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Thursday, June 27, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com MICHIGAN IN COLOR

To Shimla, through Guava Island, with love

The artists that find a way to 
reinvent themselves with every 
project they put out are some 
of the most exciting to watch. 
After a while, it’s quite easy to get 
bored listening to the same song 
repeatedly or to music that you 
can’t relate to at all. This is what 
I enjoy about Donald Glover as an 
artist. He always manages to cre-
ate new art while being relatable 
and sticking to a common under-
lying theme. It’s like his signa-
ture as an artist which makes it 
authentically his.
I would not have expected for a 
funk and jazz album like Awaken, 
My Love! to follow projects like 
Because The Internet or STN MTN 
/ Kauai, which fit more under the 
rap and pop genre. I also would 
not have expected the actor that 
played the lovable and animated 
Troy Barnes on “Community” to 
play a more serious and painfully 
realistic Earn Marks on “Atlanta”. 
 
Glover’s latest project is his short 
film, “Guava Island”, in which he 
co-stars with Rihanna and Letitia 
Wright.
Most of the reviews that I read 
for this project have been positive 
but there are a handful of them 
that have described it as a great 
Childish Gambino music video 
but a bad movie. While Glover 
does use this film to provide visu-
als for his most recent songs, I 

believe that this short film wasn’t 
made to be a traditional award 
winning film; instead, it was 
made to prove a point and to send 
a message. 
The film circulates around the 
Glover’s character Deni Maroon 
and his love for his home Guava 
Island through its art, music and 
culture. Deni stands for artis-
tic freedom while Guava Island 
is ran by an oppressive body of 
power lead by the main antago-
nist, Red. A thought-provoking 
and critical scene that resonated 
with me was when Deni walks 
into his shift late and overhears 
his co-worker talking about mov-
ing to America and opening his 
own business.
Essentially, he talks about liv-
ing the American Dream. Deni 
scoffs at his co-workers dream 
and points out that America is a 
“concept” and that Guava is no 
different. “We live in paradise 
but we don’t have the means to 
live here”. To be honest, Deni has 
a very valid point here.
For ages, the concept of the 
“American 
Dream” 
has 
been 
sought after and idealized by 
many immigrants. People immi-
grated to America based on the 
thought of opportunity and free-
dom. The opportunity to start a 
family and get a well paying job 
and more importantly to be in a 
position to give their kids more 
opportunities 
than 
they 
had 
growing up. And the freedom 
to live as you want to and more 

importantly in a place that toler-
ates different schools of thought.
However, recently the “Ameri-
can Dream” seems to be a bit 
overrated and honestly under-
delivers on many promises. We 
live in a country where mass 
shootings of schools and places 
of worship have become a com-
mon occurrence. We live in a 
country where undocumented 
migrant families are placed cages 
and forced to live in unsanitary 
conditions while our president 
has some sort of fascination 
with building a wall (and scarily 
enough has a sizable proportion 
of the American population who 
agree with him).
I really could write a couple of 
paragraphs more about the scary 
reality that is America, but that 
would just turn this into a rant. 
And to be honest, I can’t defame 
the American Dream that much 
because I’m kind of living it right 
now. If my parents didn’t believe 
in it, I probably wouldn’t have 
the majority of the opportunities 
I have today. I also acknowledge 
that these are my opinions and 
that everyone is entitled to their 
own. But I think that a promi-
nent thing that we should take 
away from art such as Glover’s is 
that we should all be a little more 
aware of the world that we live in 
and more importantly is that we 
should ask more questions and 
have more discussions about it.
Throughout the film, Deni 
takes every opportunity he’s 

DEVAK NANUA 
Summer MiC Managing Editor

given to convince the audience 
that life on Guava still has the 
potential to be paradise.Deni 
demonstrates Guava’s potential 
by performing many Childish 
Gambino songs in a more simplis-
tic and stripped down way. For 
example, “Feels like Summer” is 
performed with a simple three 
chord loop on the acoustic gui-
tar and “This is America” seems 
to have its background track as 
noises from a working factory. At 
the same time all of these songs 
are given background visuals that 
show off the islands natural beau-
ty and vibrant colors.
***
I originally started writing this 
because while watching this film, 
Deni reminded me a lot of my 
brother, Abhi. He’s actually my 
first cousin, but to compensate 
for being an only child and for 
living in a different country from 
the rest of the family, my mother 
and my aunt raised me, Abhi and 
my cousin/sister, Kushu, as sib-
lings.
We 
built 
our 
relationship 
through my frequent trips to 
India over summer break. As a 
kid, Abhi’s head was dispropor-
tionately big for his body. He was 
quick to flash a smile, as he was 
always up to something. I was 
often an accomplice to his mis-
chief, much to the dismay of the 
rest of the family. Abhi is from 
a small town called Palampur 
in Northern India. It’s close to 
Dharamsala, the city where the 
Dalai Lama lives. It’s also men-
tioned in “Oxford Comma” for all 
of you Vampire Weekend fans out 
there.
Palampur is sort of in a valley 
and is surrounded by a lot of hills. 
It’s a great vacation spot but it’s 
sort of detached from the busy 
metropolises that sprawl across 
India. For some reason, as an 
elementary schooler, I couldn’t 
imagine living in such a small 
town. But to my comfort, at the 
end of each vacation Abhi would 
always reassure me that one day 
he’d move to the United States.
He would always crack a 
goofy smile as we waved good-
bye to each other. The last time 
I saw Abhi was last summer, as I 
returned to India after six years. 
The once short and smiley kid 
that I once knew was completely 
unrecognizable. He’s around 6’ 1’’ 
now and more of an introverted 
brooder. If Drake’s music was a 
person, that pretty much sums up 

my brother.
There were moments during 
my trip when my brother became 
a little more recognizable, but 
this was mainly through the lack 
of coordination he possesses with 
his tall frame. He’s going through 
his first year of college in a town 
called Shimla, which is away from 
home. Therefore, my aunt can’t 
really keep up with him as fre-
quently as she did. Considering 
that I hear about his whereabouts 
from my mother, who hears it 
from my aunt, my reactions are 
pretty delayed
But with every piece of infor-
mation I get, it’s like I’m meet-
ing a new person. Recently, he 
won a personality contest which 
is exactly what it sounds like, I 
think? He also won a traditional 
dance competition with his dance 
team. Another thing that I picked 
up was that he’s kind of turning 
away from the notion of immi-
grating to America and instead 
would rather settle down in his 
hometown. Many of my fam-
ily members sort of scoff at my 
brother like he’s going through 
a phase or that his hobbies take 
away from his time for school 
work.
To be honest, I also thought 
that my brother had sort of lost it. 
But it’s only recently that I real-
ized two things. The first is that 
I should be proud of my brother 
trying to give back to his home-
town. He sees something in those 
people that no one else could pos-
sibly see and as long as he’s pas-
sionate about his work and happy 
where he is, there really is no rea-
son for him to chase the Ameri-
can Dream. The second is that the 
artist that finds a way to reinvent 
him or herself with every project 
that they put out are some of the 
most exciting to watch.
My brother is in the process of 
reinventing himself and I can’t 
wait to see what he becomes. 
I should also mention that he 
turned 19 last week. This is sort of 
a belated birthday gift (sorry). So 
as your older brother, by a whole 
year I offer these words. Good 
luck on your journey to become 
the sort of man that you want to 
be. But always remember that to 
me you’ll always be that kid who 
always seemed to find a way to 
make the ordinary extraordinary 
at our grandparent’s house in 
Delhi. And not to forget the kid 
who mistakenly drank insecticide 
thinking it was sprite.

