On how to become a Bollywood-star in Mumbai…

Heya guys!

We’ve been in Mumbai since last Saturday, and I have to say that this city is a lot less worse than I expected it to be – it’s reasonable clean (if you ignore the yellow dust cloud that you can see around the city if you go out on a boat) and not so terribly noisy after all for a city with some 16 millions inhabitants. However, as half of the population lives in slums, the difference between the rich and the poor becomes extremely visible. It is a city of contrasts, in any aspect…

The day we arrived we’ve been ‘casted’ right away by a ‘Bollywood agent’ while walking down Colaba courseway who asked us whether we wanted to be part of a Bollywood movie. We thought ‘why not?’ and the next morning were picked up by our ‘agent’ and brought to an outdoor studio at the other end of the city. We spent a good 10 hours at the set, most of which we were standing around in the heat, longing for some shadow, while waiting for instructions („go here!“ – „go there“ – „start walking“ ….). At one point, the people there dressed me up as a nun (what a perfect fit, haha), but I never actually got around to wear the costume during a shoot. Towards the end of the day, while waiting for our ride back to the city, a couple of Indians started talking to Maira and me, eventually resulting in a marriage proposal for me, which I guess was actually meant to be quite serious („you’re nice, he likes you, you are beautiful, he wants to marry you“). Luckily, that guy’s phone rang which gave me an excuse to quickly turn around, walk away and talk to somebody else… Besides that, our ‘agent’ called several people on the set, who handed over their phones to me, in order to convince me to do some ‘voice doubling’ the next day, and/or to come out to a nightclub with him and his friends that night, because „you seem really nice“…

So, eventually, after one day of tasting Bollywood, I decided not to become a Bollywood star (I surely had enough starting points… haha), but rather to stick with my planned career. All the heat, the admirers, the stress, no, that’s not for me…

The one really good thing that came out of this Bollywood day was the acquaintace of some Swedish people, two of whom we are currently sharing a room with. They are really nice, and we spent a lot of time together in the last couple of days eating some western food, visiting some airconditioned shopping malls and watching a Hollywood film – these things somehow make you feel good once in a while, they remind you of home… Hach. We also went on a trip to Elephanta Island with them yesterday, where we visited some old Hindu caves.

Besides that, we’ve been trying to figure out where to next go from here, there are so many options… We kind of longed for a few days at the beach in Goa again (it’s getting increasingly hot up to a point at which the heat is quite hard to handle, especially in a city), but decided against it. We’ll go up to Udaipur, Rajastan tomorrow, and then to Agra and Delhi from where we’ll catch a flight to Nepal at the end of next week. I’ll be very sad to leave India, let me tell you!

So, I guess you’re updated now. I’ve uploaded a bunch of new pictures to my photo page, so make sure you check them out!

Take care folks, and I’d be delighted if you’d write me a couple of lines from your wintery lifes once in a while if you feel like it!