A Spoonful of Ghee

In line with my enjoyment of livin’ la vida et cetera, I have recently scored a volunteer post as a Production Assistant for an independent South Asian-focused film being shot in the Bay Area. “Production Assistant” is basically a euphemism for Director’s Bitch. There are about six of us, and we fill in for any number of tasks that may be required: cleaning up the set, moving furniture around, procuring wardrobe changes, running out to get food, etc. Being the token brown female in the group, I have been generally profiled into suitable menial tasks such as ironing saris and helping the cook. I happily comply, figuring that no experience is a wasted experience, especially if it provides an opportunity for a good story.

“The cook” is also a volunteer — an extremely kind, if somewhat frazzled woman in her 50’s with a New York accent and a rather pronounced propensity for clumsiness. For the past several days, when not cooking, she had been running around the set looking quite jittery and muttering to herself about how unhappy she was about the budget constraints for the food, and the wastefulness and ingratitude of crew members. Yesterday, I was asked to help her prepare some pasta for our group of about 20.

She asked me to throw the pasta in the pot while she scurried around serving tea and making preparations for the pasta sauce. I threw the four large bags of pasta into the pot, and it came to a decent boil about 10-12 minutes later. Meanwhile, we chatted about what had brought us to that set. She mentioned that she had experimented with different careers, traveled, met lots of people, but was essentially still broke, unsettled, and searching for the right path, and I welcomed her to the club. But, I pointed out, we were both still approaching life with openness and willing to dabble in new things and encounter new people, and that had to count for something.

For whatever reason, the family in whose home we were shooting didn’t seem to have any appropriately sized strainer, so the cook pondered an alternative method to drain the pasta: she would lift up the pot, and I would slide a plate over it to filter out the water into the sink. That seemed straightforward enough, so I lifted up the plate in preparation for the filtration.

The next thing I knew, the boiling water had scalded my thighs, and the pasta was all over the crusty kitchen floor, and the cook was alternating gaping at both, with her arms still outstretched in flummoxed petrification.

My first instinct is always to laugh, even if my thighs are burning. However, the genuine anguish on the face of this poor woman kept my instinct in check, and I focused my effort on calming her down. “It’s OK,” I reassured her, “Let’s just pick all of this up, and then we can talk to the director about what to do. Maybe we can just order some pizza.” “Do you think we can just reboil it?” she asked anxiously. “No,” I replied, horrified, observing all the dirt, grime, hair, and bugs on the carpeted kitchen floor, “Let’s just talk to the director.”

We picked up some pasta together and began flinging it back into the pot, and then the cook went to grab the director. The director, a flamboyant, gay Pakistani man in his late 30s, took a look at the scene, waved his arms, and said, “Just triple-wash it.”

I stared at him for a moment. Then I offered, “You don’t think we should just order pizza?” “Pizza for so many people will be at least $100.” “Well… I wouldn’t eat this.” “We’ll make something else for you. You can have a turkey sandwich. I’ll eat this. Fruits and vegetables anyway come from all the mud stuff, and they just triple-wash it, and we eat that all the time. It’s fine.” He then turned around and flapped his way back up the stairs.

The cook and I look at each other aghast and continued scraping the pasta off the floor, then proceeded to wash the pasta, practically piece-by-piece in order to excise all the filth associated with it. The poor cook again started in on how she had no idea what she was doing with her life or why she was in this position.

“Well,” I stated seriously, “Maybe we’ve found our niche in scraping shit off the floor and taking hair out of pasta.”

The next thing I knew, the cook was on the floor, wheezing. “Shit,” I thought, “Is she having a breakdown?” But it was in fact a happy laugh attack. My statement apparently injected just the levity she needed to turn her perspective on the situation. She was in a great mood for the rest of the day, wheezing every few minutes about something or other, and making observations about various anecdotes from over the past several days. As I was leaving, the cook could not stop thanking me for being there with her and remaining calm and light-hearted in the face of crisis. She got my phone number, saying she wanted to take me out for dinner, and referred to me as her angel and Godsend, assuring me she would keep me in her prayers.

Sometimes as a social observer and a wry commentator who is quite giving and accommodating by nature, yet thoroughly amused by new-age fluffiness, I forget what a warm feeling it is to be appreciated so genuinely and expressively.  The knowledge of touching the heart of another human being by far trumps any conventional wisdom of “success.” I am grateful that my stint as a Production Assistant has not only allowed me to add pasta-cleaning as an item on my resume, but has reminded me that in addition to being completely bad-ass, I am also completely human, with all the concomitant needs for connection and validation.