Cuba - A filmmaker shares his intimate story
Cuba is a country that I have been in love with for a long long time, and recently when I met my friend Aman Mahajan in Mumbai he told me about his recent trip to the country and his experiences there. His stories moved me and I invited him to share his story through my blog.
This is his story.
Read more: Things to know before traveling to Cuba
That winter, I took a trip to Cuba, mostly driven by my desire to beat McDonalds to it. Thanks to many benevolent souls, I made my way to Havana in the last week of December. In a country that was once home to the Mafia, Che Guevara, and Ernest Hemingway… A country that once saw a band of barbado’s led by Fidel Castro create a guerilla revolution against the corrupt General Batista and his military forces. And a country that still continues to stand up against its mighty neighbour, America. The lady at immigration smiled casually as she let me into this mysterious land. I noticed that the mostly female staff at Havana airport wore short skirts and fishnet stockings. I can’t remember a warmer welcome into any other country. On the drive out of the airport, the first thing I noticed was the thick, familiar smell of gasoline in the air. It smelt just like the streets of Delhi in the early 90s.
Love is the only word that can describe what I felt when I saw the myriad vintage American cars in Havana. Pink Cadillac’s, mint condition Chevy Bel Air’s, handsome Studebaker’s… These objects of desire were everywhere around. They drove us around town for 5 CUC (approx. USD 5) a ride with reggaeton blaring from some of them. They made me want to touch them, and know their story. They made me pull out my beloved camera in the rain. I’d walk for miles, just photographing them in motion.
My love affair with cars started in my childhood, when I was growing up in Tripoli, Libya in the mid 80’s. A memory of ugly Peugot’s, horns blaring as they drove way too fast on the highway to Misurata stays with me. Back then, I would pester my mother to let me drive. She’d put me in her lap in our two-door Honda and let me steer. We returned to India in the early 90’s. My fascination with driving grew all along. I’d steal the family Maruti 800 and drive it around the neighborhood at night. One day when my mother took me for lunch to Nirula’s, I told her that I wanted to drive back home. “If you can back the car up without stalling, you can drive it home,” she replied. I drove her home that day. I was thirteen years old and I’ve been driving ever since.
A few days in to our stay in Havana, while consuming a boozy lunch at a Lonely Planet recommended restaurant in the old town, my friend and I admired a handsome couple dancing. He must’ve been in his 60s and she in her early 40s. They were at a nearby table and had been drinking copious amounts of wine. During our languorous lunch, I walked the streets nearby and asked around for casa’s to stay at. A while later, when my friend went to the bar, that handsome man sitting across waved at me. “Where are you from?”
“India,” I smiled, pretty sure he’d be surprised.
He smiled back, wide. I could see his face clearly now. He looked so much like my father. Those full cheeks, that warm smile and silver mane.
“I love Bombay. I was there 15 years ago. Where are you staying in Havana?”
“At an Airbnb in Vedado. But we’re looking for a new casa,” I said. That’s when he nudged his pretty companion, “Tania, give him your card.” She handed it to me gingerly. “It’s the best fuckin’ casa in Havana. And for you, my friend from Bombay… it’s for free.” Tania winced and smacked the old man on his shoulder. He laughed out loud as he lifted his wine glass to me.
Tania’s casa is right next to the legendary Hotel Nacional, on the Malecón, which is the iconic 8 km long esplanade along the Havana coast. In 1946, the Hotel Nacional played host to a historic meeting of the leaders of the United States Mafia families. It was supposedly arranged by the feared Mafioso, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, who had been exiled from the US to Italy in February 1946. Luciano escaped from Italy and came to Cuba. He stayed in room 824 at the Nacional and was elated to be in sin city Havana. The hotel was shut for general public the entire month of December that year for the ‘Havana Conference’. We paid $350 to stay there on our last night in Havana, in room 823, the one right next to Luciano’s. Standing by the window, I read aloud from a book called, “The Mafia in Havana” by Enrique Cirules and mouthed Luciano’s lines in a faux New York gangster accent.
When I got to the room the bellhop opened up the curtains on them big windows and I looked out. I could see almost the whole city. I think it was the palm trees that got me. Everyplace you looked there was Palm trees and it made me feel I was back in Miami. All of a sudden I realized for the first time in over ten years that there was no handcuffs on me and nobody was breathin’ over my shoulder, which was the way I used to feel even while I was wanderin’ around Italy. When I looked down over the Caribbean from my window, I realized something else; the water was just as pretty as the Bay of Naples, but it was only 90 miles from the United States. That meant I was practically back in America.
However, the majority of our stay in Havana was at Tania’s apartment. Situated across the street from the Nacional, we paid 35 CUC for a comfortable room on the 6th floor with the same view that we had at the Nacional. Manolo, my father’s doppelganger from Spain was staying at Tania’s casa as well. He’d invite us to join him for a drink from time to time and we got to know each other better. I felt like I was with a rather rambunctious version of my dad. Having spent a week at Tania’s, I was secretly sad when it was time to leave.
My friends and I hooked up a ride to take us to Cienfuegos. The car belonged to a former Colonel from the Army who drove us at an average speed of 120 kmph on the highway in his Lada, an old Russian tank of a car. After spending a few delightful days there, we went to Trinidad where we stayed in a sleepy fishing village called La Boca. Our casa overlooked the Bay of Casilda. We slept with the sound of the lapping waves and awoke to a homemade breakfast made with love.
Our hosts invited us to the village party on New Years Eve. We sliced meat off a pig’s head and wolfed it down with local wine and stiff Cuba Libres. We hung out with a family from a snowed-in German village who were seeking refuge in the warmth of Cuba. We made broken conversation with the local village folk. We learnt that every New Years Eve for Cubano’s ends with the burning of an effigy into which they immerse all their negativity of the previous year into. I sat down next to the burning man as he slowly faded away and thought of my dead father. I cried. And I laughed. As I listened to the splashing sound of the waves, I told myself I’m letting go of the year gone by. I knew it was a new beginning in that moment. I smiled as I looked into the ocean across the rocky sand. Then someone yelled my name. The party over, it was time to go home.
As we walked to our Casa, we saw bare-chested men on the road. Sprawled on the tarmac… Supine. Rolling. Dancing. Laughing. In another minute or so, we found ourselves at another party. Bottles are thrust in our face to swig off of. A septuagenarian woman is grinding a post-pubescent man. We drink together. We grind together. Suddenly, this party of eight expands to two dozen. It’s close to 3 am now. In a haze, I find myself dancing with a gorgeous mulatta. Where on earth did she come from? What’s her name? Her hands are holding my waist tight. Her tongue is in my mouth. My hands are on her perky derriere. I don’t understand a word she speaks and she doesn’t either. But we’re having a conversation. “This is pure fucking bliss”, I’m thinking to myself when the owner of the house, who is built like a bull walks up to us. I’m a little scared now, but he smiles wide and gives me a sweaty bear hug. Then asks us to follow him.
We’re walking through dark narrow alleys. I am thinking, “Where the fuck is he taking us? And what’s her fucking name?” He opens a door, waves us in, winks at me. Then shuts the door and walks away. On a mattress on the floor are two little children, fast asleep. I open the door, make a hand gesture and shout, “Oye. Bambino!?” What the fuck! He tilts his head into folded hands and says, “It’s cool” as he walks away. I look at the sleeping kids. I look at her. She looks at me. I don’t remember her name.
In our culture, we tend to mourn death under a shroud of sadness. I’d rather find reason to celebrate this journey instead. On his deathbed, I smiled as I caressed my old man’s hand and looked into his marbled grey eyes. I refused to be sad in the few hours that we had left together. I berated my mother for her intermittent cries and made her play with his handsome silver hair instead. I touched his face, massaged his arms, and spoke to him tenderly as his heartbeat slowly faded away. He would’ve enjoyed Cuba, I think.
This is his story.
Cuba - My journey from darkness to light
I left Bombay the night I got the call that broke the news of my father’s illness. In Delhi the next morning, the doctors told us that unless he miraculously responds to chemotherapy, he had only a few months left to live. I decided to be with him till his dying breath. My father passed away in the month of August 2015, thirteen months later.Read more: Things to know before traveling to Cuba
That winter, I took a trip to Cuba, mostly driven by my desire to beat McDonalds to it. Thanks to many benevolent souls, I made my way to Havana in the last week of December. In a country that was once home to the Mafia, Che Guevara, and Ernest Hemingway… A country that once saw a band of barbado’s led by Fidel Castro create a guerilla revolution against the corrupt General Batista and his military forces. And a country that still continues to stand up against its mighty neighbour, America. The lady at immigration smiled casually as she let me into this mysterious land. I noticed that the mostly female staff at Havana airport wore short skirts and fishnet stockings. I can’t remember a warmer welcome into any other country. On the drive out of the airport, the first thing I noticed was the thick, familiar smell of gasoline in the air. It smelt just like the streets of Delhi in the early 90s.
Love is the only word that can describe what I felt when I saw the myriad vintage American cars in Havana. Pink Cadillac’s, mint condition Chevy Bel Air’s, handsome Studebaker’s… These objects of desire were everywhere around. They drove us around town for 5 CUC (approx. USD 5) a ride with reggaeton blaring from some of them. They made me want to touch them, and know their story. They made me pull out my beloved camera in the rain. I’d walk for miles, just photographing them in motion.
My love affair with cars started in my childhood, when I was growing up in Tripoli, Libya in the mid 80’s. A memory of ugly Peugot’s, horns blaring as they drove way too fast on the highway to Misurata stays with me. Back then, I would pester my mother to let me drive. She’d put me in her lap in our two-door Honda and let me steer. We returned to India in the early 90’s. My fascination with driving grew all along. I’d steal the family Maruti 800 and drive it around the neighborhood at night. One day when my mother took me for lunch to Nirula’s, I told her that I wanted to drive back home. “If you can back the car up without stalling, you can drive it home,” she replied. I drove her home that day. I was thirteen years old and I’ve been driving ever since.
A few days in to our stay in Havana, while consuming a boozy lunch at a Lonely Planet recommended restaurant in the old town, my friend and I admired a handsome couple dancing. He must’ve been in his 60s and she in her early 40s. They were at a nearby table and had been drinking copious amounts of wine. During our languorous lunch, I walked the streets nearby and asked around for casa’s to stay at. A while later, when my friend went to the bar, that handsome man sitting across waved at me. “Where are you from?”
“India,” I smiled, pretty sure he’d be surprised.
He smiled back, wide. I could see his face clearly now. He looked so much like my father. Those full cheeks, that warm smile and silver mane.
“I love Bombay. I was there 15 years ago. Where are you staying in Havana?”
“At an Airbnb in Vedado. But we’re looking for a new casa,” I said. That’s when he nudged his pretty companion, “Tania, give him your card.” She handed it to me gingerly. “It’s the best fuckin’ casa in Havana. And for you, my friend from Bombay… it’s for free.” Tania winced and smacked the old man on his shoulder. He laughed out loud as he lifted his wine glass to me.
Tania’s casa is right next to the legendary Hotel Nacional, on the Malecón, which is the iconic 8 km long esplanade along the Havana coast. In 1946, the Hotel Nacional played host to a historic meeting of the leaders of the United States Mafia families. It was supposedly arranged by the feared Mafioso, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, who had been exiled from the US to Italy in February 1946. Luciano escaped from Italy and came to Cuba. He stayed in room 824 at the Nacional and was elated to be in sin city Havana. The hotel was shut for general public the entire month of December that year for the ‘Havana Conference’. We paid $350 to stay there on our last night in Havana, in room 823, the one right next to Luciano’s. Standing by the window, I read aloud from a book called, “The Mafia in Havana” by Enrique Cirules and mouthed Luciano’s lines in a faux New York gangster accent.
When I got to the room the bellhop opened up the curtains on them big windows and I looked out. I could see almost the whole city. I think it was the palm trees that got me. Everyplace you looked there was Palm trees and it made me feel I was back in Miami. All of a sudden I realized for the first time in over ten years that there was no handcuffs on me and nobody was breathin’ over my shoulder, which was the way I used to feel even while I was wanderin’ around Italy. When I looked down over the Caribbean from my window, I realized something else; the water was just as pretty as the Bay of Naples, but it was only 90 miles from the United States. That meant I was practically back in America.
However, the majority of our stay in Havana was at Tania’s apartment. Situated across the street from the Nacional, we paid 35 CUC for a comfortable room on the 6th floor with the same view that we had at the Nacional. Manolo, my father’s doppelganger from Spain was staying at Tania’s casa as well. He’d invite us to join him for a drink from time to time and we got to know each other better. I felt like I was with a rather rambunctious version of my dad. Having spent a week at Tania’s, I was secretly sad when it was time to leave.
My friends and I hooked up a ride to take us to Cienfuegos. The car belonged to a former Colonel from the Army who drove us at an average speed of 120 kmph on the highway in his Lada, an old Russian tank of a car. After spending a few delightful days there, we went to Trinidad where we stayed in a sleepy fishing village called La Boca. Our casa overlooked the Bay of Casilda. We slept with the sound of the lapping waves and awoke to a homemade breakfast made with love.
Our hosts invited us to the village party on New Years Eve. We sliced meat off a pig’s head and wolfed it down with local wine and stiff Cuba Libres. We hung out with a family from a snowed-in German village who were seeking refuge in the warmth of Cuba. We made broken conversation with the local village folk. We learnt that every New Years Eve for Cubano’s ends with the burning of an effigy into which they immerse all their negativity of the previous year into. I sat down next to the burning man as he slowly faded away and thought of my dead father. I cried. And I laughed. As I listened to the splashing sound of the waves, I told myself I’m letting go of the year gone by. I knew it was a new beginning in that moment. I smiled as I looked into the ocean across the rocky sand. Then someone yelled my name. The party over, it was time to go home.
As we walked to our Casa, we saw bare-chested men on the road. Sprawled on the tarmac… Supine. Rolling. Dancing. Laughing. In another minute or so, we found ourselves at another party. Bottles are thrust in our face to swig off of. A septuagenarian woman is grinding a post-pubescent man. We drink together. We grind together. Suddenly, this party of eight expands to two dozen. It’s close to 3 am now. In a haze, I find myself dancing with a gorgeous mulatta. Where on earth did she come from? What’s her name? Her hands are holding my waist tight. Her tongue is in my mouth. My hands are on her perky derriere. I don’t understand a word she speaks and she doesn’t either. But we’re having a conversation. “This is pure fucking bliss”, I’m thinking to myself when the owner of the house, who is built like a bull walks up to us. I’m a little scared now, but he smiles wide and gives me a sweaty bear hug. Then asks us to follow him.
We’re walking through dark narrow alleys. I am thinking, “Where the fuck is he taking us? And what’s her fucking name?” He opens a door, waves us in, winks at me. Then shuts the door and walks away. On a mattress on the floor are two little children, fast asleep. I open the door, make a hand gesture and shout, “Oye. Bambino!?” What the fuck! He tilts his head into folded hands and says, “It’s cool” as he walks away. I look at the sleeping kids. I look at her. She looks at me. I don’t remember her name.
In our culture, we tend to mourn death under a shroud of sadness. I’d rather find reason to celebrate this journey instead. On his deathbed, I smiled as I caressed my old man’s hand and looked into his marbled grey eyes. I refused to be sad in the few hours that we had left together. I berated my mother for her intermittent cries and made her play with his handsome silver hair instead. I touched his face, massaged his arms, and spoke to him tenderly as his heartbeat slowly faded away. He would’ve enjoyed Cuba, I think.
About the author
Aman Mahajan is a writer/director based in Mumbai. He is the founder of a boutique production house called Troubadour Films. Constantly exploring the possibilities of visual storytelling, he enjoys working on unique film projects. Currently, he is prepping for a film about India's only international female MMA wrestler, editing a music video for an electronic artist that he shot in Marseille, and writing a screenplay for a Bollywood feature film. You can see some of his work on www.amanmahajan.in. |
| Aman Mahajan |
Travel resources to Cuba
It's my dream to travel to Cuba someday, and I am in the process of collating articles to plan a trip there. Though the rest of the world doesn't know it as yet, Cuba has changed a lot over the past few years. Curious about what Cuba was like a decade back? Have a look here: Cuba in 2004.
Here's a really good guide for travel to Cuba which will be my guide when I visit the country. The pictures here will make you drool, but the tips are even more useful and practical.
If you are an American, here is a comprehensive guide to Cuba: Americans Traveling to Cuba – Your One-Stop Travel Guide
Here's a really good guide for travel to Cuba which will be my guide when I visit the country. The pictures here will make you drool, but the tips are even more useful and practical.
If you are an American, here is a comprehensive guide to Cuba: Americans Traveling to Cuba – Your One-Stop Travel Guide
what an awesome read..Beautiful share
ReplyDeleteA little late, but thank you.
DeleteBrilliant wording and what an experience just awesome
ReplyDeleteThanks, Hemal.
Delete