Panaji, Goa-- Mumbai and Bollywood
Hello,
This will be my first entry written here sitting at the computer. I may borrow from some writing I did last night, but at the time I was fairly uninspired. The result is that what I wrote intended for this blog was excessively long winded and dull, so I won't include it in full. Here goes.
Bollywood
Shortly after I had written my last entry that first night in Bollywood, Christoph and I were asked to be extras in a Bollywood film. The Lonely Planet mentinoed that this happens sometimes, and it sounded pretty cool to me, but I didn't expect to be so lucky. So we gladly accepted, and, as promised, the fellow who asked came by our room at 8:30am the next morning. A few cabs and a local train ride later, Christoph and I, along with 7 other backpacker types also staying at dingy hotels in Colaba--the section of town where backpackers tend to stay--found ourselves at a well-kept medium-sized theater in some unknown section of the great sprawling metropolis that is now called Mumbai. The theater had been taken over by the people involved in the film--trailers, big cables, busy looking people with headsets moving about. We were escorted down to the underground garage that they had designated their "junior artist" (extra) holding area. After just a few minutes I was given a costume to be a coat-taker and led upstairs, where I proceeded to take a coat in the background of the opening scene. Though the scene was only 10 seconds long, myself and CJ, a Swedish fellow playing a security guard in the scene, were there at least an hour. We did the scene over many times, but what really made it stretch out were these bizarrely long breaks between cuts. One contributing factor was the presence in the scene of India's supposed "best actress" (in fact she had won this award three consecutive years in the major Indian movie awards), a high-strung, high maintenaince individual. Between shoots, her hair was redone each time (though she didn't so much as take a step), and at one point they had change out one of the Indian extras because the extra's sari was too similar to this actresses own sari.
The film, it turned out, was to be titled "The Contest," the basic plot being an American Idol style competition, but amongst an Indian community living in New Jersey. Thus the need for white coat-takers and security guards. We found out later it was not a true Bollywood film, and was in fact intended as a "crossover", which is why it was being filmed in English.
Anyhow, the day stretched on, with lots of sitting around in the garage. A little later CJ, his friend Alex, a German fellow named Thomas and myself were called back up to be security guards (note that I have now been cast in two separate roles in the film, an amusing thing given how seriously the people making the film were taking themselves and the film). I'm going to borrow hare from the blog-equivalent kept by the Swedish duo, as they offer an excellent description of our security guard uniforms: "We were slightly (to say the least) disappointed when we were given XXL T-shirts with a “SECURITY” logo on the back, baggy black ill-fitting jeans, green(?) socks, belt suited for Rosanne Barr and black grandpa-style shoes. After the feminine make-up guy had his way with our faces we looked absolutely nothing like Will Smith in “Men in Black” – to say that we resembled something out of “Police Academy 14” was closer to the truth. Welcome to the multi-billion business of Bollywood" (more at http://www.resedagboken.se/Default.aspx?documentId=3&userId=63535§ion=blog&journeyId=44166.) All I'll add is that despite "SECURITY" written on our backs, our backs never once appeared on film; our fronts were blank, except for little cards hung from our necks that read "Volunteer".
Well, we ended up mostly sitting there in theater for hours on end, one of us at a time standing in a position such that we might provide a leg or an arm way in the background. Meanwhile the other "foreigners" (white backpackers) were just sitting in the garage down below. Fortunately for us they gave us locked-channel radios for our costumes, which we turned on and set to the same channel, allowing us to banter in the ear of whichever "security guard" was on film at the moment. Without this the filming would have been unbearable as it dragged on. And it dragged on and on and on. It seemed as though they were making the whole thing up as they went along, with their one camera. It's hard for me to verbalized how unprofessional and badly organized they were. In all, we were on the set a mind-numbing 14 hours, for which we were compensated Rs 500 (roughly $11). Though I was cast twice, some poor people, such as Christoph, were never once cast, meaning they just sat there all day.
Though the filming itself was a little tedious, on the whole what made it a good experience was getting to know and hang out with the other "foreigners": the Swedes, a Kiwi couple they had been travelling with (and were also on the set, cast as one of two white couples in the audience, both attired in Indian clothes), a German couple (the other white couple in the audience), an Aussie pair, an English couple, and the German Thomas. Christoph and myself hung out especially with Thomas in particular, and they are now travelling together in the north, first stop Varanasi. But it was really good just to get to know somewhat a bunch of cool people, further dampening any fears of isolation during my time here. Though some were just starting off their time here like Christoph and myself, others were well into their travels in India, and so had a great deal of helpful, up to date advice about various parts of the country.
Running low on time--this is the problem with writing on the computer, I guess, given how slowly I write. Briefly (and sloppily):
I never ended up making it out to Elephanta Island, as I got caught up in various lunch meetings and the like with my fellow junior artists in my last days in Mumbai. I did get a chance, with Christoph and Thomas, to explore some more or less tourist-free sections of Mumbai, though, including a neighborhood with a long street market that reminded me of the souks so frequent in Syria. As we continued along this street, it went up a big staircase and then became residential and grew narrower, until we could touch both sides at once with outstretched arms. A few times it looked as though we had encountered a dead end, only to find that we could squeeze by a little corner and the pasage continued. A marked difference from Syria was that the houses were brightly colored, and many had open doors, allowing us a glimpse inside. The people we encountered mostly giggled at us, and no one tried to sell us anything, which was a marked contrast from Colaba, where every step you take a new person is trying to make you buy some piece of junk you don't want and people cling to you to try to get you to give them money. Very quickly, this became a bit tiresome. So it was a nice relief to get outside.
Okay, I'm going to have to continue with the rest at a later point in time, but a brief preview: a 16 hour sleeper bus out of Mumbai, a day on my own in Goa, and whatever happens between now and when I write.
I may be out of contact a while, as I think I may be headed to some beaches lacking in towns of any size, but then again I'm not sure, so we'll see.
Josh
This will be my first entry written here sitting at the computer. I may borrow from some writing I did last night, but at the time I was fairly uninspired. The result is that what I wrote intended for this blog was excessively long winded and dull, so I won't include it in full. Here goes.
Bollywood
Shortly after I had written my last entry that first night in Bollywood, Christoph and I were asked to be extras in a Bollywood film. The Lonely Planet mentinoed that this happens sometimes, and it sounded pretty cool to me, but I didn't expect to be so lucky. So we gladly accepted, and, as promised, the fellow who asked came by our room at 8:30am the next morning. A few cabs and a local train ride later, Christoph and I, along with 7 other backpacker types also staying at dingy hotels in Colaba--the section of town where backpackers tend to stay--found ourselves at a well-kept medium-sized theater in some unknown section of the great sprawling metropolis that is now called Mumbai. The theater had been taken over by the people involved in the film--trailers, big cables, busy looking people with headsets moving about. We were escorted down to the underground garage that they had designated their "junior artist" (extra) holding area. After just a few minutes I was given a costume to be a coat-taker and led upstairs, where I proceeded to take a coat in the background of the opening scene. Though the scene was only 10 seconds long, myself and CJ, a Swedish fellow playing a security guard in the scene, were there at least an hour. We did the scene over many times, but what really made it stretch out were these bizarrely long breaks between cuts. One contributing factor was the presence in the scene of India's supposed "best actress" (in fact she had won this award three consecutive years in the major Indian movie awards), a high-strung, high maintenaince individual. Between shoots, her hair was redone each time (though she didn't so much as take a step), and at one point they had change out one of the Indian extras because the extra's sari was too similar to this actresses own sari.
The film, it turned out, was to be titled "The Contest," the basic plot being an American Idol style competition, but amongst an Indian community living in New Jersey. Thus the need for white coat-takers and security guards. We found out later it was not a true Bollywood film, and was in fact intended as a "crossover", which is why it was being filmed in English.
Anyhow, the day stretched on, with lots of sitting around in the garage. A little later CJ, his friend Alex, a German fellow named Thomas and myself were called back up to be security guards (note that I have now been cast in two separate roles in the film, an amusing thing given how seriously the people making the film were taking themselves and the film). I'm going to borrow hare from the blog-equivalent kept by the Swedish duo, as they offer an excellent description of our security guard uniforms: "We were slightly (to say the least) disappointed when we were given XXL T-shirts with a “SECURITY” logo on the back, baggy black ill-fitting jeans, green(?) socks, belt suited for Rosanne Barr and black grandpa-style shoes. After the feminine make-up guy had his way with our faces we looked absolutely nothing like Will Smith in “Men in Black” – to say that we resembled something out of “Police Academy 14” was closer to the truth. Welcome to the multi-billion business of Bollywood" (more at http://www.resedagboken.se/Default.aspx?documentId=3&userId=63535§ion=blog&journeyId=44166.) All I'll add is that despite "SECURITY" written on our backs, our backs never once appeared on film; our fronts were blank, except for little cards hung from our necks that read "Volunteer".
Well, we ended up mostly sitting there in theater for hours on end, one of us at a time standing in a position such that we might provide a leg or an arm way in the background. Meanwhile the other "foreigners" (white backpackers) were just sitting in the garage down below. Fortunately for us they gave us locked-channel radios for our costumes, which we turned on and set to the same channel, allowing us to banter in the ear of whichever "security guard" was on film at the moment. Without this the filming would have been unbearable as it dragged on. And it dragged on and on and on. It seemed as though they were making the whole thing up as they went along, with their one camera. It's hard for me to verbalized how unprofessional and badly organized they were. In all, we were on the set a mind-numbing 14 hours, for which we were compensated Rs 500 (roughly $11). Though I was cast twice, some poor people, such as Christoph, were never once cast, meaning they just sat there all day.
Though the filming itself was a little tedious, on the whole what made it a good experience was getting to know and hang out with the other "foreigners": the Swedes, a Kiwi couple they had been travelling with (and were also on the set, cast as one of two white couples in the audience, both attired in Indian clothes), a German couple (the other white couple in the audience), an Aussie pair, an English couple, and the German Thomas. Christoph and myself hung out especially with Thomas in particular, and they are now travelling together in the north, first stop Varanasi. But it was really good just to get to know somewhat a bunch of cool people, further dampening any fears of isolation during my time here. Though some were just starting off their time here like Christoph and myself, others were well into their travels in India, and so had a great deal of helpful, up to date advice about various parts of the country.
Running low on time--this is the problem with writing on the computer, I guess, given how slowly I write. Briefly (and sloppily):
I never ended up making it out to Elephanta Island, as I got caught up in various lunch meetings and the like with my fellow junior artists in my last days in Mumbai. I did get a chance, with Christoph and Thomas, to explore some more or less tourist-free sections of Mumbai, though, including a neighborhood with a long street market that reminded me of the souks so frequent in Syria. As we continued along this street, it went up a big staircase and then became residential and grew narrower, until we could touch both sides at once with outstretched arms. A few times it looked as though we had encountered a dead end, only to find that we could squeeze by a little corner and the pasage continued. A marked difference from Syria was that the houses were brightly colored, and many had open doors, allowing us a glimpse inside. The people we encountered mostly giggled at us, and no one tried to sell us anything, which was a marked contrast from Colaba, where every step you take a new person is trying to make you buy some piece of junk you don't want and people cling to you to try to get you to give them money. Very quickly, this became a bit tiresome. So it was a nice relief to get outside.
Okay, I'm going to have to continue with the rest at a later point in time, but a brief preview: a 16 hour sleeper bus out of Mumbai, a day on my own in Goa, and whatever happens between now and when I write.
I may be out of contact a while, as I think I may be headed to some beaches lacking in towns of any size, but then again I'm not sure, so we'll see.
Josh
posted by Josh at 1:53 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home