Archives for posts with tag: Mexico

LA PLAYMATE MEXICANA

February 5, 2015 //
1

The Reverse Migration To El Sur

Haresh Shah
fiercelatina

Had she submitted today, a polaroid wearing only a tan and mascara, just to see if I could make the cut, she certainly would have been considered seriously and most probably made it as Playmate of the Month in the U.S. Playboy. In the year 2015, with the dramatically altered demographics and with the both political parties wooing the ever growing Latino population, what could be better than to have a born in Glendale, California of Mexican parents, a natural beauty, raven haired, five feet tall with voluptuous hourglass figure, the dark brown eyes, seductively and invitingly looking back at you? At 24, she is in her prime and has already been a part of a study program at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and has earned her B.A. in Theatre Arts from Whittier College. A perfect fusion of beauty and the brain – an ideal girl next door.

But thirty five years ago her chances of being approved were slim to none. Even to the casual observer it would be obvious that the basic attributes of the majority of the published Playmates up until then could be summed up with Blonde, Blue Eyes, Big Boobs. Not that there were no exceptions. Once in a while an ethnic Playmate would sneak in, by and large, Playboy’s Eliza Doolittles shared the above three attributes. The girl next door, turned into My Fair Lady in the image of Henry Higgins of Playboy empire’s Hugh M. Hefner himself. And yet, when an exotic beauty showed up at one of the magazine’s studios, the photo editors couldn’t resist the urge to try her – just in case. She could turn out to be the one of those few and far in-between. Often times, after the initial internal voting, she wouldn’t even be presented to the MAN! Most of them would end up in their slush files, never to be looked at again.

Editors felt not so good about having to reject someone outright – someone who could have been a promising candidate. By then they would have also known the girl and may even have liked her at personal level. But not much they could do. There were other limitations: a sign tacked on the cork wall of Chicago based Playmate editor Janice Moses said: BUT WE ONLY NEED TWELVE A YEAR! Alluding to the fact that hundreds of girls presented themselves at Playboy’s door steps in hopes of maybe, just maybe being picked to become the next month’s Playmate. Perhaps even Playmate of the Year. But now with the Foreign Editions having firmly established themselves, they had an option for such an exotic beauty, especially the  ones with foreign ethnic backgrounds.

One of the first such candidates to land on my desktop was a pile of 35 mm slides of Elda Mareea Lopez, sent to me from our Los Angeles studio chief, Marilyn Grabowski. The brief hand written  note on the inter-office pink memo paper said: perhaps you can use her. I think she is gorgeous and is absolutely delightful in person. Judging from those hundred or so frames, she certainly is gorgeous. And when I first meet her, she is beyond being delightful. She is down home muy simpatica!

What strikes me oddly intriguing about her even before I put the Lupe to her slides is the way she has spelt her middle name in the Playmate Data Sheet. She has spelt it Mareea instead of usual Maria. I guess, she is looking for her very own identity, distinguishing herself from practically every female of the Latin origin with virgin Mary squeezed in somewhere in to their names.

To Marilyn’s perhaps you can use her, I immediately think, she could be our first Mexican Playmate! Now they won’t have any excuse not to have one. It’s been almost three years that we have been on the tails of our Mexican publishers about the need for us to have some authentic Mexican Playmates, which would allow us to promote the edition in a way we couldn’t by inviting American Playmates to the south of the border. Finally we are able to convince Ricardo Ampudia, how important it is to have a local girl next door Playmate to grace the pages of our Mexican edition.

Over a weekend while both Al Debat – our Chicago based departmental manager and also a professional photographer and I were in Mexico City, Ricardo tells us that he has just the right  Playmate candidate. Al and I agree to a quick test shoot and take it from there. Ricardo invites us to his house for breakfast on a Saturday morning and we are to do the shoot in his garden. Al and I together shoot eight rolls of films.

Ricardo’s backyard is fairly private with tall and dense bushes. It is a well tended garden with gleaming tropical plants and colorful flowers. The grass is lush and well manicured. The sun is shining bright and it’s warm, but being February not too warm to be hot and humid. The name of the girl he introduces us is Blanca. She is probably in her early twenties with the body that’s fresh and well proportioned and vibrant. She is pretty and she is naturally blonde of the original Spanish stock. And she is far from being shy. Especially considering that she is surrounded by not just the two of us – as it usually would be, but by several people milling around.

The whole tabloid looks like a scene set for a comedy waiting for the curtain to rise. There are two maids constantly walking in and out crossing the grounds, bringing us fresh juices and refreshments. There is the gardener pretending to tend and trim the floras. His teenage son is trying his best not to look at the naked Blanca prancing around, and yet he can’t help but steal a glance whenever he thinks nobody is watching. Fortunately, Blanca seems comfortable in her bare skin. As adorable and beautiful as she is as a young girl, both Al and I think she would one day turn into drop dead gorgeous. She is natural, almost animal like in the way she moves so unconsciously and happily humming to herself. Her smiles are contagious and seductive. She is more like a cuddly pet who you want to hold close and hug. And she is game for anything you ask her to do and pose so naturally without any inhibitions. She is the kind who would do anything to please you and be pleased by it herself. Neither Al nor I spoke any Spanish at the time, so we couldn’t communicate one on one – but we do. Our non-verbal or interpreted communication works just fine. At some point, you can’t help but feel parental and protective of her. That night I write in my journal: Wish you always could stay as happy. Keep singing and smiling.

As unprofessional and as unplanned as the shooting, it is fun. We spend a very pleasant weekend day. Now I am trying to think whatever happened to that shoot and Blanca? I am just  imagining. She probably changed her mind. Or ran into the trouble with her parents. Or Ricardo decided against it. But most likely because not too long after, the magazine changed hands. She just got lost in the shuffle. With the new publishers, I would start all over again, pushing for local Playmates. They would always agree with me, but give me the same excuse: but we can’t find anyone qualified enough willing to pose in the nude, you know how conservative our society is?. By then I knew Mexico well and also spoke Spanish, and knew better how it would be easier to take to bed one of the society girls, but almost impossible to convince them to pose in the nude.

But now we had an option in Elda. Not that she didn’t have any family concerns. But as she herself tells it: I had already been very independent. My mother I’m sure was surprised and being a good Catholic woman had her doubts, and was perhaps privately fervently saying prayers for my soul, yet she accepted it without protest. My father at one point said, “Mija, it’s not a bad magazine”. He seemed calm about it, but again, privately not so sure. 

Excited, I pick up the phone and call Eduardo Gongorra – our new publisher in Mexico City.

‘I’ve found ourselves a Mexican Playmate!’

And other than the obvious, I go on to tell him how I envision it happening. We can build a story around her Mexican heritage and have her reverse migrate through her photos and the presence in flesh and blood in Mexico. We could stage a promotional event for the invited VIPs and the media. Present her as our first Mexican Playmate. That Playboy’s  test shoot was good enough for us to use and would cost us nothing. All we needed was to shoot the cover and the centerfold, which I could produce in Chicago, have her photographed by our star photographer Pompeo Posar.

Soon as I hang up, I call Los Angeles. I introduce myself and tell Elda what I was thinking. She sounds so sweet and absolutely delighted. During the conversation, I find out that she doesn’t speak much Spanish. That creates bit of a problem. But I am too far gone with the idea and in the meanwhile, so is Eduardo. We agree, we would build her story around her being the USA born full blooded Mexican. After several phone calls between Mexico City and Los Angeles, I invite her to Chicago, and schedule the cover and the centerfold shoots.

Everything goes according to the plan. With big fanfare the first Mexican Playmate travels from Los Angeles to Mexico City. She is received warmly and enthusiastically. She is presented to the invited guests at Hotel Camino Real, standing in the front of the bigger than life size image of her in the backdrop is the April 1981 cover of CABALLERO con lo mejor de Playboy – as the magazine was then called. As it turns out, our fears were unfounded. If not fluent, Elda did have some command of the language – that mixed with English, she does just fine.

She feels pampered and loved in the Mother Land. They host a dinner  in her honor, it was a good feeling. And Elda joins the ranks of a very few Playmates, she gets to write her own text to accompany her layout. Even though she didn’t make it in to the pages of the mother edition in el Norte, she got a real taste of the world of Playboy. Thanks to her appearance in the Mexican edition: I met Hef, silk pajamas and all. He was gracious, kind and hospitable. The home and grounds were lovely. I had many a fun time at the mansion! Happy ending!

But this is a Mexican story, so it doesn’t end there. Soon, perhaps also because of all the press coverage generated brouhaha, the authorities decree that name of a magazine cannot be a  common noun. Never mind that Caballero has been around and officially registered for a dozen some years even before joining forces with Playboy – the name long been officially banned in the country.

Panicked, Eduardo calls. But in a country like Mexico, you don’t just walk away from the table just because the rules of the game have arbitrarily changed mid stream by the powers that be. You try to beat them at their own game. Eduardo needs an immediate approval from Chicago to change the name of the magazine from Caballero to Signore, which also means gentleman, but in Italian – not to confuse with Spanish Señor. So Signore it becomes overnight and so it remains up until June 1984, when the authorities finally relent and allow the magazine to be called Playboy.  We re-re-launch, this time with the Mexican born and grown starlet/singer Elizabeth Aguilar as the Playmate.

In the meanwhile, to lend the magazine authentic continuity, Elda makes an encore appearance in May 1982 on the cover of Signore. Now at 58, she looks stunning as ever, not a girl any more but a very attractive grown woman. Over a telephone conversation, I compliment her on her well preserved looks: you still could drive some honest man to cheat on his wife. To which, I got a chuckle out of her with funny! Because it’s the subject very close to her heart in that she has written an entire book titled The (In) Fidelity Factor – Points to Ponder Before You Cheat. But like the good old German saying goes, spass muss sein – fun must  exist. The most important is: We have remained close friends over the decades and have become shoulders for each other to cry on.

© Haresh Shah 2015

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

Related Stories

THE GIRL NEXT DOOR 

HUNTING FOR THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

MY SWEET LORD

THE TALES OF TWO PLAYMATES

BEAUTY AND THE BREASTS

Next Friday, February 13, 2015

FRIENDLY SKIES NO MORE

Not only because what I did for a living required extensive amount of flying around the world, but even otherwise I love to fly. The excitement and the adventure of it, the feeling of being totally disconnected from the world, being able to kick back and relax. And being pampered – not only in the First and the Business Classes, but all across the cabins. And airports were the civilized places from where to leave and arrive at. Sadly, no more. And I can’t help but feel soooo nostalgic about those truly good old days!

Tags , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Friendship, Memoire, Mexico, Playboy, Playmates, Profile

THE EARTHY AZTEC BEAUTY

February 20, 2014 //
0

The Domestic Arrangements South Of The Border

Haresh Shah

aztecqueen

I met Pepe Morales during a Playmate promotional jaunt in Acapulco. Our publishers have hired Pepe to cover the event – a young Mexican photographer and socialite of some renown . He seems to know everyone we run into and is greeted with the warmest abrazoz and pats on the back, while he bumbles around following the Playmates and documenting the weekend, with me taking additional photos whenever I am able to sneak some shots without neglecting my duties that of the Playboy executive on site.

Pepe and I hit it off right away. When back in Mexico City, we meet one evening for dinner. We have fat juicy steak dinners at Barbas Negras during which we drown three bottles of Los Reyes. Feeling absolutely no pain, Pepe asks:

‘What would you like to do now?’

‘I don’t know. This is your town. Maybe go cunt chasing?’

‘Why not? Let’s just get out of here and together we’ll paint the town red,’ he proclaims.

So we get into his fire red Mach 1 and end up at the cozy Las Nueves. Unfortunately for us, since Pepe’s last visit there, it has now turned into a trendy gay hangout. We have a drink or two there and then make our exit.

‘I know where we can go. To your casa amarilla.’ So we end up at the lobby bar of Camino Real. This gives us time to simmer. As in Acapulco, Pepe seems to know everyone and everyone seems to know him. People would stop by, couples, men, women – especially women and they go through their Mexican tango of hugging, patting the back and then parting with promises to meet up soon again. At the end of which, two of his female acquaintances walk up with exuberant Hola Pepito. He invites them to join us. Introduces me and builds me up as el hombre de Playboy. Curiously, it’s a pair of a blonde and a brunette. Both good looking. Gives me a feeling of being society girls about town. Quite friendly. But they speak only perfunctory English. We have a couple of drinks with them and then Pepe proposes.

‘How if we go to my place and party?’

The girls try a bit hard to get, but then after some prodding from Pepe, seconded by me, we all pile into his compact sports car, somehow managing to squeeze ourselves in. Pepe and Lucia in the front and me and Tere  in the back.

●●●

On that Saturday, Pepe has invited me to his place for breakfast. He feels it’s unpardonable that as long as I have been coming to Mexico, nobody has yet gotten around to take me to the Pyramids. Why don’t you come over to my place on Saturday, we’ll have a nice breakfast and then drive out to the Pyramids?

Pepe’s is a spacious penthouse apartment near the Chapultepec Park in the center of Mexico City. Cascades of light pours in through the skylights illuminating dozens of artworks and the blown up photographs that adore the walls. Some of the photographs with blurred images of the billowing skirts of the folk dancers remind me of Holi festival in India. He’s not only a photographer but also a serious artist and all that hangs on the walls is his own work. The place looks larger than I remember it from a couple of nights ago. I think it contains three, if not four bedrooms. Large kitchen and the dining room. Even though some of the furnishings has that colorful feeling of Mexico, most of it is the modern functional. It feels warm and comfortable.

When I arrive, I am greeted by a tall, angular faced, as if lifted from a cubist art, long necked and sharp penetrating dark eyed woman standing on the other side of the threshold. She doesn’t say anything, but silently welcomes me with a toss of her head. Her long and curly hair following the motion of her neck.

‘Hola Haresh. Bien venido mi amigo a tu casa en Mexico.’  Pepe rushes towards me, suddenly throwing the woman in the background with a fuerte abrazo, and the pat on the back he takes me by the arm and leads me to the table. Such exuberance! But this is Mexico and I am getting used to it.

The table is laid out just so. The plates glowing with vibrant colors are nestled into the larger shiny copper plates that serve as placemats. The clothes napkins are bright burgundy. A jar sweating of freshly squeezed orange juice awaits. The pungent aroma of strong Mexican coffee permeates the air. Engulfed in Pepe’s exuberance and displayed hospitality, for a moment I even forget about the pretty young woman.

I am treated to a sumptuous Mexican breakfast consisting of fresh papayas and mangoes, huevos rancheros with home made red and green salsas, frijoles, chorizzo, piping hot tortillas and even chiles toreados – the pan fried hot jalapeño peppers with fresh scallions. The relish my Latin Valentine Patricia had introduced me to and Pepe remembered me telling him how very much I loved it. And of course the strong café Mexicano served so attentively and gracefully by his maid Clarissa. For every gracias I utter, she rewards me with de nada and with the sweetest little smile and a sparkle in her eyes. At every compliment, I feel that extra hump in her short walk between the kitchen and the dining room as I watch her long curly hair tossing up above small of her back and caressing her shoulders. She looks very young, like in her late teens the most. But even in her innocence, I sense a certain worldliness on her face and in her eyes. Would certainly qualify to be a Playmate. Even in her homely dress covered with an overall, her figure and her beauty excel.

Seeing that I am eying her, should we take her along? Asks Pepe.

‘Sure. Why not?’

‘Let’s do it. It would do her good to get out of the house. Why don’t you ask her?’

‘Me?’

“Si. Then she wouldn’t feel pressured!’

‘No quires ir con nosotros?’ I ask

‘A donde?’        

‘A los Pirámides.’

‘Puess…,’ she says and then hesitates a bit and turns her face to Pepe.

‘Puedes, si quires, Venn!’ She turns around to face me.

‘Entonces si. Me gustaria mucho. Gracias.’

When we’re done and she has cleared the table, Pepe tells her to leave the dishes alone and go and change.

Transformed, a gorgeous young woman emerges from the back room. She is dressed in a simple long white cotton dress. It’s trimmed with wide bands of light grey lace around the neck and the waist and the hem, practically touching the floor, a wide white sash tied in a bow at her back billowing in the air. A simple silver hoop choker with a dangling little ball adores her neck. Her sculpted face with high cheek bones and the shoulders pointed proudly upwards, she stands tall on her plain white platform shoes. Her slightly slanted eyes enhanced with the kohl outline, she wears only a light touch of red lipstick on her pert lips quivering under her dainty little nose.

It seems Pepe too is in awe of her sudden transformation from a simple maid serving us humbly a while ago into a femme fatal. Something he probably haven’t yet had a chance to see. And when placed in front of the Pyramids, neither Pepe, nor I could ignore her. Between us two, we turn Clarissa into the most sought after photo model. She doesn’t say much, except swirl and move as we request, flash shy smiles as if to herself and in her face I see her savoring what must have been a unique moment of her young life. To be appreciated for her own natural beauty and in an environment which undoubtedly is hers. She doesn’t look Spanish and or Indian or a mulatta, the mixture of the two. Her face wears the looks and the pride of an Aztec Princess reincarnate, standing comfortably in front of the Pyramids and the ruins of the ancient Aztec built city of Tenochtitlan, as if she owns them.

●●●

On our way back, Pepe drops off Clarissa before taking me back to my hotel. We are in contemplative mood. We avoid the bustles of the lobby bar and settle ourselves over beers in their by now subdued cantina.

‘She is pretty!’ I say reflexively.

‘Who, Clarissa?’

‘Who else?’

‘You’re right. She is prettier than I ever thought she was.’ And then we are quiet. I see a certain smile cross his face, as if trying to contain a private joke.

‘What?’

‘I guess, I picked her right.’

‘Did you interview many of them?’

‘No, that’s not how we do things around here in Mexico. One weekend, I just drove out to the country bazar, she was standing there up above on cliff under the tree with others, and I picked her.’

‘You mean like from a line up?’

‘Not exactly. But sort of. They are offered for the domestic work, mostly by their parents.’

‘You mean like slaves?’

‘Noooooo mi amigo. Just that they are poor in the backlands and one way for them to make some money is to work in the city. You negotiate with their parents and agree upon the monthly salary and other conditions. But she is free to leave whenever she wants to.’

Having grown up in India in a relatively affluent family, domestic help is not that unusual to me. But all our servants came from little villages to Bombay on their own, looking for jobs. They may have known someone else from their village in the city and then its just a word of mouth. What Pepe tells me is a bit different. Seeing me lost in my unspoken thoughts, he continues.

‘I pay all her expenses. She has every Sunday off and has her own living quarters in the back of my apartment.’

‘How does that work? A young pretty woman living under the same roof?’

‘You’re right. There is always that possibility. And the temptation. As you see, she is very pretty, you know?’ I give him a sideway look.

‘Okay. I could take advantage of her if I wanted to, and get away with it without even risking losing her. But your friend here is a romantic type. I had to pursue her, and pursue her long.’

I don’t interrupt.

‘She always resisted my advances. And I respected her for that. And then one evening, without any warning, she just opened up to me, like a flower. Like an orchid!!’ I can see on Pepe’s face what he must be seeing, something I could just imagine.

‘Doesn’t that put a damper on your social life with other women?’

‘Not at all. At the end of the day, she realizes, and I make sure she knows that the first and the foremost she is my maid.’

‘Yes, but we’re now talking matters of the heart. How does she feel about when we showed up in the middle of the night with the two women a couple of days go? Or was she off that night?’

‘No she was very much there, and she didn’t like it. In fact she is quite crossed with me. Thanks for being so kind to her and making her feel special. I think she is now softened a bit and I’m sure we’ll make up.’

Just a few hours drive from Santa Barbara and you’re in Mexico. What a different world? I think.

© Haresh Shah 2014

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

You May Also Like

MY LATIN VALENTINE

STRANGERS ON THE PLANE

THE BEST MAN AND THE BRIDE

LOVE, LIES AND THE LATIN LOVERS

The Site

ABOUT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Next Friday, February 28, 2014

UNDETERMINED

Both you and I will have to wait and see which entry in works makes its way up to the top. Whichever it turns out to be, promises to be good. Stay tuned.

 

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories Artist, Culture, Friendship, Mexico, Profile

LOVE, LIES AND THE LATIN LOVERS

January 30, 2014 //
1

Haresh Shah 

How Can You Not Fall In Love With Them?

parachute

‘And now ladies and gentlemen, we are approaching the home of one of the most colorful characters of our country: Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, the adventurer and the author of the Republic of Venice and the autobiography, Histoire de ma vie (Story of  My Life), which is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century. But as many of you certainly know, he is mostly known as the great lover of women. Yes, the great lover and the great liar.’ We are on a gondola site seeing tour navigating through the narrow canals of Venice. On our right is a long curving three story flaming rust colored brick building with elaborate balconies protruding out of the walls and huge windows overlooking the the canals down below.

I am crisscrossing Europe with my friend Ranjan from Bombay, and of the cities in Europe we have seen so far, Venice certainly takes us to a dreamland like no other. I notice a self-congratulating chuckle on the face of the gondolier for having said something so clever as to pair the great lovers with the great liars. Perhaps more true of the Latin lovers than the others. The reputation they must have earned from the speed with which they move forward, totally infatuated in pursuit of the objects of their desire.

My friend Irene in Chicago is head over heels in love with Bruno – a  handsome singer guitarist playing at a Lincoln Park venue around the corner from her apartment.  He is good looking for sure, soft spoken, charming and a smooth operator. Irene believes in whatever lies he tells and the promises he makes. And before any of us realizes, Bruno has moved in with her. We actually like Bruno and are even charmed by him. But we are protective of Irene. She is particularly vulnerable and we don’t want her once again to be hurt. We suspect all along and tell Irene that he is probably happily married with kids back in Mexico. But something as trivial as that never stopped Irene from her amorous escapades. And then he is gone. As we had suspected, before departing, Bruno confesses to Irene that he indeed has a family in Mexico and is in Chicago to  make a few fast bucks. Whether Irene expected him to leave his family and stay with her, I don’t know. But she is devastated nevertheless. Like others before Bruno, Irene manages to move on with time. Though I know, he was for her more than just a fling.

Fortunately, in most cases, it’s just that. A fling. Short and sweet. Just like one of the two American Playmates I had invited to come to Mexico some years earlier to help us promote the local edition. We are in Acapulco and have an afternoon off.  We linger at the beach front bar restaurant long after lunch. While one of them decides to waddle through the sand with a juicy paperback in her hands and stretches out on her stomach, baking under the sun, the other decides to be adventurous and signs up for parachute jumping. So off she goes with an instructor. Young, svelte, gleaming bronze tan and of the body toned like an iron statue – Roberto is certainly handsome. He speaks reasonably good English and is probably tickle pinked that he gets to help this American beauty – a Playmate, no less. He is vivacious and charming as he buckles her up and snaps in the parachute. Gives a little push on the small of her back, she taps her feet on the sandy ground and struts towards the approaching waves. The parachute unfurls and she is airborne. Roberto shades his eyes and watches her pulled up and away.

By the time she comes back down on the earth, she is exhilarated and giggly. Roberto unsnaps her and helps her undo her gear. Free of constraints, he gives her a congratulatory hug and like a true galan, escorts her back to us. All of these couldn’t have taken more than total of ten minutes. But for a true Latin lover, that’s more than enough time to hook his prey. I can just imagine his squeezing in hola guapa, que bonita eres and don’t you want to have a drink with me? along with other phrases of endearments that Latin languages are so rich with and come natural to them. How can you even begin to compete with te amo and eres mi corazon, or ma chérie amour and j’taime in French or ciao bella and bellissima in Italian?  In comparison, you’re beautiful, i love you and ich liebe dich sound absolutely hollow.

The next morning, we meet again at the same table and are waiting for the Playmate to join us for breakfast. As punctual as she normally is, it seems a bit strange that she isn’t there already. She is about half an hour late when we see her making her way towards us, swinging on the arm of, who else? Roberto. They part with a quick peck on cheeks and as she approaches us and as if in answer to the big question mark on our faces, she is all smiles. No need for her to elaborate. Her smile and how radiant she looks tells us all. We all smile back the knowing smiles. Thinking: Good for her. Knowing well that it’s just a passing fling and there is nothing for us to worry about. And so it was. Some months later she is married to a good American boy back home.

So when during the Mexico World Cup shoot in Puerto Vallarta, Jan (Heemskerk) and Michaela (Probst) are stood up by Alfonso, because he was busy with our Pat (Tomlinson), none of us actually gives it a second thought and we immediately write it off as a vacation fling south of the border. This was the first week of March. We all return home towards the end of the week. Pat and some others may have stayed over the weekend before coming back. But little did we know, from there on, things must have progressed at the speed of a bullet train.

Barely three weeks later, Pat stops me in the corridor and hesitantly but happily tells me that she was getting married that weekend, on the Easter Saturday on the 29th. The groom to be? Alfonso! I don’t know whether it’s the shock that I feel, but it certainly jolts me a bit. It makes me feel quite uneasy. Alfonso was brought in by our Mexican publisher to help us with logistics of our photo production but was not a part of the regular staff. I didn’t know much about him, if anything. Handsome, tall, dark hair, tanned skin and a fast talker. I didn’t really think much of him, also because as charming and affirmative as he was with his always positive si como no! attitude, things that he would promise or said he would take care of, he didn’t or didn’t quite.

The speed and urgency with which it’s planned feels like a shot gun wedding. It’s not going to be in a church or anything. It is to take place at her sister’s home in the north western suburb of Barrington. I am not sure whether it would be her sister or someone else would perform the ceremony. And then there would be small toast to the newly weds followed by dinner at home.

Even though Pat has worked with me on several projects over a period of years, we are not exactly close enough for her to invite me to her wedding. ‘I know what you might be thinking. But it all happened so fast. I never thought I could fall in love at first sight, you know! We’re both very happy.’ She pauses and continues, ‘It’s just my immediate family. I would love it if you and Carolyn could come. To have someone who was there when I met Alfonso.  It would mean a lot to me for you to be a part of it.’

When Carolyn and I arrive at her sister’s home the night of the wedding, there is a distinct cloud of doom covering everyone’s face. I say perfunctory hola to Alfonso, who looks petrified and distressed. The place itself looks helter-skelter as if a bunch of rambunctious kids having turned it upside down hunting for the hidden Easter eggs. Everyone frantically looking for the missing wedding band Alfonso has brought along to slip on his bride’s ring finger during the ceremony. He swears to have carefully tucked it away into a small pocket of his carry on duffle bag. Could it have fallen down and rolled away somewhere in the house as he unpacked? It was also likely that it fell off when the customs officer opened it to inspect its contents? The room is filled with the cacophony of multiple possibilities on the fate of the dainty little wheel of the precious jewelry meant to bind them for life for the better and the worst. Pat is besides herself and is on the verge of breaking down with a cry. Before things get any gloomier, someone suggests that we should just go ahead with the wedding ceremony anyways, the ring’s got to be somewhere around, and must show up sooner or later. Rest of the evening is blurred in my memory.

Fast forward to me running into Pat once again in the corridor of our offices. That marriage didn’t last too long and as it turns out, Alfonso was already married in Mexico and there was never a ring.

Something to be said about the wisdom of the Venetian gondolier having described the great lover Casanova to be also a great liar.

The good news is: Whatever suffering Pat may have endured, she flashes a pragmatic smile and tells me that since then she has found herself a true soul mate and is now happily married.

© Haresh Shah 2014

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

The Related Stories

TEMPTATIONS…TEMPTATIONS…

MY SPRING VALENTINE

BEAUTY AND THE BREASTS

ALL IN A DAY’S WORK

The Site

ABOUT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Next Friday, February 7, 2014

PORK, DUMPLINGS AND CABBAGE

I was one of the early ones to enter the countries of the former Eastern European countries almost as soon as the Iron Curtain was lifted and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The first three editions to be launched in the region were Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland. In the early years, my predicament always remained, what to eat?

Tags , , , , , , ,
Categories Culture, Mexico, Playmates, Romance

WHO’S EVER SEEN GOD?

January 23, 2014 //
1

Body And Soul Union

Haresh Shah

cuernavaca

Actually our destination this Sunday is Las Mañanitas, more in line with an all day weekend outing for Playboy executives to spend a leisurely afternoon in the lush gardens of one of the most beautiful hotels and restaurants in the world. Enjoy sumptuous Mexican delicacies washed down with Tequila Sunrises and Daiquiris. Only a short half an hour drive from Mexico City, the town of Cuernavaca is heralded the City of Eternal Spring by the geographer, naturalist and explorer, Alexander von Humboldt, is a perfect escape from the dense clouds of pollution, swarms of crowds and the constant dint of noise of Mexico City. It is the pride and joy not only of the town of Cuernavaca, but of the entire country. We sit under the open sky and under the cooling shades of the trees and sip on our psychedelic tropical drinks. We are surrounded by  the tall royal birds among them the proud peacocks gracefully prancing up and down with their iridescent tails spread out into magnificent round throne like fans. Prancing along are other long necked beautiful birds swaying and strolling while jumping monkeys frolic up and down the tree branches. It feels like being in paradise, the garden of Eden as one would picture it. The only other time I would come upon such an exotic place would be several years later on my first visit to Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.

Feeling euphoric, soon as we are settled, a waiter comes by, carrying a huge blackboard and sets it down on the ground. On it the menu of the day is listed in colorful and curlicued script. We order and then continue with our drinks. In no hurry to go anywhere, just letting ourselves loosen up and enjoy  the moment. Time slips by and then we are invited to the table all set up for us on the terrace shaded with bright and vibrant umbrellas. The food! The food!!! This is my very first trip to Mexico, which was originally meant to be just a short orientation thing, but as has been with my life, it stretches into almost three weeks. Work! What else? I am required to dive right into the thick of it, as I had to several years earlier in Germany. And so I do.

The people I am working with are wonderful partners and the hosts. This is the rewards part of the hard work. Our taste buds are treated to the fat succulent camarones con ajos, and fresh red snappers and carne asada replete with Mexican flavors of chili and cilantro and lime. No hard taco shell anywhere in sight, like back in the USA. I didn’t know anything about the TexMex and the CalMex part of what I had come to think of as the authentic Mexican food. Soft shell flautas at McGill’s in Isla Vista washed down with XXX beer is as far as I had come to know of the Mexican cuisine. So it turns out to be the most deliciously pleasant surprise.

I am brought here by Carlos Civita, the partner of our Mexican publishers, Ampudia family of Editorial Caballero.  Carlos, of the famed Civita family originally from Italy, but known for their publishing empire Editorial Abril in Argentina. During the political upheaval there, the family just decided to cash in and leave. His father, Cesar Civita is now living in New York City while Carlos has taken up residence in Mexico City. The delightful bunch, some of the most wonderful people I have ever been fortunate enough to know. Carlos basically takes me under his wing and the very first weekend that I am in Mexico City, he just hands me the keys to his little Renault, so I get to explore the city on my own. Now when I think back, it could well have been a disaster. Because driving in Mexico City is not exactly like driving in Chicago or even New York. Its more like Bombay and Saigon where the chaos and survival of the fittest reigns supreme. Not to mention extra attention I needed to pay to the car’s manual transmission. I remember, how the little Renault shuddered and came to a stand still right in the middle of a square with hundreds of cars zapping by and not paying any attention to stranded me. Not even the cops nearby directing traffic budge an inch. Somehow I survive and get the thing going again. I won’t even mention how many times I got lost during that weekend.

But the weekend after, he wants to show me around and picks Cuernavaca and Las Mañanitas as our destinations, accompanied by his visiting parents, and makes it in to a family outing. They pick me up from my hotel around ten. Early for Mexico, because the lunch is never served before two at the earliest. But before we settle down and splurge at Las Mañanitas, he wants us to attend that morning’s mass at Cuernavaca’s  Catedral de la Asunción de María. That seems a bit odd because Carlos and his family are not exactly what I would call religious folks. Plus, they are born Jewish, though Carlos’ wife Marta is Catholic. But he has heard so much about the uniqueness of the mass performed by the Bishop of Cuernavaca cathedral, and how uplifting his sermons are and how they are devoid of religious dogmas.

The Bishop is more like a secular philosopher and a teacher than a Catholic priest. Apparently very popular among his followers, majority of them very young. He seems to have a rock star status within his congregation whom I end up naming the Pop Priest. His manner of conducting the mass is nothing like I have ever experienced. Flamboyant and colorful, his words that I don’t understand, sound so uplifting and optimistic. And he has built himself a reputation that surpasses that of the historic cathedral – a proud landmark of Cuernavaca that rivals even Las Mañanitas. Thus making them the perfect twins in balancing the material world with the spiritual life, symbolized so appropriately by its revered Bishop.

Probably in his late Fifties or the early Sixties, he wears an easy smile Wrapped over his white cassock  is a green shawl. And his choir is made up of a six piece rock band, containing of three guitarists, two violinist and a drummer. They all wore long frizzy hair and are dressed in their blue jeans, t-shirts and such – tops normally worn by teenagers. His voice is gentle and natural. His congregation is dressed not in their Sunday best, but in their ordinary street clothes. At this point, my Spanish is non-existent, but I like the soothing and even tone of his voice vibrating in the air.

Post mass, he stands outside the front gate greeting the exiting crowd, making small talk. He breaks up in a smile when he sees me emerge from inside and folds his hands together in traditional Indian gesture of namaste.

‘How did you like the mass?’

And we converse for a while. He asks me about India and refers to Buddhism and Hinduism and tells me how the message remains the same; be it Jesus or Buddha or Krishna. Devoid of any theatrics, what strikes me the most is that unlike other services I have attended, he certainly does not talk or constantly repeat the name of Jesus in vain. He doesn’t make you feel that unless you believed in Jesus you were doomed to be engulfed by the long and thorny tentacles of the wild hell fire. Likewise, I don’t once get a feeling, the one I normally got in the past from the priests whose message was loud and clear: Jesus is the way and the only way. I see in him an image of Gandhi – who though extremely religious, and very much into his Hindu beliefs and rituals, never lost the sight of the fact that there were other beliefs and they had to be revered and respected. Like my own dad.

My dad remains the most religious person I have ever known. He followed his Vaishnava  faith to the T. An entire room of our home was and is still devoted to his in-house temple designated as Thakorji no room. His daily rituals lasted an average of four hours. Longer on the religious holidays. Of us eight siblings, the rest could be said to be more or less religious to the extent that they all follow bits and pieces of my parent’s total devotion, but as for me, it would be fair to say that even for a long while I identified myself as an agnostic, finally I have come to realization that that was a cope out on my part, because what I really am is: an atheist. After holding out hopes for me up until I was in my early thirties, my dad astonished me one night. I had just returned from paying my tribute at the shrine by our house – something I did out of sheer respect for my dad and expressly to please him.

‘You don’t have to go to the temple just to please me. You’re just crowding it and taking a place away from a true believer.’

What he didn’t verbalize was what I read in the look on his face. I know you’re a good kid and that’s all that matters.

Not withstanding occasional and almost always politically provoked sectarian violence in India, especially in it’s most metropolitan city Bombay, is where you also grow up respecting every religion, every culture and every custom. No one ever walks past without bowing his head, be it a temple, a mosque, a church, a derasar, a gurudwara or a Parsi fire temple. As religious and as devoted as my father was in his belief of Nirvana and reincarnation in his worship of Bal Krishna (infant-playful Krishna), he never had anything denigrating to say about other religions. The person with that kind of tolerance and accepting of the other faiths is in my eyes a true Vaishnava.

Just as the Spanish inscription carved in the most modern typeface on the large marble plaque on the wall behind us says:

 NADIE HA VISTO NUNCA A DIOS

PERO

SI NOS AMAMOS UNOS A OTROS

DIOS PERMANECE ENTRE NOSOTROS

***

NO ONE HAS EVER SEEN GOD

BUT

IF WE LOVE EACH OTHER

GOD RESIDES WITHIN US (AND SO DOES HIS LOVE)

Atheist or not, I certainly can say Amen to that.

© Haresh Shah 2014

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

You May Also Like

MEXICAN CONSULS AND MATTERS OF THE HEART

FOLLOWING IN GANDHI’S FOOTSTEPS

THE DUTCH TREAT

MY FATHER’S SECRET STASH

The Site

ABOUT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Next Friday, January 31, 2014

LET IT BE A SURPRISE

Not sure which one of the ones I am working on will be ready to go over the weekend. Just let’s wait and see, because I am afraid that’s how inspiration works! I promise whatever comes out on the top will be GOOD:-)

Tags , , , , , , , ,
Categories Culture, Food & Wine, Mexico

FACE TO FACE WITH THE MASTER OF MAGICAL REALISM

December 13, 2013 //
0

Haresh Shah

My Close Encounter With An Angry Nobel Laureate

The Original Unabridged Version Of FACE TO FACE WITH GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ MARQUEZ

It’s October 29, 1982.  The master of magical realism – Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez has just won the Nobel Prize.  Playboy magazine has in its inventory a recently concluded interview with him, conducted by the veteran journalist Claudia Dreifus.  The interview has been transcribed from hours and hours of time Ms. Dreifus spent talking with García Márquez in his Paris apartment.  It has been edited and ready to go – almost.  Playboy has promised García Márquez that it would show him the edited version, mainly to check facts and to point out inaccuracies.. As a matter of policy and editorial integrity, the magazine does not give the interview subjects right of approval.  Normally, Playboy closes most of its issues three to four months in advance.  García Márquez would make the trip to Stockholm in December to accept the Prize.  The interview must appear as close to the Nobel ceremony as possible.  This means, the scheduled February interview had to be pulled and be replaced by García Márquez interview.  The problem is; the elusive Nobel laureate is nowhere to be found.   On the day following  the announcement and during the following day, he is met by the press at his home in Mexico City.  Several frenetic phone calls from Playboy editors to his house are answered again and again by his Mexican maid.  He has gone away on a month long vacation, leaving behind strict instructions that he didn’t wish to be reached.

At that time I was assistant director for Playboy’s international publishing division.  The executive editor G. Barry Golson drafted me to hand carry the interview to Mexico and do whatever was necessary in trying to track down the suddenly disappeared author and get his seal of approval.  With then editor of Playboy’s Mexican edition, Miguel Arana, I drive over to García Márquez’s home in the ritzy southern suburb of Mexico City.  I encounter the maid face-to-face.  She is polite, but firm in telling us that she couldn’t indulge to us where we could find the master of the house.  After initial conversation, I tell her that I was going to park myself right outside the house in the fashion of a passive resistance, until she could tell me his whereabouts.  She just couldn’t.  But she promises  to mention to García Márquez of our being camped out at the front gate of his house,  when and if he calls in. An hour or so later, she hands me a piece of paper.  Written on it is a phone number of Hotel El Quijote in San Luis Potosi, a dusty town some 225  miles out of Mexico City, reachable only through mostly unpaved country roads.  After all day of calling the hotel and leaving messages that are never answered, I finally hear his voice on the other side of the line. He sounds congenial but tired.  He agrees to meet with me the next afternoon at his hotel in San Luis Potosi.  I leave very early in the morning to make it in time for our rendezvous.

He is not in his room.  Not in the hotel restaurant or the lobby bar either. I patiently pace the hotel property.  I circle the large swimming pool and admire his shiny BMW parked outside his room.  Eventually, I  plunk  myself down in the lobby bar overlooking the entrance to the hotel.  I sit there in excess of four hours, observing every single person entering or leaving the lobby — drowning beer after beer and munching on tortilla chips and salsa.  I don’t even once wonder why we had to go through what I am going through, just so our interview subject  can look at the transcript.  I think to myself  that’s one of the many reasons why Playboy Interview and its format and depth have become ultimate yardstick against which all the journalistic efforts in the question and answer format are measured.

***

Unlike the centerfold and the world class literature which was a part of the editorial mix from the issue number one, when the magazine was launched in December 1953, the Playboy Interview didn’t make its debut until almost a decade later, in September 1962.  Earlier in the year, editor-publisher Hugh M. Hefner strode into the office of  his editorial director, A. C. Spectorsky and communicated to him that he wanted to include an interview feature in Playboy that went beyond the idle chit-chat of run of the mill question and answer format.  He also mentioned that there maybe some material in the inventory of Show Business Illustrated, the magazine he had just folded.  Spectorsky assigned young editor Murray Fisher to pour through the material and see if there was anything promising.  What Murray came up with was an incomplete interview with the jazz musician Miles Davis, conducted by then struggling black writer by the name of Alex Haley.   What Fisher found peculiar about the interview was; there wasn’t much talk about music.  Instead, Davis talked incessantly of his rage against racism and what it meant to be black.  Murray assigned Haley to go back and finish the interview.  The candor and the depth of that very first interview laid the solid foundation to what was destined to become an institution.  The art director Arthur Paul gave it a visual identity by incorporating in his design three black and white close ups  of the interview subject that made eye contact with the reader, and the captions directly under them teased out  the most provocative quotes to highlight the text that followed.

What makes a Playboy interview so unique is its depth and thoroughness with which they are conducted.  In its no holds barred questions, asked pointedly of the famous and notorious people of the world, it  takes you under the skins of many of those otherwise impenetrable personalities.  Whereas most interviews are conducted in one sitting and at one location, Playboy interviewers are known to follow their subjects around the country and if need be  — the world, and come home with hours and hours of tapes — and then go back for more.  This grueling process is aptly summed up by then presidential candidate Jimmy Carter when he said to the two journalists from Playboy, “You guys must have some kind of blackmail leverage over Jody Powell (his campaign manager).  I’ve ended up spending more time with you than with Newsweek. Time and all the others combined.”  He continued after a pause. “Of course you have an advantage the way you do your interviews, coming back again and again with follow-up questions.  I don’t object, but it sure is exhausting.” Hours and hours of tapes are then transcribed, edited, cut and pasted like splicing together film strips of a movie, to give the printed version of the conversations a smooth flow and coherency.  The facts are checked and re-checked, the copy edited for grammar and spellings, bringing it to near perfection.  And it gives its interviews maximum space in its pages — way more than any other quality mass market publication.

Sitting in the lobby bar of El Quijote Hotel, waiting for the Nobel laureate to surface in my line of vision, I am thinking of the whole slew of people the magazine has put through the unrelenting scrutiny of  its interviewers.   Following the landmark Miles Davis interview, the list of musicians that sat down for candid conversations with Playboy journalists include the Beatles, Elton John and Luciano Pavarotti. Even though most politicians are reluctant to appear in the middle of the pages containing pictures of naked women, not only did Jimmy Carter, Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega used Playboy interview as platform for their messages, but so did civil liberties leader Martin Luther King Jr. and the extremist black Muslim leader Malcolm X.  Gloria Steinem refused an invitation to be interviewed, but the feminists Germaine Greer,  the author of The Female Eunuch  used Playboy’s pages to criticize the magazine and Betty Friedan, the author of The Feminine Mystique as well as the co-founder and the first president of NOW,  used the same pages to retrospectively put the women’s movement in perspective.  The artists and writers include Salvador Dali,  Tennessee Williams, Henry Miller, Jean Paul Sartre, Ayn Rand and Salman Rushdie. Actors Jack Nicholson,  Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, Betty Davis, Susan Sarandon and Sharon Stone.  Computer wizards Steven Jobs and Bill Gates and even convicted murderers James Earl Ray and Gary Gilmore got to confess and be cross-examined within the format of a Playboy interview.  And  yet, I will always remember Playboy’s long time editorial director Arthur Kretchmer once defining Playboy Interview to the editors of the magazine’s international editions as “over and above Playboy Interview tries to bring out the human face of the person being interviewed. If we were to interview Hitler, he would come out to be a sympathetic figure.” 

It is getting to be late.  I am beginning to lose my patience. I am exhausted and have consumed all the beer I could manage that day.  And I am absolutely famished!  I am trying to decide whether I should order something to eat when I suddenly notice short and stocky frame of Garbriel García Márquez entering the lobby.  With him is a young lady I perceive to be in her mid-thirties, who I find out later is Marilise Simons, the Mexican correspondent to The New York Times.  I rush to greet him.  He apologizes for making me wait so long, while Marilise comes to his aid with  “it was all my fault. My car broke down on the way over.” Doesn’t matter. Like an answered prayer, Gabriel García Márquez  is standing in front of me face-to-face.  He asks  me and Marilise to accompany him to his suite.  The front room is littered with the magazines, newspapers and loose manuscript pages piled next to a manual typewriter perched atop a cabinet in vertical position.  He is in San Luis Potosi to help with the screenplay of his book Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother, being filmed there with Greek actress Irene Papas in the leading role. And also following him on the location the French television crew, making a documentary of his life. Now at last he has a moment to pause and catch a breath.

As the three of us settle around the large round table in the middle of the room, he still looks harried and exhausted.  I hand him the galley.  The cover letter from Barry  states that we needed to have his comments within three days and that he should restrict his changes to the facts and the possible distortion in translation. As he reads on, I see the congenial expressions of his face turning slowly first into disgust and then visible anger. “I am furious at Playboy.”  He is livid as he hurls the pages in his hands on the table with a loud thud. “I feel betrayed because Claudia (Dreifus) had promised that I would have the right to make any changes in the interview before its publication. And that I would be given enough time to be able to thoroughly go through it.”   He continues on,  telling me that  the interview was conducted several months ago, why couldn’t have they sent him the typescript in the interim?  In fact, he was given to understand that it  was postponed indefinitely. “ Now just because I have won the Nobel Prize, Playboy suddenly wants to have it yesterday! Had I not won the Nobel, they probably would have killed it entirely.”

I am not quite prepared for his emotional outburst and the Latin temper.  I am one of his biggest fans,  I tell him,  and he realizes that it comes from the heart.  I tell him that the Nobel or not, he is one of the most important literary figures of our time.  If Playboy thought any lesser of him, they wouldn’t have sent a personal emissary to hand carry it to him and to show him our goodwill.. And I ask him, were he still reporting for El Tiempo or El Espectador, would he not want to run the interview with himself right now?

“But I don’t need any more publicity!” He says lamely. Still looking quite angry.

“Sr, García Márquez, if  I may. This interview is not meant to publicize you. But to give your readers a deeper understanding of your ideas and your philosophy. As you know, Playboy has published many of your fictions. I have read all of them and also two of  your books.  I read our interview with you on my flight over here, and I must say as one of  your avid fans, it has enlightened me enormously of my understanding of you as a man and of your work,  more than ever before. And I am sure, so would your readers around the world.”

I realize I am pontificating, but he could sense that I am being honest. It hits home and  seems to calm him down somewhat. He promises to get back to us within the requested time frame of three days.  Before I leave, he switches to a conciliatory tone in that we talk about insignificant things for a few minutes and then about the Indian Nobel winner, the poet Rabindranath Tagore. He then apologizes profusely for taking it all out on me, but then concludes with pragmatic “that’s what happens to the messengers!”

On my way over to see him, I had wanted to ask some additional questions to update the interview, but the way things turned out, it just wasn’t in the cards. At the very last minute all I can think of asking him was something I had read in that week’s Time magazine, in which he had said that to accept his award in Stockholm, he intends to wear the traditional Mexican guayabera, a light weight shirt worn outside  the trousers. When Time asked, his answer: “To avoid putting on a tuxedo, I’ll stand the cold.” When I referred to it and asked him; why? His answer to me is: “Superstition.” More like it. Something a character of magical realism would say.

Before heading back to Mexico City, I decide to put something in my stomach.  All I had all day long was huevos rancheros.  I sit down, order another beer and some enchiladas verde and mull over my forty-five some minutes with the man who had just won the most prestigious literary  prize in the world.  His wrath has me unsettled for a while.  But then I think of the interviewer Peter Ross Range and how Ted Turner of CNN had turned violent during their interview, grabbing his tape recorder and smashing  it on the isle of the first class cabin of an airliner and how he  had  then snatched his camera bag and practically destroyed the tapes containing their conversation.  How the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci would throw temper tantrums at her interviewer Robert Scheer when he turned the tables on her, confronting Fallaci  with the questions she didn’t like.  And how Alex Haley endured the overt racism as the “führer” of the American Nazi party, George Lincoln Rockwell,  as he outlined to him  his intentions to ship “niggers” back to Africa. At least, I had the pleasure of having encountered face-to-face one of my most favorite writers, and be able to tell him how much I admired his work.  On my way in from Chicago, I had picked up brand new copies of  two of his books, recently published in their quality paperback editions — the ones of which he had not yet even gotten author’s copies —No One Writes to the Colonel and other Stories and Leaf Storm and other Stories.

My hunger contained and the euphoric feeling of having mission accomplished, I just couldn’t make myself to get back into the car and head back to Mexico City. With my heart fluttering, I slowly walk back to his room.  He himself answers the knock on his door.

“I am sorry, to bother  you again, I almost feel like a teenager, but I just couldn’t bring myself to leave without asking you to autograph these books for me.”  By now he looks like a different person.  Playboy transcript is spread out all over the table.  “Look, I am already working for Playboy,” he says with a wry smile pointing at the strewn pages of the galley. Marilise sitting behind his back smiles and flashes the thumb up at me.  He sits down and writes in No One Writes to Colonel, Para Haresh, de su colerico amigo, Gabriel ’82 and in Leaf Storm he draws an olive branch on the title page inside and writes, “Para Haresh, con un lomo de olivos, and signs it.

© Haresh Shah 2012

Original Abridged Version

FACE TO FACE WITH GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

You May Also Like

FACE TO FACE WITH JAN CREMER

FACE TO FACE WITH HUGH M. HEFNER

The Site

ABOUT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories Gabriel García Márquez, Nobel Laureate, Profile, Writer

MY LATIN VALENTINE

February 7, 2013 //
3

Haresh Shah

Eres Tu, Eres Tu, Asi, Asi, Eres Tu…

between_the_fountain

Premonition? Up until this very moment, I had never thought of it that way. But there are times when you can’t help but wonder and end up giving things the benefit of the doubt!  During the trip I took from Chicago to Mexico City, I met with Francisco Sadurni, the local attorney hired by Playboy to help me get a long term multiple  entry visa.  Knowing that I didn’t have any plans for the evening, he tagged me along to a party at his uncle’s house – also an attorney.

From the outside, the house looked quite unpretentious. Ordinary even. But what I encountered behind the closed street-side gate was nothing like anything I had seen inside a private home. It opened into a vast courtyard running into a spacious living room. The centerpiece about which the people milled around was a real fountain, like in a small garden of a Shinto shrine. There were ornate columns buttressing the slanted skylight roof. The palm, cactus and other tropical plants gave you a feeling of being in a rain forest. Five piece strolling Mariachi band  serenaded while the guests made trips back and forth between the individually canopied food and drink stands, set up  like in a traditional Mexican mercado. Bottles of French champagne popped open and emptied every few minutes. Men were all dressed like  lawyers in their dark pinstripe suites, which many of them probably were.  There were scores of beautiful young women dressed so provocatively and yet elegantly in their clingingly skin tight outfits with revealing tops. I felt like Alex in the wonderland.  What I had thought to be a party  containing of about twenty people, turned out to be a hundred or more guests.

Francisco takes me by the hand and introduces me to many of the guests with his good humored effervescent Mexican manner with an abrazo here, a back slapping there.. As everywhere else, the name Playboy evokes an awe as people shake hands with me and make small talk.

Seeing that I am eyeing the approaching morena in her dark and shiny burgundy-on-burgundy striped satin jumpsuit, he stops her in her tracks.

‘Let me introduce you to my cousin Luis’ daughter Patricia.‘

We say hello. Her English is rudimentary at the best, and my Spanish is yet non-existent.  When Francisco runs away to greet new arrivals, we are left alone standing in the middle of the hall – trying to communicate best as we can.  She is more exotic than she can be called  pretty. Her oily dark brown skin is darker than mine. Her jet black hair and big penetrating dark eyes and the complexion makes her stand apart from most of the light skinned women swirling  around. Up close, I notice that cut out at the top of her tight fitting jumpsuit is a heart shaped slit,  revealing the firm round breasts through her cleavage.

We try to talk for a while and then excusing herself she disappears in to the crowd and is gone for hours. Soon she fades from my awareness as I engage in conversation with other guests.  It must have been closer to one in the morning.  I guess I must have been having good time to still be around. Francisco is long gone and the crowd is now thinning out. And I see her again. Now looking a bit weary, she is sitting on one of the two facing love seats. The another one is occupied by an elderly couple.  Intuitively, I walk up to her. She gestures me to sit down next to her.

‘Meet my parents, Luis and Rosario.’

‘Mucho gusto,’ I say.

And we talk. Rosario has lived in Los Angeles for a while, and she speaks good English.  Mainly it is her and I talk while Luis sits there looking tired and bored.  Rosario engages me and Patricia in pleasant talks.  Asking me about myself, my job, even my family back in India. I could tell, the mother likes me. A definite kiss of death!  Or maybe not.

Soon after, Rosario gets up with; ‘I better bring my husband home before he falls asleep’ Patricia too makes a move to depart.

‘Stay for a while, please!’  I plead. ‘I will bring you home in a cab.’

‘She doesn’t have to go with us. She has her own car,’ says her mother.

Patricia sticks around for an hour or longer. We somehow manage to communicate,  mostly in mimes augmented by a few words in-between. Actually she ends up taking me back to my hotel in her little Volkswagen Bug. I manage to make a date with her for the weekend.

‘I am sorry but my younger sister Tere will have to come with me!’

I agree. I guess that’s how things are done in Mexico.

I shouldn’t have worried about the third wheel. She indeed shows up with her sister for the poolside buffet at Camino Real. Soon as we finish eating and have moved to the grassy patch to lounge around, Tere promptly excuses herself and is gone. She is spending the afternoon with her boyfriend!

●●●

During the next seven days that I spend in Mexico City, Patricia and I see each other several times. Sneaking out for quick lunches, meet for dinners. Growing closer and feeling more and more emotionally linked at every encounter.  In absence of being able to verbally communicate fluently, we complement our body language with passing back and forth of my Spanish-English pocket dictionary. She fills it in with some English words that she remembers from what she must have learned in school. I use the few Spanish words I pick up everyday from here and there. But most of our growing infatuation with each other can easily be summed up from the night before I return back to Santa Barbara. We sit  together huddled on a bench seat of the most elegant and romantic restaurant,  Le Fouquet’s de Paris, nestled inside the vast expanse of my hotel.

Mostly we hold hands and communicate the intensity of our feelings by varying the pressure of our squeezes. We gaze into each others eyes and catch that certain ray of the flickering candlelight from her eyes to mine and mine to hers. Between the courses, while waiting for the next, which are paced just right, we would scoot – or more like cuddle closer – as if it were possible to be any nearer.

Me whispering: You’re so beautiful, almost wanting to break into Joe Cocker rendition of you’re so beautiful, to me. Her looking back, meeting my gaze and whispering back, probably translating eres guapo, into “you’re a beautiful boy.”

Sitting there with this exotic beauty, only twenty two years old, working as an executive secretary, it amazes me to think that how sophisticated she is  in the way she is dressed,  and in her knowledge of good wines and the food. And how refined is her manners. I am specially touched by the way she takes a piece of bread, butters it daintily and hands it to me so tenderly, like a loving little mother. And then watching me eating it as tenderly, before picking up a piece for herself.

As the evening wears and we sit there with the glasses warmed over the open flame of the cognac warmer, she takes a sip, then puts down the glass. Takes my hand into hers. We are facing each other sideways. I see her lips flutter.

‘I love you.’ She whispers.

‘I love you.’ I whisper back.

By the time I escort her to her little VW Bug, the hotel garage is deserted save for a few cars  strewn here and there. I am overwhelmed with emotions and the desire so deep and fervent that I don’t want to let her go. We stand by her car and hold each other close. There are kisses and then she gently peels herself  away.

‘My father will kill me.’ Those words emerge slowly. Somehow she has managed to utter an entire English sentence.

I pull her to me one more time. My arms resting on her shoulders, I scoop her face into my hands. I don’t want to let her go. ‘This is a crazy question to ask, but would  you be my girlfriend?’ It just rolls out of my mouth.

Startled, she steps back. Her eyes fixed on mine, I hear her utter, ever so softly: ‘Si.’

●●●

Next morning she picks me  up and brings me to Benito Juarez International Airport. We have coffee up in the terrace café. We are both tired, sleepy even. We don’t say much but hold hands across the table. My hand sandwiched between hers.

‘I’ll miss you.’ She says.

‘I’ll miss you.’ I repeat.

‘I’ll wait for  you. And…’ she whispers something that I don’t quite grasp at first but then understand as,  ‘And be good!’

‘I am always good!’ I answer playfully!

‘Be good.’ She repeats. ‘Or…’ And I see her slide the blade of her hand across her neck.

‘Ouch!’

I let out a nervous laugh.  I could almost feel the sharp knife slashing through my throat and see the blood dripping.  And think: she is a Latin Lover alright.  But no importa. I haven’t felt this good and this close to anyone in a long time.   I reach across the table and put my other hand on the top of our already layered hands, like in a Pyramid.

They announce my flight. We shuffle and I sling my carry on bag over my shoulder.  As we walk down the stairs, we stop on the landing. I put down my carry-on and take her in my arms. ‘But the people!’ Her mild protest is lost in our sealed lips. And we continue our descent. She takes my hand in hers, gives it a slight squeeze and I hear her say, ‘I feel triste.’  The sadness has dawned upon me as well. We pause at the bottom of the stairs, and then I hurry through to the immigration desk. When I look back, she is gone. I imagine  her blurry eyes. I want to run back.

© Haresh Shah 2013

Illustration: Jordan Rutherford

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

 Next Friday, February 15, 2013

IN THE NAME OF LOVE

It’s easy to fall in love. But it takes some doing to sustain a relationship.  Most of the time it’s only little things that make big differences.  To wrap up my Valentine Month, I tell the story of a friend who chooses to sustain his love with his wife than to hold on to something that was emotionally so dear and near to him.

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories Uncategorized

MEXICAN CONSUL AND MATTERS OF THE HEART

January 31, 2013 //
2

Haresh Shah

Corazon de Melon, de Melon, de Melon….

passportbook_sketches_v2

Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles had more of a feeling of a traveling agency then that of a diplomatic mission. Of the posters on display there with enticing graphics of the country’s top tourist destinations, the one that I remember the most, said in the large type face: Mexico. So Close And Yet So Different.  On my second visit, I said to myself, they might as well add: And So Outrageously Difficult To Get Into. So close in fact, that you can get in your car, have a nice lunch in Tijuana and come back on the same day. Or if you lived in the border town of San Ysidro, south of San Diego, you can simply walk across the border, pick up some cheap Mexican grocery and medication, come back and go as often as you want.  And from the places farther away, like Chicago, you can hop the plane and on impulse take off for Puerto Vallarta for a weekend.

Not so simple if you were a holder of passport from one of the “third world” countries. Up until 1980, I traveled with my Indian passport. This meant,  I needed a visa to go anywhere beyond the defined borders and the time frame.  Several years earlier, when I took my first ever trip from Chicago to Buffalo, New York, George, the young account executive at the printing plant fixed me up with a friend of his girlfriend and we three went out on the town on a double date. During the course of the evening, I got to see yet another wonder of the world – the Niagara Falls. So breath-taking. ‘Its even better from the other side,’ they told me. But I wasn’t allowed to cross the border into Canada without a visa, so we remained where we were. While living in Chicago, I used to often joke about how some day I might even need a visa to go see Wisconsin Dells! You wouldn’t think getting one for Mexico would be all that difficult. Especially considering that I was a legal resident of the United States and the possessor of the mighty green card.  No importa. It was my Indian passport that had the consuls in Los Angeles and Chicago humiliate me before carrying out their bureaucratic function of issuing me a visa.

But I will forgive them their nasty petty-powered bureaucracy, because say what you will about the Mexican bureaucracy, and them being universally defined as los hombres de mañana  and the  people difficult to do business with.  But when it comes to their hospitality, warmth and the most humane welcoming attitude of mi casa es su casa, they are the tops.  Especially when it comes to the matters of the heart, they melt like marshmallow on a twig over camp fire.

After my assignment ended in Munich, I returned to the States and at the time was living in  Santa Barbara, California.  When Playboy called me back, it was first to work for them as a freelancer, which would still allow me to continue living in Santa Barbara and travel to Mexico City as needed. Perhaps once or twice a month.  Hop, skip and jump from the little shed of the SB  airport.  But I knew that before booking my flight, I had to first take a trip to Los Angeles and visit the Mexican Consulate and acquire a visa.  Actually it was fun driving south on the most picturesque highway 101 and spending a pleasant day there,  accompanied by my French Canadian friend Claude and her Swedish boyfriend, Gunnar.  We checked in with the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles promptly as it opened. Put in my application through,  paid the fee of 200 Mexican pesos (about US$ 9.-)  and ventured out to stroll the neighborhood of Olvera Street and the plaza. Had late breakfast and later an authentic Mexican lunch that went beyond tacos and enchiladas and flautas. Picked up the visa and drove back  with the Pacific roaring on our left and the San Ynez Mountain Range on our right.

What was supposed to be just a short introductory trip, ended up being a stay that stretched to three full weeks. Wasn’t too hard to take,  basking in the lap of luxury at Camino Real, which was to become my home away from home and because of its bright yellow façade with the magenta trimming,  came to be known among my Mexican associates as tu casa amarilla.

There was enough work to keep me occupied. And our partners Ricardo Ampudia and  Carlos Civita took care of me through the days with sumptuous meals. Lunches that started at two in the afternoon and lasted until six. Back to office for two to three hours, and then it would be dinner time around ten. During those three weeks I was introduced to some of Mexico City’s most alluring places. Playing tourist over the weekends, I had absolutely fallen in love with the smells and the sounds of Mexico City.  Must have been the pollution, the waves of black  heads bopping, the noise and the perpetual chaos on the streets that reminded me of home, filling me with the nostalgia of the similar landscape of the street life of Bombay.

Unlike my residence permit problems in Germany when Playboy had shipped me off to Munich, this time around  they were aware of the fact that for me to take frequent trips to Mexico, I would require a long-term multiple entry visa.  So in-between  my first trip in January 1977 and the second in February, they had gone ahead and hired a young attorney in Mexico City to immediately start the visa proceedings.  Attorney or not, these things take time. In Los Angeles, they had completely ignored my request for the multiple entry visa. This meant, I would need one for every trip I took to south of the border.

My first stay lasted from January 11 through January 30th. I was required to be back in Mexico in about ten days.  A week later, Playboy asked me to first come to the head offices in Chicago. From there I would continue on to Mexico City. I needed to get another visa.

I’ll spare you the humiliation of the grilling I was subjected to when I presented myself to the Mexican Consulate in Chicago.  In nutshell they were suspicious of the motive of me going back to their country so soon. When asked, I answered:

‘Because I have fallen in love with your beautiful country and would like to explore it more.’

The consul Jose Antonio Arias gives me a skeptical look,  yeah right! He is probably looking for a justification to be able to deny me the visa. That would mean, I would be temporarily out of the job. The prospect would have absolutely devastated me. But before the dismay takes over and shows on my face, something outrageous crosses my mind.  Something that happens only once in a blue moon and only on impulse. I couldn’t possibly have thought it up. I meet the counsel’s gaze.

‘Yes, you’re right.’ I agree with him, even though he hasn’t said anything to my having fallen in love with his country.  ‘Of course I have fallen in love with your beautiful country. But the truth is: during my three weeks stay there, I met this most gorgeous woman in my life. And I think we are in love.’

Still looking skeptical, his face softens.

‘What’s her name?’

‘Maria Elena…Maria Elena Luna.’ The woman that comes instantly to my mind is the typesetter at the Mexican edition. A petite blonde – very pretty. I don’t know how much that convinces him, but what can be more compelling than un hombre enamorado?  He lowers his pointed gaze. Picks up my passport and flips through to the blank page facing my earlier visa.

‘Entonces, bueno.’

The passport with the visa stamped inside, I rush to the airport.  The American Airlines’ waiting area is mobbed. Still feeling drained and humiliated of  the experience, I am walking around in bit of a haze, completely oblivious to a young man approaching me.

‘Aren’t you Haresh Shah?’

He looks familiar, but I can’t place him right away.

‘Lalo. Lalo Guerro.  From Time?’ Of course. The Mexican young man. He is now working for American Airlines as their on-site PR agent. I tell him about my job with Playboy and about just having started a Mexican edition of the magazine.

‘Give me your boarding card!’ he practically snatches it away from my hand. Walks over to the check-in counter, walks back  and hands me another boarding card. ‘I’ve got to run to the Dallas flight. Have a nice trip.’ And he disappears in the crowd, as suddenly as he had appeared. He has upgraded me to First Class.

I don’t even like champagne, but don’t turn it down when the flight attendant  hands me a flute with the bubbles hurriedly rushing up.  As I sip on the dry and crisp, chilled-to-perfection glass of Moët et Chandon, I feel my humiliation and frustrations  dissolving like an Alka Seltzer in a glass of water.

© Haresh Shah 2013

Illustration: Jordan Rutherford

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

Next Friday, February 8, 2013

MY LATIN VALENTINE

Premonition?  I certainly don’t believe in such nonsense! But then there are times when you can’t help but give such a notion the benefit of the doubt. Because on my trip after the Chicago visa debacle, I meet an exotic morena  at a party and we promptly fall in love.

Tags , , , ,
Categories Uncategorized

FACE TO FACE WITH GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

January 24, 2013 //
2

 Haresh Shah

My Close Encounter With The (Angry) Master of Magical Realism

Gabrielgarciamarquez_001webgreenweb

It’s October 29, 1982.  The master of magical realism – Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez has just won the Nobel Prize.  Playboy magazine has in its inventory a recently concluded interview with him, conducted by the veteran journalist, Claudia Dreifus.  The interview has been transcribed from hours and hours of time Ms. Dreifus spent talking with García Márquez in his Paris apartment.  It has been edited and ready to go – almost.  Playboy has promised García Márquez that it would show him the edited version, mainly to check facts and to point out inaccuracies.  As a matter of policy and editorial integrity, the magazine does not give the interview subjects right of approval.  Normally, Playboy closes most of its issues three to four months in advance.  García Márquez would make the trip to Stockholm in December to accept the Prize.  The interview must appear as close to the Nobel ceremony as possible.  This means, the scheduled February interview had to be pulled and be replaced by García Márquez interview.  The problem is; the elusive Nobel laureate is nowhere to be found. Several frenetic phone calls from Playboy editors to his house in Mexico City are answered again and again by his maid.  He has gone away on a month long vacation, leaving behind strict instructions that he didn’t wish to be reached.

The executive editor G. Barry Golson has drafted me to hand carry the interview to Mexico and do whatever was necessary in trying to track down the suddenly disappeared author and get his seal of approval.  With then editor of Playboy’s Mexican edition, Miguel Arana and I drive over to García Márquez’s home in the ritzy southern suburb of the city.  I encounter the maid face-to-face.  She is polite, but firm in telling us that she couldn’t indulge to us where we could find the master of the house.  After initial conversation, I tell her that I was going to park myself right outside the house in the fashion of  passive resistance, until she could tell me his whereabouts.  She just couldn’t.  But she promises  to mention to García Márquez of our being camped out at the front gate of his house,  when and if he calls in.  An hour or so later, she hands me a piece of paper.  Written on it is a phone number of Hotel El Quijote in San Luis Potosi, a dusty town in north-central Mexico,  some 225  miles out of Mexico City, reachable only through mostly unpaved country roads.  After all day of calling the hotel and leaving messages that are never answered, I finally hear his voice on the other side of the line. He sounds congenial but tired.  He agrees to meet with me the next afternoon at his hotel in San Luis Potosi.  I leave very early in the morning to make it in time for our rendezvous.

He is not in his room.  Not in the hotel restaurant or the lobby bar either. I patiently pace the hotel property.  I circle the large swimming pool and admire his shiny BMW parked outside his room.  Eventually, I  plunk  myself down in the lobby bar overlooking the entrance to the hotel.  I sit there in excess of four hours, observing every single person entering and leaving the lobby — drowning beer after beer and munching on tortilla chips and salsa.  I don’t even once wonder why we had to go through what I am going through, just so our interview subject  can look at the transcript.  I think to myself  that’s one of the many reasons why Playboy Interview and its format and depth have become ultimate yardstick against which all the journalistic efforts in the question and answer format are measured.

●●●

It is getting to be late.  I am beginning to lose my patience. I am exhausted and have consumed all the beer I could manage that day.  And I am absolutely famished!  I am trying to decide whether I should order something to eat when I suddenly notice short and stocky frame of Garbriel García Márquez entering the lobby.  With him is a young lady I perceive to be in her mid-thirties, who I find out later is Marilise Simons, the Mexican correspondent to The New York Times.  I rush to greet him.  He apologizes for making me wait so long, while Marilise comes to his aid with  “it was all my fault. My car broke down on the way over.” Doesn’t matter. Like an answered prayer, Gabriel García Márquez  is standing in front of me face-to-face.  He asks  me and Marilise to accompany him to his suite.  The front room is littered with the magazines, newspapers and loose manuscript pages piled next to a manual typewriter perched atop a cabinet in vertical position.  He is in San Luis Potosi to help with the screenplay of his book Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother, being filmed there with Greek actress Irene Papas in the leading role. And also following him on the location is the French television crew, making a documentary of his life. Now at last he has a moment to pause and catch a breath.

As the three of us settle around the large round table in the middle of the room, he still looks harried and exhausted.  I hand him the galley.  The cover letter from Barry  states that we needed to have his comments within three days and that he should restrict his changes to the facts and the possible distortion in translation. As he reads on, I see the congenial expressions of his face slowly turning, first into disgust and then into visible anger.

“I am furious at Playboy.”  He is livid as he hurls the pages in his hands on the table with a loud thud. “I feel betrayed because Claudia (Dreifus) had promised that I would have the right to make any changes in the interview before its publication. And that I would be given enough time to be able to thoroughly go through it.”   He continues on,  telling me that  the interview was concluded several months ago, why couldn’t they have sent him the typescript in the interim?  In fact, he was given to understand that it  was postponed indefinitely. “ Now just because I have won the Nobel Prize, Playboy suddenly wants to have it yesterday! Had I not won the Nobel, they probably would have killed it entirely.”

I am not quite prepared for his emotional outburst and the Latin temper.  I am one of his biggest fans,  I tell him,  and he realizes that it comes from the heart.  I tell him that the Nobel or not, he is one of the most important literary figures of our time.  If Playboy thought any lesser of him, they wouldn’t have sent a personal emissary to hand carry it to him and to show him our goodwill.  And I ask him, were he still reporting for El Tiempo or El Espectador, would he not want to run the interview with himself right now?

“But I don’t need any more publicity!” He says lamely. Still looking quite angry.

“Sr, García Márquez, if  I may. This interview is not meant to publicize you. But to give your readers a deeper understanding of your ideas and your philosophy. As you know, Playboy has published many of your fictions. I have read all of them and have also read your books.  I read our interview with you on my flight over here, and I must say, as one of  your avid fans, it has enlightened me enormously of my understanding of you as a man and of your work,  more than ever before. And I am sure, so would your readers around the world.”

I realize I am pontificating, but he could sense that I am being honest. It hits home and  seems to calm him down somewhat. He promises to get back to us within the requested time frame of three days.  Before I leave, he switches to a conciliatory tone in that we talk about insignificant things for a few minutes and then about the Indian Nobel winner, the poet Rabindranath Tagore. He then apologizes profusely for taking it all out on me, but then concludes with pragmatic “that’s what happens to the messengers!”

On my way over to see him, I had wanted to ask some additional questions to update the interview, but the way things turned out, it just wasn’t in the cards. At the very last minute all I could think of asking him was something I had read in that week’s Time magazine, in which he had said that to accept his award in Stockholm, he intends to wear the traditional Mexican guayabera, a light weight shirt worn outside  the trousers. When Time asked, his answer: “To avoid putting on a tuxedo, I’ll stand the cold.” When I referred to it and asked him; why? His answer to me is: “Superstition.” More like it. Something a character of magical realism would say.

Before heading back to Mexico City, I decide to put something in my stomach.  All I had all day long was huevos rancheros.  I sit down, order another beer and some enchiladas verde and mull over my forty-five some minutes with the man who had just won the most prestigious literary  prize in the world.  His wrath has me unsettled for a while.  But then I think of the interviewer Peter Ross Range and how CNN boss Ted Turner had turned violent during their interview, grabbing his tape recorder and smashing  it on the aisle of the first class cabin of an airliner and how he  had  then snatched his camera bag and practically destroyed the tapes containing their conversation.  How the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci would throw temper tantrums at her interviewer Robert Scheer when he turned the tables on her, confronting Fallaci  with the questions she didn’t like.  And how Alex Haley, the author of Roots endured the overt racism while the “führer” of the American Nazi party, George Lincoln Rockwell,  outlined to him  his intentions to ship “niggers” back to Africa.

At least, I had the pleasure of having encountered face-to-face one of my most favorite writers, and be able to tell him how much I admired his work.  On my way over from Chicago, I had picked up brand new copies of  two of his books, recently published in their quality paperback editions — the ones of which he had not yet even gotten author’s copies.

My hunger contained and the euphoric feeling of having mission accomplished, I just couldn’t make myself to get back to the car and head back to Mexico City. With my heart fluttering, I slowly walk back to his room.  He himself answers the knock on his door.

“I am sorry, to bother  you again, I almost feel like a teenager, but I just couldn’t bring myself to leave without asking you to autograph these books for me.”  By now he looks like a different person.  The interview transcript in form of the galley proofs is spread out all over the table.  “Look, I am already working for Playboy,”  he says with a wry smile pointing at the strewn pages.  Marilise sitting behind his back smiles and flashes the thumb up at me.  He sits down and writes in first of the two books I have brought: No One Writes to Colonel, Para Haresh, de su colerico amigo, Gabriel ’82 and in the second: Leaf Storm, he draws an olive branch on the title page inside and writes, “Para Haresh, con un lomo de olivos, and signs it.

© Haresh Shah 2013

Illustration: Jordan Rutherford

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

 Next Friday, February 1, 2013

MEXICAN CONSUL AND MATTERS OF THE HEART

Up until 1980, I traveled with my Indian passport, with which I couldn’t  even cross the border to Canada or to Mexico without having a valid visa, issued by the respective country’s diplomatic mission. Sometimes, an outrageously humiliating experience.  How I overcame one of the hurdles by baring my heart to the Consul General:).    

Tags , , , , , , ,
Categories Uncategorized

TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN…

January 3, 2013 //
4

Haresh Shah

From Only One Nipple To Pubic Wars And Back

censorshipboys_p
How ludicrous the censorship can be isn’t  even worth discussing. The books that once considered to be obscene and pornographic are now hailed  classics. Just to name three: Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence, Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. And Nabokov even went on to win the Nobel Prize for literature.

That Playboy launched in December 1953 will face continuous hounding of censorship was a given.  Hugh Hefner did fight many battles and endured incessant harassment from the self-appointed moral guardians of America and the world.  Even so, it wasn’t up until January 1971 – full eighteen  years after Playboy was born that he dared show a partial patch of pubic hair on that month’s Playmate, Liv Lindeland. Nothing for a few months after, until October when one got a glimpse of a dark bit peeking through an out of focus foliage on Playmate Claire Rambeau. And suddenly the shroud was lifted. Also with the arrival of Penthouse on the American shores from its initial launch in the Great Britain, what Hefner termed to be the “pubic wars” broke out between the two publications.  It was no longer just pubic hair, but what came to be termed among the editors and the photographers as explicit “crotch shots” began to appear in both magazines in an effort to outdo each other. Until at some point, Hefner decided to scale back by saying something to the effect that its silly, we are not going to imitate the imitator.

While the US Playboy would never dare show the frontal nudity on its cover even today, not even  breasts, there was no such restriction in Germany back in 1972 when the German edition was launched. In its very second issue it had a Polaroid layer peeling off a photograph of the  sleeping beauty with her fully exposed breasts staring right at you.  For none of the Western European editions, “to be or not to be” of  breasts or even pubic hair has ever been an issue. They don’t deliberately go out of their way to run explicit covers, because it is universally believed  and accepted that nothing makes one want to pick up a magazine more so than a friendly face making an “eye contact” with the readers.

Enter Japan – the edition launched in July 1975. Even before its launch, it was possible to buy the US Playboy in the country.  But the local laws dictated that no magazine showing pubic hair could be distributed in Japan. How do you get around that? Simple. The customs hire a bunch of teenagers,  throw  them together in a cramped room, pile huge stacks of imported magazines in front of them, hand them fat tipped black magic markers and make them go through each photo and scratch a big blob of  wet black ink in the pubic region. Voila, now the Japanese youth would be  saved from their carnal temptations and the corruption of their innocent minds.

But for the locally produced Japanese edition of Playboy, we would have to come up with a selection of photos that didn’t contain even a tiny wisp of hair. Since Playboy shoots thousands of photos for about a dozen they end up using, this normally wasn’t a big problem for someone to sit down and select fotos sin pelo pubico.  Even so, sometimes it was difficult to find enough usable photos  with right expressions on the girl’s face.  It was initially my job to go through those thousands of photos and do an edit for the Japanese.  Frustrated, sometimes I would accost the photographers and remind them that we needed ample non-pubic photos.  At times it was difficult for them – having just been freed from the shackles and having to go backward must have been psychologically daunting for them. So much so that when in 1987 we were producing a multi-girls pictorial, to complement the Miss Playboy International Beauty Pageant  broadcast live from Hong Kong’s Queen Elizabeth Stadium, when the Turkish candidate Arzum Cibir, showed up in the studio with her pubic region clean-shaved, the photographer Byron Newman and his wife/stylist Brigitte  were horrified.  A minor crisis ensued in the air. Of the solutions discussed and bounced around was also the possibility of giving Arzum an artificial patch of pubes, in the form of a custom-made, how can I say it – a pussy wig? In the end, the silliness discounted and sanity prevailed.  We decided that they would pose her in a way that would not require her to shoot full frontal.  There were thirteen more girls in the group. So…

But for the legal requirement of the countries, there was not much the photographers could do, because now we needed them not only for Japan but also for Brazil (launched in August 1976), and Mexico (November 1976), later added to the list would be Turkey (January 1986) and Taiwan (April 1990).

In the cases of Mexico and Brazil, we couldn’t even call the magazines Playboy, until years later. In Brazil it was called Homem (Man) and in Mexico Caballero, con Lo Mejor de Playboy (Gentleman, with the best of Playboy).  In Brazil, every nude layout that went into the magazine, had to be presented to the censor board and approved by the authorities before they could be put into the magazine. They required not only no-pubic, but also we were restricted to show only a single nipple in an image. And this is in the country of Samba and the wildest Carnival and the skimpiest dental floss bikinis running around Copacabana beach!

The most absurd thing to happen was in Mexico. One fine morning Eduardo Gongorra, the General Manager of the Mexican edition was called in by the authorities and told that their license to publish Caballero was suspended. Not only they couldn’t call the magazine Playboy under any circumstances, but the new law dictated that no publication can use a noun as its proper name. They couldn’t change it to Señor either, because Señor too was a noun. How about Signore? It meant the same, but in Italian and not in Spanish. Since they couldn’t come up with an immediate retort to that, after several harried phone calls between Chicago and Mexico City, it was collectively agreed to change the name immediately and continue publishing while we would appeal and fight the battle to eventually be allowed to call the magazine by its rightful name, Playboy.

Coming back to Japan, there were times when the Japanese editors in their creative frenzy would  want to include in their layout one of the photos published in the US edition. No matter a blob of curls plainly in sight. What do they do? Have it airbrushed out. They knew I would scream murder when the issue hit my desk a few days later. Then it would be too late to do anything about it. I would hear from other executives of the company – including once directly from Christie Hefner,  how horrible and unnatural airbrushed pussies looked?  I know! I know!! I would slap hands of the Japanese. They would apologize with a promise to never do it again – that is until they would some months later. Hoping that Shah-san won’t notice. But notice I did.  Dismayed, as I often sat at my desk staring at those bald as an eagle-head patches so expertly smoothed out and blended into rest of the skin, like them I too hoped that no one else would notice – Christie most of all.

Fast forward to 2007. After nine years sojourn in Prague and after fourteen years since I left Playboy, I have returned to Chicago to live. I am sitting in my guest room on a chair next to my floor to ceiling bookcases filled with the issues of more than forty-five years of Playboy.  Sitting across from me on the edge of the bed are my neighbor Melissa and her younger sister Andrea. They want to see the issues of the months  and the years they were born. I hand Melissa the bound volume containing the first four issues of 1974. She quickly flips through and zeros in on February Playmate Francine Park’s pictorial. The opening spread doesn’t get her attention as much, but as she turns the page, at the bottom of the next page is a shot of reclining Francine with her eyes dreamily closed, her torso lifted slightly by the pillow underneath and rest of her body seductively sloping downward. Her right hand reaches up above framing her head, the left hand resting down by her thigh. And staring right at Melissa is her ample tuft, dark and dense, bushier than a bird’s nest. And I see Melissa pointing at it and then hear her screaming exclamation:   Oh my God! Those girls had pubic hair!!!.

© Haresh Shah 2013

Illustration: Jordan Rutherford

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

Next Friday: January 11, 2013

TELEVISION, VCR, CAMCORDER & ME

I have been incessantly and relentlessly pelted by e-mail, mail orders and even over the telephone, companies offering me package deals for satellite/cable services. When I tell them, I own no television to start with, they are left with a speechless Oh!

Tags , , , , , , ,
Categories Uncategorized