Mumbai

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Camels!

Mumbai was excellent. Really beautiful buildings downtown in the Colaba and tropical foliage all around. In that part it was more like a western city, taxi cabs, actual sidewalks, some western-style stores and a relatively expensive western hotel. Had a beer at the famous Leopold's from Shantaram that we are both reading. We went to a couple of museums including a house where Gandhi lived for some period, it was quite something. At one place there's a beach where teens were playing a complex variant of tag in a circle. Every other person tried to rent you a grass mat to sit on. We found a cafe nearby and realized that you could also try a Huqqa - the water pipe- I remember my Egyptian heritage collegue Mag Estefanos telling me, if you're ever in Egypt you've got to try it with the flavoured tobacco. We had apple flavour. Nice!

On the day we were to leave, we got recruited as Bollywood extras! They're interested in finding foreign-looking people for scenes set outside of India, this particular one in a London bar. We spend the rest of the day in line rescheduling train tickets, which thankfully was possible with a small penalty. The next morning, ourselves and some others were picked up at the appointed spot and put in cabs to the train station, then onto the commuter trains (these are the famously overloaded ones, but weren't too bad) and out to the west end. It was good to see some of the rest of the city, it's enormous and certainly not all like the beautiful downtown tourist area. We sat in a room with some other, but local 'junior artists', waiting. Eventually we were called on set, and spent the afternoon and evening milling about on set, standing on the periphery of shots, dancing poorly and holding fake drinks. Really neat to see how it all works to set up each shot, and the whole team of people arranging lighting, etc. There was a substantial part that featured a bunch of dancers so it was excellent to see the famous Bollywood dancing (as opposed to speaking parts). The movie itself... well, we don't expect it to become a classic. Hopefully it gets finished!

Now in Goa, more pictures soon... trying to attach one clip of camels from Jaisalmer

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Photos

Other building
Excellent looking with the palms

Gateway to India
Squinting

Shoe repair
This fellow expertly fixed up Farah's shoes

Lots of tourists at the Gateway
And lots of pressure from sellers. This guy was from Orissa state, I'm looking up where that is on the map...

A murder!
I recall that's what a group of crows is called, though the Ontario crows don't normally form them - the Indian ones like to hang out in packs.

Gas delivery
I imagine this is what the villain would impact to end the car chase scene in an Indian movie

Chowpatty beach
Patch of beach in the city, lots of folks hanging around at sunset

Napkins
Often artfully folded and displayed in a cup, this is the most artistic yet.

More chowpatty
From a pedestrian overpass

Water pipe
The guy had a brazier out on the street, and he'd come into the cafe with a little tinfoiled cup with the embers on top and holes poked through, you can see it there on the top.

Extras!
Recruited as movie extras; 8:00 AM and we're waiting for the bus on the steps of the local theatre.

Waiting
The glamourous waiting room for "Junior artists"

Action!
The director in red working out the dance moves with one dancer. Despite his size the director could move!! The dancers have to be able to pick up the whole dance section having seen it demonstrated only a couple of times! They can make $500-600 per day and so are fabulously wealthy, but apparently its a very tough thing to break into as you might guess.

Mayhem
Everyone knew what they were supposed to do somehow

Waiting on the set
It went on all day and through the evening, we didn't get back to our hotel til about midnight! Tiring, but fun. The big black square is a light filter screen. The geodesic dome thing was the 'dance platform' - at one point the girls had to get up in there and dance! Poor them; its not easy to turn the dancing on and off like a tap with all eyes on you.

Colour
Its supposed to be a London nightclub. Not great photos, we couldn't use flash, but gives you an idea anyway. I have a clip I'll put up too.