Nandini

I had this film in my head for several years. The idea came during the work I did on Larger Than Life, my documentary on Indian Film Culture. It wouldn’t go away, so there was no other way but to go and do it.

I had a burning need to be free. I was so fed up with the usual production system, did not want it – and thereby a forced marriage with a producer, a lot of papers, yet again, to the producers advantage, an elaborated budget, and a lot of discussions – on my neck. I therefore paid the whole thing myself, and The Film Workshop took it in.

I had been in Bombay a lot with Larger Than Life, and even though there are lots of cows in some parts of the city, I now wanted to go to a provincial town. Udaipur in Rajasthan. There I know a guy, Laxmi.

I would need a helper. I would have to walk around with a cow all day and what would I do when I for example needed to pee?! Toilets in India are not right at hand. It could take time. Where would the cow go meanwhile? I would have to go and search for her again. Therefore a helper… with a mobile phone. That should solve the problem.

Laxmi himself is disabled and can’t walk. But he knows a lot of people in the town, so… You can take Prakash, he said, he also knows about cows, he is from the village. Prakash is Laxmis cook.

So it became. Prakash and I walked around for some days. I explained to him that he should stay in the half circle behind me and should not speak, whilst I was shooting. It didn’t work out completely as thought, but it worked, and he was good company. Later I took some days on my own.

I had though of just one cow. It ended with four. Gold horn, Mother, Lady Di and Shoe Cow. As different from each other as we are.

I didn’t use headphones to avoid as much attention as possible. But it was there anyway… to the point of screaming!

Indians are extremely curious and it is only in the most fancy areas of the big cities, that they don’t freak our by the sight of a camera… and then a white lady with a camera! Very difficult! They happily let go of whatever they are busy with, place themselves right in front of the lens and keep standing and starring, possibly smiling and waving. And then there are the children who constantly pester by positioning themselves right in front, often teasing… and by asking for photos all the time.

Therefore I couldn’t have the screen open either. Immediately there would be a crowd wanting to look, talking away and asking questions. Impossible. So, the viewfinder only. It is, on my camera, smaller than a stamp and black-white. It was difficult. I couldn’t see much, had a hard time focusing. There are still many blurred pictures in the film.

Humans have spoiled lots of otherwise good material here.

I was often walking around in crazy traffic. There are things lying in the street you should not step in, there are potholes and irregularities. Everything happened. I have been run over, stepped in cow- and dog shit, twisted my foot, been butted several times, partly by unknown cows, partly by 2 of my leads, Mother and Shoe Cow. Besides this I had constant pains in my neck from bad positioning looking into the viewfinder.

It was a pretty wild trip.

I thank Flemming Buhl Olsen for cover, Niels Raunkjær, The Royal Veterinary And Agricultural University, for kind assistance regarding cows, Simon Fairclough for help with English voice over and cover, and last but not least, Mads Nielsen for many months of voluntary editing.

Helle Ryslinge, Mai 2006