Mumbai 12-15th November 2010 ( the story of my Bollywood acting debut)

The difference between easy jet and British Airways is as vast as the difference between Owen Phillips and the Pope. With free wine and in seat movies the 9 hour flight flew by. Took me about 1.5 hours to get through immigration at Mumbai Airport . The local time was 2am by that point. Not wanting to piss around trying to find a cheap hotel at that time, I booked a room for about 20quid ( as cheap as I could barter them down ) through the airport information office. The weather was nothing like London. The humidity in India is killer, it isn’t as hot as the middle east, but much more uncomfortable because of the constant film of moisture that clings to your skin.

Once I got to the hotel it was obvious it wasn’t worth 20quid a night, but having been to India before I was expecting to get ripped off for the first few days before I found my feet, I gave a 10 rupee tip to the bell boy about 20p) which he seemed really happy about, later on he would help me to get in touch with room service, when I didn’t tip him again he gave me a look like I just assaulted his mother until I eventually had to shut the door in his face ….no more pleasantries….yep back in India again alright…remember It took me a while to get used to the cultural differences last time I was here , at least I had a running start this time…..

Next morning got a taxi to the centre of the city and then tried to get straight onto a train to Rajasthan an area in the north west of the country ( Mumbai is expensive relative to other parts India). I was told that the next train wasn’t until Monday ( 2days away). I booked a ticket on the night train at around 5 pounds for a 22 hour journey and then begrudgingly went into the city to try find a cheap room,….

It was getting hot by this point and the streets were busy ( though not as bad as Cairo ) I walked for about 30mins with my pack on to get to a tourist office that was shut on Saturday afternoons…curses!!**@@!!….. I then walked back to the train station again only to find that the area I was looking for was back near the tourist office that I had just come from… jetlag and maps aren’t a good combination…..drank some water and then headed back again towards the Colaba area of the city…was feeling weak and tired by now…..

I eventually ended up getting a dorm room in a hostel after looking at a few singles around Colaba that weren’t worth the extra money. While I was walking around I was stopped in the street by a casting agent from a Bollywood soap who was looking to cast foreigners as extras for an episode set in England…A friend from Canada had done it a few years back and said it was a laugh + the pay was 500 rupees and free food all day …

“where do I sign up fella?!!!”

That night went out for dinner +drinks with some other travellers in the hostel ….All super cool people with good advise for India…..the food was cheap and really good, about £1.50 for your fill of curry. Afterwards we went to the five star hotel The Taj Gateway to see if we could get a drink… the bar was a bit shit so we ended up just hanging out in the air conditioned lobby ( see photo) and using the restrooms. Barak Obama had stayed there 5 days beforehand and there seemed to be a few millionaires wandering around. Eventually security asked us to leave. There was a heavy security presence around the hotel, bag scans on way in etc…this wasn’t surprising, the Taj was one of the hotels that was attacked by Moslem extremists in 2008 resulting in a 2 day siege….was really surreal thinking about what had happened there……

Went to bed at 1am and then got up at 6.30 for my 7am-7pm shift on the film set…..time to shine! The meeting point was just up the road…was met by an Indian guy in fashionable clothing who asked me if I was going to Bollywood…in all there were about 17 of us as extras…..we all piled into cars to take us to the set….Imagining I was going to a huge film lot with a shining “BOLLYWOOD” sign above the gates, I was a bit disappointed when we pulled up 2 minutes later at the local university buildings…..

The first 3 hours involved sitting around in an AC cabin and chatting to other travellers…had free food and drinks and exchanged travel stories ..the group consisted of me an English guy an Italian, 3 fins, 2 Danes, 5 Aussies, 3 Chinese girls, a French girl and a Dutch girl and 2 Germans.

After a while we were told that the soap was called “Kismet” or “Destiny” and story was of an Indian guy called Aditerage who was studying in England in 1966...he was in Love with an English girl called “Catherine Bennett “ and had to defeat the local hard man “Tommy (TJ) Jones” in a boxing match to win her love…..the script was hilariously bad and it soon became clear that some of us would have speaking lines in it too….

“hmmmm, I don’t remember discussing this with my agent when the fee was set”

Next step was costumes, a very pushy Indian girl in charge of wardrobe proceeded to give us the most horrendously bad fitting and non 60’s looking outfits ever…the girls weren’t happy at all with their dress selections, while the guys were finding it hilarious….initially I was given an extremely tight shirt and waistcoat and a pair of trousers that didn’t fit…bearing in mind that I would be wearing this in the heat all day I told the wardrobe girls half jokingly that we needed a “radical rethink on my image“…thankfully they went along with me, and I ended up with a loose fitting pair of slacks and a polo shirt that was too small for me…looked more like someone from “this is England 86” than a sixties college student……

Others weren’t so fortunate…al lot of people had heavy sweaters and some even winter coats on…the first scene involved standing around in the background of the building gardens while a few lines were read…It was hot as hell already but then a huge reflective screen was set up to reflect the sunlight onto the actors….poor bastard must have been sweltering, luckily I was moved into the shade halfway through the scene..

After lunch I was handed a script and told that I would be reading lines with a Finish guy alongside an Indian extra and one of the regular actors on the soap….

Hilarious the Finish guys English wasn’t the best , but they insisted on using him even though he tried to point out on many occasions that lots of other extras could speak better English….

The Scene went like this.

Guy 1: ( in heavy finish accent ) Did you hear who Aditerage is up against in the boxing?…..its TJ!”

Guy 2 : ( Indian extra/wannabe star in Indian/American accent) “Tommy Jones!”

Guy 3 : (ME ) “ then he’s had it,….. TJ will kill him”

We all then laugh unconvincingly….

Mamood ( regular actor on soap delivered in typical over dramatised style)

“its not funny guys ( pause for effect then serious face) ..it could be dangerous”

The whole thing felt like something right out of Dark Place, I tried to deliver my line in the style of Sanchez…the director really didn’t seem to care how bad the acting was although the difference between us and the professional actor was blatantly obvious…..after 4 takes we were done

Next I had to walk up and down a path in the back of another scene with a Dutch girl over and over and over again…by this time I was shattered….. I thought we were through for the day when I was handed another script and given more lines to say alongside the light skinned and very attractive Indian girl Playing “Catherine Bennett “ .By this point in the script the hero of the story had developed a gambling habit after being rejected by said Ms. Bennett

My line was “ I don’t know about that, but he won over one hundred pounds”

This scene also involved an Italian whose English was worse than the Fins and German guy who sounded so much like Arnold Swartzeneger when he delivered his line ( “ he’s become a gambler”) that I had to fight hard not to burst into laughter and ruin the take…

The Indian girl who played Catherine got 2000 rupees ( 40 pounds) for saying 1 line over 2 takes and then left the set as fast as she had arrived in a mood …2000 rupees for that????…. I need to fire my agent!!

At the end of the day we all had to record our lines again vocally with the sound recordist so they could overdub them in the final edit…… (no idea why, but during the overdubbing a flock of crows were making a huge racket in the trees so maybe they wanted to drown out the traffic noises in the background …)

I have to see this show now!, will be so weird hearing my voice overdubbed on my own face…apparently the programme will be out in December, hopefully before I leave India.

After collecting my wages went out for a few beers with some of the other extras, ended up on a really cool little bar that had the best music selection I have ever heard in a pub. Had a good chat about Spurs, bands and the Big Lebowski with the English dude and a good discussion about Anthropology with some of the girls who were studying for a semester in Mumbai…so far the other travellers I have met in India have all been really chilled and likeminded people….

Went to bed rather drunk after banging on the locked door of the hostel for a few minutes…Check out next morning was at 9am……felt pretty rotten, checked my bag in the luggage room and spent a couple of hours down by the Gateway to India (over rated monument from colonial times ) trying to avoid touts and shake off a headache…after a few hours the sun came out and I was feeling better. I wandered the streets of Mumbai quite happily…was really enjoying being in India…went to the book sellers corner on Mahatma Gandhi road. A really cool little book market right on the sidewalk, .

I’m not sure if its just cause the US president had been there the week before, but the city seemed a lot cleaner and developed than last time I was there…communications technology has definitely changed things too, nearly everyone has a mobile phone.

That evening I got the local train to Bandra terminus, an hour north of the city centre ( but still in Mumbai ), to get my night train to Jaipour in Rajasthan . The local train gave me a chance to see the slums of Mumbai…certainly dirty and ram shackle but they looked permanent and seemed to be thriving in many ways .Apparently there are millionaires living in some of the slums who have got rich through the localised cottage industries that service the slum dwellers…India seems to be pulling itself up by its bootlaces…….

Got on the train at 8pm, it had started raining outside and I was desperate to sleep…luckily had a top berth so climbed straight up and went to sleep…22 hours later I would reach Jaipour….

After not wanting to stay in Mumbai for longer than necessary, I ended up having a great time. Met some really cool people, and the day on the television set was one of the funest and funniest things I have done in ages…may try and pick up a couple more days work when I head back south towards Goa at the end of the month …you can easily live off 500 rupees a day in Mumbai…..but first its time to explore Rajasthan and hopefully find a camel trek into the dessert to see the stars at night …..