead was sucking it up as a shabby joint. At dinner the second night Actor told me how he has not been sleeping well. Beore I could stop myself an offer to take up a bunk in Grant’s, a fellow actor’s, room, flew out of my mouth. Grant almost threw a fork in my direction. That night Grant, the poor guy, was only able to get to sleep with the help of an Ambien, a blasting IPod and a pillow over his head. That was after Actor Patel made him partake in a photo shoot that included a lap top as a prop.

The next morning the cast discovered something very important about Actor: you can tell him to shut up. At breakfast he started going on a ramble that was half Gujrati, part Hindi and somewhat English (note: people who speak all of these languages fluently find him hard to follow because most of it is muttered) and Zenobia, who played his boss in the movie (character traits sometime follow you off screen) turned to him and said “Chotu [his name in the movie], be quiet!” And, miraculously he did. That was because he has a heart of gold and about the size of a football field. You can poke fun of him and he doesn’t mind — a long as he knows that you are his friend.


This is not to say that at our discovery that he is a sweet guy Actor stopped being irritating. The offers for life insurance (he sells it as a side gig — a dollar a day if you are under thirty!), puns that make no sense and a constant plee for attention all grated on our nerves. But, because he is a good person he was able to, as Grant put it, “worm his way into our hearts and infest our brains”. When filming was over Actor had to visit family somewhere else in Gujarat (however, Actor currently resides in New Jersey and is available for performance bookings all over the tri-state area which you can read about on his Facebook page) so was the first to leave. The remaining cast and crew spent a day at Vijay Vilas resort without him and the experience was not quite the same (although more peaceful). Actor told me before he left: “I am like a perfume — sometimes too strong, but when it fades out you miss it.” Yeah, we missed him.

About a month ago I received a phone call from a nice journalist with a beautiful deep voice named Sam Roberts. You lost your NY accent, so what’s deal? My voice teacher Lynn Singer had referred him to me. He wanted to know more about my journey from “wuawta” to “water”.

Later that day a video journalist named Erik Olsen called me from the Times office. A video complement to the story was what he was after. Two days later we met for two hours, I said a few words and I left hoping that at least if they have some video footage they won’t cut me out of the article.

Then the Times staff photographer called to get a photo. The entire ordeal took ten minutes. We met on a street corner and a few snaps later he walked off satisfied. Um, or maybe I exasperated him and he was hiding it?

We waited and waited and waited. Maybe the story got dropped? Two long weeks later the story hit the web edition and that Sunday made it to the front page of the Metropolitan section.

The response was massive. What struck me was how many people had very personal reactions to the concept of loosing ones accent. Some called is classism, others necessary. Over six hundred people commented on the Times website and tons of blogs covered the story. Even French publication put the concept up for debate. And after we renamed their delicacy a Freedom Fry, that is saying something.

I’ve got a lot to say in response. I’ve been burning to write some thangs on the web, but I was invited to speak about them in person. On December 14th you can join me live at Chelsea Studios for a panel discussion — Accents: Identity or Roadblock? Join Lynn Singer, Kevin Urban and a host of other special guests from various fields. They will be filming it for out-of-town folks, so watch out for YouTube action!

151 West 26th Street, 5th floor, 7pm

The article and video: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/nyregion/21accent.html?pagewanted=all

Living in India was the first time that I had no one around telling me what to do/who to be. After college I rebelled from a conservative Republican family by moving to San Francisco. The problem with the Bay Area is that everyone agrees with each other, so there is a lack of critical thinking and serious passion. I went to India and learned something that the liberal mafia nor Howard Beach Italians would never let me admit: it is OK to manipulate the system to get what you want. Here is an old blog post from that time when I was finally was able to put on a corset and get out on the runway. Posted in post-fashion week enthusiasm.

“A friend-of-a-friend in Calcutta is a designer who got into Indian fashion week for the 1st time. Friends of theirs were going there to help out so I tagged along. I was essentially an errand boy for them and did stuff like hang up clothes and get people breakfast, but in exchange got to wear designer clothes all week, see tons of runway shows that most people just watch on F-TV(India’s 24 hour fashion network that shows mostly runway shows) and go to lots of parties with the “beautiful people” of Bombay. You’d think that I would be disgusted by the whole ensemble of starved models, sleazy agents, uptight designers and pathetic flunkeys, but by the end of my 1st runway show I was sold on the Bombay fashion industry. 1) Bombay is by far the best city in India 2) runway shows are a performance of sorts. Like drag people are performing gender. and 3) the schmoozing is so ridiculous that you cant help but see it too as a performance. Everyone is running around kissing each other’s ass and trying to move up the ladder, and you need good acting skills to pull it off. Its all just pretend for business purposes and the best actor wins!”