‘Second Thoughts’ Guest Post by Reshel Shah Kapoor

Second thoughts
Guest Post by Reshel Shah Kapoor

It’s so difficult to go backwards and put it into words. As I sit here listening to my jukebox of music I am trying to rattle my brain on what I did next. So much has happened in the last eight months to put it into words, this was more difficult than I would have imagined!

After I had come to a realization that I wanted to see the lives of hijras through their eyes, not as hijras but as people, I needed to think how I could do this. A filmmaker once said if you are going to make a documentary – what is different about yours compared to the rest that had been done on the same subject?

Months had passed; I had read more and watched way too many films to try and see what else I could capture and what could be the pinnacle point in my film. I would sit with friends enjoying cocktails, speaking to my family, being at work trying to ignore the subject maybe because it was done so many times maybe there was nothing I could do. After a few weeks I realized I had to make a document of my thoughts on celluloid; it was too much on my mind.

So I gathered a crew first, made sure I had people on board who I could trust and wanted to do this for the passion more than the pennies. I knew who I wanted to work with; being a teacher I have seen my students grow into professionals and was waiting for the day for me to work with them. That time was ahead. Happily they came on board and the excitement just grew (more on my crew will be in next week’s blog)

I remember sitting down one day in my office, it was late, well if you call 9pm late then it was late! I sat with a blank paper and my pencil. Tapping the pencil on the paper my canvas remained empty for a couple of hours, I just kept blowing bubbles. Then I started writing, one word after the other, whatever would come out. Soon I realized the words I had put down (women, love, pain, friendship, family, destiny, how, when) and I had it. I was going to do a documentary of a young man’s transformation into becoming a hijra. I was so excited I had it; I knew what I was going to do and wanted to tell everyone and shout it out…how wrong I was.

Website: http://www.blacksheepdocumentary.com

Twitter handle: @ReshShah @blacksheepfilm