3rd ND meeting this month, 4th episode shoot.
Met Vir Kapoor, son of Gopika Kapoor. Quite an interesting day. Relatively quiet day also.
I've read about Vir in Gopika's book Beyond the Blue, so I know a little bit about him already.
IRL, he's shy and prefers to be by himself. But he's also very excited to bring you into his world. First he shows us this big puzzle that he's putting together, it's a wide-angle drone picture of Cinque Terre. Every time I read about Vir doing puzzles I pictured those 20 or 30-piece things that I used to do. But this was a giant, 200-piece puzzle that he was putting together. I ask him how do you do it? He doesn't reply. I tell him you just know where each piece goes, don't you, and he looks at me and said yes. Lol.
Then he shows us his Meccano creations. A cable car, a windmill, an RC car, a radio... all things he's built from scratch. And things he's excited to show us. With his radio he's just changing channels, with his windmill he's showing us how the blades spin. I pick up a small aircraft model from his shelf and I see him quickly look at me and then look away. So I ask if I'm allowed to touch his things. He wants to be nice, so he quickly says yes. I tell him it's okay to say no, I'll back off. And immediately he changes his answer to no. We all laugh.
We go down for a bit, and he shows me how well he cycles. We play with Jazz for a bit, until it starts to rain and we have to come back up. Every time I ask him something that's vague, he taps his finger on his chin to show he's thinking. Again, we take ample breaks, and every time Aditi or I pick up on a sensory overload we ask if he wants a break and he always says yes.
I spot all these board games in his room and ask him which one he wants to play. He chooses snakes & ladders, so we play a game. It's relatively quiet, we're rolling the dice and taking our turns. Vir wins, and we all give him hi-fives.
It feels like I already know Vir. Not so much because of the book, but because his face seems very familiar. Vir is extremely accommodating with us, and every time I tell him he can be frank and tell us to go away if he's getting irritated, he says no, he's fine and we can be friends.
Since he's super into gadgets and technology, I spot him looking at my camera rig. I almost want to ask him if he wants to check it out, maybe take a couple shots. But then I realize I wouldn't have anything to shoot that with. Maybe another time we will go back and make him shoot something that we can put up on the channel? If he's into it, sure.
Vir takes us through his family photo albums. He laughs at times because he's made a face in some pictures, or worn a wig, or someone's doing something funny. He shows us his distant relatives, his whole family, everyone, in a quiet voice... just simply saying, "my nani, my buas, my chachu, my cousins..."
After lunch we sit and chat with Gopika and Gayatri. She speaks about their relationship and how protective she is of Vir. They like watching movies together, sometimes they do Wordle.
The nicest part is when it's time for Vir's afternoon nap. Some time between 3 pm and 4 pm Vir comes out and asks if we're done with his portions so he can sleep. Not yet, I tell him, but - not wanting to disrupt his schedule - I say that if he wants to sleep he can.
He thinks for a split second, then says, no it's okay, he'll wait.
Vir's world is pretty interesting. At 17 he does Meccano and Lego already. He's learning how to code, he bakes, and has full plans to become a coder-model. He likes to dance, and he's part of a choir too. There's an evident creative spark in him. And funny things make him laugh, like seeing a picture of a snake wearing glasses or Jazz chewing on our tripod.
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