There is this famous opera singer and actress, Elke Maravillah of Brazil. A six feet two inches tall lady, with pure white hair (not that old though), and with a loud Usha Uthup type voice.
She is a great supporter of people discriminated against due to diseases, like leprosy, HIV positive, Downs Syndrome, etc.
I was walking towards the Brazilian Health Minister to take his interview for our film, when someone tells this woman standing nearby that I am from India, and this huge lady comes straight, hugs and gives two loud and strong kisses on my cheeks. I am just flabbergasted, embarrassed and in a catch 22 situation: to laugh or not to laugh, that’s the question. I gave a sheepish smile.
She says that her sixth husband is an Indian. I did not ask whether he is still around as her husband. She also informs that her second husband, an Argentinian, criticized her for going to leprosy colonies and hugging people and kissing them. And, after the fourth time he bitterly criticized her, she threw him out of her life and home, and used the security guards to do the needful!! What a woman!!
She says she had come to India once and loved the bhelpuris and Tazmahal and walking down the streets in CP in Delhi with people amazed at her.
And, now she wants to come again after meeting me! God bless my poor soul!!
Dipankar, my cameraman colleague, said that after we finished taking her byte on the camera, she just walked to him, gave a huge (and tight?) hug and showered five kisses, demanding that he does the same back to her! Dipankar says (ask him if he is telling the truth) that he just created the five loud sounds with his lips brushing against her cheeks lightly with the fear that whether he is lip-stuck by the huge amount of make-up she was wearing.
Later, at the dinner, when she joined us again, and I was forced by my hosts to sit next to her as a funny punishment for coming to the dinner late by ten minutes. She talked about her parentage: father Brazilian, mother Mongoloid, one grand-father Russian and one grand-mother from Azerbaizan!!
She then talks at length, over fine Chilean wine, about the diversities of Latin culture and theatre, the themes of her plays and dance-dramas, and about love and passion in work and life to flow from the heart and not the head!!
I reveal by the time the dinner has ended that this woman has a great zest for life, is a highly cultured person, is extremely popular among Brazilians (ask the waiters in the hotel where we were having the dinner), and has great love for the people who are disadvantaged in life!
She is running 61 years of age now.
BrasiliaJune 13, 2006
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