India is constantly changing and so is the country’s definition of cool.
A new 13-part series titled#Indiamywayis all set to give viewers a comprehensive look at what modern India looks like and what 21st century Indians are doing.
What puts the show in a different league is that it is not just exploring sites and locations but telling the stories of real people.
Hosts Paloma Monnappa and Meraj Shah will embark on a road trip across 29 States, going beyond regular tourist hotspots to find out about the new cool wave in the country. They will go through the diverse Indian landscape: from the metropolitan to the rural. The two presenters will meet fun, eclectic characters ranging from celebrities, tribal fashionistas and women wrestlers to tattoo artists and many others.
The audience get a ringside view of the Delhi Drum Circle, which gets people across all ages and professions to try their hand at percussion or see the unexpected side of Old Delhi with Vicky Roy, a street kid turned photographer.
Moving to Haryana, they watch women wrestlers practising at Jaiveer Ka Akhara and meet an engineer-turned-tattoo artist in Chandigarh. Likewise, Rajasthan offers them the auto art by Himanshu Jangid, who has transformed autorickshaws into mobile works of art, besides Haathi Chaap, where elephant poop is turned into paper. They’re all not just fascinating places but also intriguing persons.
Monnappa, an actor, model and surfer, says the true-life stories of those captured in the show were inspiring. “Vicky Roy’s story of hope and ambition proves that sometimes dreams do come true,” she says. For Shah, a lifestyle journalist who covers travel, golf and automobiles, travelling is second nature. “I was amazed in terms of the things people are doing,” says Shah. “There were unexpected activities at the most unexpected places.”
Full of surprises
He cites the example of children doing parkour in Rampur in Uttar Pradesh. This extreme sport is very popular in the West. “One would expect it in Delhi or Mumbai, but at Rampur, never.” The show brings them face to face with a skate park in a remote village of Janwar, where they meet Ulrike Reinhard, the man who built it, and through this, the team explores the philosophy of ‘no school no skateboarding’.
Shah says, “The show made me realise the disconnect I had especially about Tier-II and -III cities and remote areas. I became aware that in these places out-of-the-box thinking and action is catching up,” he says.
“Instead of sticking to conventional jobs and sports, people are choosing what is close to their heart and what they feel passionate about without buckling under family or peer pressure.”
The hosts were amazed to meet a diver and instructor making a living from underwater fashion photography. “I do not know about Monnappa, but I definitely found it bizarre.”
What is noteworthy, observes Shah, is the change in the social fabric. “In comparison to the boys, the girl wrestlers in Haryana were chirpy. They came across as confident and ambitious.”
Similarly, in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, it was surprising to find a fortnightly news channel,Appan Samachar,run entirely by local women. The channel shows its news coverage and scoops to the people at the village square.
Then there was the visit to Sheroes Hangout, a community space and café run by acid attack survivors. “I acted in a short film,Doon ke na Doon, which is based on a true story, where I play an acid attack survivor,” says Monnappa. “So, it was really intense for me to meet these girls but I was amazed to see how confident and empowered they were.” The Sheroes Hangout girls are fighters and there’s a lot to learn from them.
For Shah, it was heartening to discover Ponni, a transgender person teaching Bharatanatyam to slum children at Chennai. “This exhibits a change in our attitude. We are open to letting go of prejudices,” he says. “The slice of life that the show brings to viewers is something they will appreciate,” says Meraj.
#Indiamywaywill be aired every Saturday on Discovery Channel from October 16 at 8 p.m.
The two presenters have met a range
of characters from celebrities to
tribal fashionistas
