Hooray for Bollywood

Been off-line for awhile. This being our home stretch (in a quite literal sense) we've been moving and seeing things at a brisk pace. We were in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) recently. Mumbai is the main home of the Indian movie industry usually refered to as "Bollywood". They make a lot of films in Bollywood - upwards of 800 a year, I believe. For reasons I don't fully understand, the makers of films in India like to have non-Indians appear as extras. This is so common that the Lonely Planet guidebook even has some pointers on places you might get "discovered".

One recent day, Tami and I were walking into our guesthouse and a man asked us if we wanted to be extras. Tami hesitated b/c she had to replace her camera that had just died. I thought, "Why not?" and arranged to be picked up the next morning at 6:00 a.m. From the very first, it was clear that this was not going to be a...glamorous endeavor. You see, three or four blocks up the street is the Taj Palace, the nicest hotel in Mumbai. We saw Westerners of all stripes coming and going through the Taj's noble portal every time we passed. No, to find his Euro/North American faces, the casting agent came instead to the small cluster of guesthouses (some might call it a ghetto) frequented by backpackers. I guess when you're in the background it's not so important that you have long straggly hair or haven't shaved in weeks (as did the Argentine who was with us). They just want folks with round eyes and light skin.....that, and they only want to pay 500 Rupees a day (about $15). Whatever, it wasn’t about cash. The 500 roops didn’t even cover our room. I figured it might be worth some laughs…and it was….for about two or maybe three of the nineteen hours.

I and a couple other sleepy looking scruffs piled into a small bus with about a dozen people of various national origins but all uniformly European. No one talked except for one, probably over caffeinated young woman from Buffalo, NY who announced to her friends that it was “croissant time”. Where she got one in Mumbai I do not know. Our shuttle driver sped off through pre-rush hour Mumbai with speed being the operative word. We bumped and turned and jostled on roads I’d have driven at half the speed and that in a sports car. He clearly had a deadline and in this case the operative word, I hoped, wasn’t going to be dead. We only got stopped by one cop. I watched the driver not so slyly slip him a handful of bills and we were rolling again in less than two minutes. It took us a full hour to cross Mumbai, 100% of the way by surface streets. It’s a BIG city. At last we wound our way through a very stinky little slum then a line of trees and finally out to the edge of a broad beach.

All the accoutrements I would have expected were there – generator truck, props, cameras, lighting equipment, tents, etc. It was a real production. The “white folks” first stop was at our canteen setup. Breakfast on the beach was a decent way to decompress from the terror of the breakneck Rally of Mumbai.

Most of the people just nibbled but I dug right in and piled my plate high. Something instinctive told me that there were no guarantees when I’d get a chance to eat again and thank heavens I did. With about 150 people trying to coordinate shooting on a beach, take after take pushed lunch from noon to one to two and so on. Almost all the extras were moaning with hunger (and boredom) by mid-day. The “stars” had their own little table with snacks and tea and coffee but it was made clear to a couple of the riff-raff that we weren’t supposed to touch it.

They hustled us through breakfast to "wardrobe" where we were fitted in whatever passed for the Indian idea of beachwear for westerners. The girls got a lot of floral print things that hid skin and the guys got shorts and singlets that made us look like strongmen from the early 1900's.

Work commenced. It turned out we were shooting a "two-fer" that day: one commercial for Sony Handycams and one for an Indian bank - both themed with families at the beach.

It was also fun to see the production assistants run and jump...and splash...to get the shots. I'm glad I don't do this for a living.

The best part was undoubtedly hearing the director shriek at his assistants on the loudspeakers in his mix of Hindi and English. As the tide receded from the prepared set, "WE'RE LOSING THE F*CKING PANNI (water) MAHESH! IF WE DON'T GET IT THIS TAKE YOU CAN KISS YOUR OPENING SHOT F*CKING GOODBYE! CELLO!! CELLO!! (go!, go!)"

My role was supremely easy. I got placed next to the lovely Genvieve from Montreal. Our background roll was to make conversation and look like we were having fun at the beach. Not the easiest fifteen bucks I've ever made but certainly not the hardest.