Bollywood

So last night I was recruited off the street to be an extra in a bollywood movie. It was a really fun but also tedious and tiring experience, am highly glad I did it. Bollywood movies are absolutely rediculous, and I learned that the people who are involved in making them are also pretty rediculous. The studios here churn out mind-blowing numbers of movies in a short amount of time, like the lonely planet says, like gunfire.

So they collected twenty or so forgeiners off the streets of downtown bombay, got us all to their ramshackle studio, and stuck us in a room together for like three hours. It was good to get to know all the people who were with me, my first travel buddies! They gave us beer and chai, and there we were. They dressed some of the women up in these rediculous hooker costumes with neon wigs. I was still in my desert clothes, had not bathed all day, and had not really slept in like 36 hours, I had gotten off the train that morning. But no matter. So the scene they were shooting was a dance number that was supposed to take place in a strip club in Amsterdam. My job was to join the crowd around the couch as the main character did coke off the thighs of strippers, and then to participate in the dance number; I was part of the crowd around the stage in the "strip club" and I had to dance. But you'd only dance for 10 or 20 seconds at a time, have to start suddenly and then stop suddenly, it was hard to get in the groove of it. I couldn't tell from looking at the camera angles whether I was actually even in any shots. If i was, it will look wierd having a random unshaven guy dressed in all white, wearing an Indian corta in an amsterdam strip club. But not like the bollywood directors care about details like that. The whole thing lasted until like 2:30 in the morning, and everyone was shocked that the director packed it in early, usually it goes until 5:00 am. I couldn't have made it, I was dying of exhaustion by the end. They paid us 500 rupees and sent us on our way.

Anyway, the whole bollywood thing is highly entertaining. Unlike hollywood, bollywood has no pretentions of actually making good movies; every bollywood has exactly the same plot, the obligatory dance numbers, actors from the same pool of about 20 actors and dancers. The one I'm in was called Dil Diya Hai, and i don't know if it will be released and when.

I like hindi pop, bollywood music much more than American pop. Not saying that it's good, it's just less annyoing.

What can I say. It was a strange experience overall. I wasn't allowed to take pictures, unfortionatly.

I'm going to go back to Rajastan sometime at the end of the week.
peace
jed