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Reflections on India - Marwah Studios Visit

I have been back here in the UK now for nearly two weeks and yet India is definately still with me and I am missing the colour, vibrancy and general mass of activity that defined a lot of what India is about.  Being back in the UK and reflecting on our visit, travels and experiences I came across the selection of photos from our visit to Marwah studios and within them was a great shot of Sandeep Marwah the studios founder and director.  

Mr Marwah was a whirlwind of a man so passionate about film, tv and media that it was almost impossible to get him to talk about anything other than this and his other passion, education and social enterprise.  Marwah studios is a mini-bollywood in Delhi, it has a university attached to it as well allowing students to learn in a real live environment and it's policy is completely hands on rather than the theoretical approach that we take in the west.  

Sandeep Marwah is actually the founder of the area of Noida in Delhi which is now affectionally known as Film City, amazingly he is also responsible for more short films than anyone else in the world approximately 1500 and has association with 2500 TV shows, 70 feature films.

Noida where film city was started used to be wasteland and slums this has been re-developed however people where not displaced in it's creation and Marwah studios and they have built school facilities to educate the children of their locality to help lift them out of their current social situation.

During our visit we of course had to take part in a lecture about the film industry and films in India, the lecture was fantastic and covered so many aspects of movie theory that certainly I had never even dreamt about.  After one lecture it was easy to see how students learn so much so quickly and why this is the only educational establishment in the world that has a 100% employment rate of it's graduates.

Steven who was on our trip had studied media and marketing at university said...

“I have never experienced a lecture like it, I studied media at university and none of my lectures were never like that!” 

Richard Deans

Beginnings...

 
 

We have been in India now for about 24 hours and it is hard even now to write about everything that we have seen, felt and experienced. You cannot got India and not be amazed by how busy it is all the time, constantly moving and seemingly chaotic.

India is like a huge firework on the senses it explodes in a huge shower of colour, it is bright, loud and interesting and it draws you in. We have been out now for our first orientation walk, picked up some rupees which I'm still trying to get my head round as it seems you get an awful lot for your money - 6 drinks cost me around £1.10! On the orientation walk a family of monkeys walked along the rooftops next to us for a while which brought a smile to our weary faces. Now the one thing I really must mention is the food which there is no other word for other than incredible! I made a promise to myself to say yes to any opportunity or experience that I was offered whilst I was here in India and I can see this making me put on some extra weight whilst I am here. I think the others that I am with find it extremely amusing that I have eaten 6 different Indian meals in such a short space of time, (it is just too good not to eat it) There is plenty more to say and so many more things that we have seen and done today however I am just getting my self ready to go out on our first visit so will update later on...