Smiling, Talking, Silence

Bad News: my camera memory chip seems to have picked up a virus. My photos seem okay, i'll just have to find a computer that I can sacrifice to upload them... The anti-virus software in the few cyber cafes I've tried haven't let me copy them. In the mean time I'll go back to borrowed pics.

Anyway, Mumbai is a wonderful town. If only it wasn't hotter than blood, and if the places I ended up sleeping weren't crawling with bedbugs (don't worry there's a photo of the awful bites that will come some day) it'd be a quaint place to spend a week. The architecture of the town blends Arab, Hindi and British styles in a way that makes the place feel like London went summering in Western India.

After I spent my first night in the worst hostel ever (see guiness book of records 1999) (just kidding) I took the boat out to Elephanta Island which made me feel much better about the place. Then I made my way to a great berry pilaf lunch at an old Parsee place. Just then, after I got back to my hostel after lunch, fate struck.

"Hey mate, want to be a Bollywood extra? We'll give you lunch and pay you 500 rupees." After a quick call to my agent (who reminded me that she is, in fact, not my agent and would I please stop calling) I signed up.

Later that night I met some guys in the hostel that were going out with a Mumbai local, who turned out to also be a Bollywood scout. She was recruiting for a big film, but it was going to go too late for me to catch my 36-hour train to Dehra Dun. I'd have to settle with the first folks.

I met my costar on the Mumbai commuter train (think of those crazy clips you must have seen of public transit in Tokyo with lots of shouting and pushing). We traveled an one and a half hours to the set and got in costume. Then we sat, stood, pretended to drink, rinsed and repeated for 13 hours. A long, but interesting introduction to the life of a Mumbai extra. Plenty of people do it professionally, and make good money. So much that they won't take a speaking part because then they can't be extras anymore in case someone recognizes them. Even foreigners do it full time. Take the shady Russian, for example, who wanted to borrow my shoes.

"No," I told him "these are my shoes."

Apparently he lives in an Extra den with six other Russians who pass their days walking back and forth, smiling and talking, silently. Which is good because that's what they shouted at us all day "Smiling, Talking, SILENCE!" It began to feel a bit like a Buddhist Koan.