Column

My first abiding memory of Los Angeles and indeed the leitmotif of all my subsequent trips is the LA cab. Musty, dank, dingy and invariably driven by an Armenian, Russian or Tajikistani they are as much the only usable mode of public transport as a glimpse at the grim and poor immigrant face of LA.

Indeed, I being the quintessential Bombay girl bred on public transport, had valiantly hit the subway and buses on my first trip into LA till the inscrutable topography of the city and the sullen faces of Mexican and African hoi polloi shamed me back into the cabs.

And two nights later when I was being dropped back to my hotel in a vintage Bentley it was as if the plump Latina matrons and vest-clad Afro teens hadn’t ever existed. The Crash-like reality of LA hit me; many, many disparate world exist within LA all within touching distance but none realising or feeling the presence of the other.

The second thing about LA that’s feeds its myth would obviously have to be Hollywood. Not just the hill with the stencilled alphabets but the idea of fame, money, Malibu mansions, marquee, and power; a sort of potent elixir and aphrodisiac rolled into one.

My week in LA as a Program Acquisitions client attending the annual TV Screenings is usually a blur of mint-fresh pilots made on million-dollar budgets, elegant lunches in studio porticos, and lore of secret labyrinths within 20th Century Fox Studios now only accessed by Mr Murdoch.Upfront parties with cast members like Donald Sutherland (imposing), Eva Longoria (tiny), Taye Diggs (hot) and Salma Hayek (normal) only sweetens this heady mix.

But a reality check can never be too far behind in LA. I once happened to have an old college friend in LA , doing a summer job between his media course in Boston.

And of course he had to stay in the seediest dump ever (aka student hostel) bang in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard, one step away from Kodak Theatre and light years away from the Hollywood Dream.

After meetings every day when I visited his hostel, the stench of rotting dreams from all the wannashine stand-up comedians, scriptwriters and actors whittling away their lives in that bed n’ breakfast hit me hard.

From delusional brags of upcoming gigs to claims of exclusive invites to studio parties, those recounts from scrawny men with lanky hair and hungry eyes would have been downright amusing if they weren’t pitiful.

I imagined myself, an outsider to LA just standing in the middle of the street and reaching out both my arms and touching these two extremes, and wondered why no one who belonged there could do the same and bridge the gap, till I realised that maybe no one really belongs to LA.

But then, that eureka! moment in life finally arrived at a client dinner on Sunset Boulevard. I was making my way through the Kobe steak and mouthfuls of India Talk when I happened to glance at the next table, and there sitting an arms length away from me having dinner with a friend was a pleasantly handsome man with a slight stubble, a green shirt, a grey jacket thrown over casually and a lock of hair falling across his face.

I almost choked on the prime rib. Was that Keanu Reeves? My first instinct was to gawk and gape till I realised that I was a media professional having dinner with one of the honchos of ABC News and thus by association supposed to be quite grown up and elegant myself.

I just thought back to the geeky girl in two plaits and said to myself, “You’ve come a long way baby!” I can’t say I like LA. But I can never quite get it out of system. Maybe therein lies the essence of this city.