Bollywould

Well. I did it. I fucking did it. Two months in Newcastle, I'm in Byker Grove. Two days in Mumbai and I'm in Bollywood. Oh right. Giggidy giggidy.

We decided between the three of us the other night that our plan for Sunday would be to get in a Bollywood film. We heard it wasn't that hard.

So, Sunday morning comes and on the way out of the hostel, the manager is like "hey, you wanna be in Bollywood?" Uh, yeah.

So, along with a couple of Danish girls, we got picked up by some smooth-looking Indian dude who kept checking himself in the reflection of car windows, mirrors, my arse - just to make sure he still looked like the greased up playa that he was.

He told us, 1pm-8pm, meals included and we make 500 rupees (about 8 quid). Personally, I wasn't so bothered about the cash but my companions were pretty adament that the money would be theirs.

By three we were at the studio, sharing a dingy dressing room with a bunch of needy Indian thesps, and a couple of mandatory, token bikini-clad white girls (Russian, I'm told). All the girls had their hair straightened and a lot of time was spent putting on makeup, and ironing clothes. Everyone joked about them straightening my hair. (To the girls reading this - no one straightens my hair!)

Ah, I would of done it, but the make up people didn't seem too bothered that my burgeoning coils of rug off-cuts were an anomaly compared to the prevailing style.

They needn't have bothered doing anything to anyone as we discovered that the scene was a "rain scene".

We didn't know what our jobs as extras would involve, but the word "rain" in the phrase "rain scene", clearly didn't hold enough significance for me as I had forgotten to take off my money belt and had a few vaguely important documents in it - like the one I need to get stamped in five months time to leave the country.

So, it turns out, for the purposes of Bollywood, rain scene means about 40 dancers, half of which are scantily clad females, dancing around in a studio while a perpetual torrent of monsoon-style rain is lashed down upon them.

And our job? Just get involved!

"Dance white boy! Dance! (At the back preferably, as you can't) But dance! And where are those two white girls? Get them near the front! Get bikinis! Dance bitches! Come on! La la la la laaaaaaaaa la!" Etc.

For six hours.

Fuck me.

For the first, I dunno, fifteen minutes, as the first wave drenched us (and my valuable documents) completely, I was experiencing a sense of deja vu. Have I been here before?

Yes, in my dreams.

Twenty gorgeous Asian chicks wearing very little, dancing around to the sound of some addictive Bollywood tune while I grind up against as many as the director would allow? Yes, a fantasy lived out in full sensory Technicolor.

However, after the initial honeymoon period (no official vows were exchanged) it became, well, really cold. Plus we had no water, and the only water they were passing round was the kind the Lonely Planet politely suggests you avoid like the plague. If you don't want to catch the plague.

After a while, we were desperate to leave, yet also kinda wanted to see it through to the end as it would be a bit pussy just to up and leave, and as I said, the others were quite keen on making their buck. So, after a lot of chasing around the various producers, runners, tea-makers, shirt-ironerss - we eventually got our money (albeit two and a half hours after the time we were promised) and we sat, drenched, on a train till we got back to town for a well-earned curry and beer.

So that was yesterday. Whew...