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Film Shoot

  By spinetrak | August 31, 2005 - 12:48 pm | India
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So our Mumbai tour guide from San Francisco told me last Saturday there is a film shoot for some commercial at one of the better known film studios and they are looking for a bunch of white people to participate. A couple of weeks ago I had met a Scottish teacher-in-training here, who goes to these film shoots all the time, because she actually needs the money. I had also heard that the producers are actually loading those white tourists into a bus and drop them off at the studios.

So I thought, ok, what the hell, why not. Let’s not mention how much I was supposed to get paid, because apparently there’s a good amount of politics around that. Tourists get paid close to nothing, presumably because they do it for fun, or maybe they think they’ll get famous, and I didn’t care about the money either. But some people actually do need the money and rumor has it that there’s a few westerners living in Mumbai who live just off those film shoots.

So I get there at 2:30pm on Saturday. Supposedly, this was to be done by 8pm or so. I didn’t even know exactly what the commercial would be for, and I figured it can’t possibly be for Viagra, so I should be safe. There was a whole bunch of westerners, maybe half of them tourists, the Scottish expat also showed up, and there were a few other regulars like her. So we started waiting. This is a film shoot, after all, and film shoots mean 95% sitting around doing nothing.

On the way to the studio, I had passed a couple of trucks fully loaded with human tower competitors – well, it was also Krishna’s birthday, so from what I gathered, numerous communities sponsor their young strong men (and women, although I didn’t see any) to drive around town, or maybe just in their community on these huge trucks. They are all dressed in uniform t-shirts, usually orange or yellow, and then they have a competition about which group can make the tallest human tower or pyramid. So there were a few 3-4 men tall human towers, of course in the middle of traffic, masses of spectators, drums and music everywhere.

But I passed those guys, after all, I had to do my film shoot, and I had not realized that this the big deal that it apparently was. So we were waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Usually, at some point at these shoots, there is food. But all we got was tea and Coca-Cola. So I was getting a little hungry. And we were waiting and waiting. Outside – it wasn’t exactly hot, but it wasn’t very pleasant either.

Now, apparently, the commercial was supposed to be for ready-made dosi. Ok, so this is going to be a fast-food commercial – now wonder they need a few white people! There’s a whole lot more people in my office here who bring homemade food to work than in NYC (even though our cafeteria here is heavily subsidized), and there is a whole lot more people in my office in NYC who eat fast food on a regular basis – so, really, a fast-food commercial for Indian dosi would be pretty much unthinkable without some white people. In a crap fast-food commercial, white people are of course an absolute must-have and probably the only straw of hope for any credibility whatsoever.

Anyways, so at 6pm or so I head enough. I was done with getting famous in a fast-food commercial, so I left and had some real food. I really should have gone to check out those human pyramids, because I later heard that this was quite the spectacle indeed, and it sure looks like it…

On an entirely different note, if there could be a picture today, it would have to be one of that Muslim couple that I saw today, right next to the mall. She was fully dressed in a burkha, standing in front of this guy who was sitting very cool on his motorbike. And they were holding hands, very tenderly, totally in love and obviously sweet talking. I guess the fact that I even noticed it, and think it is worth mentioning, and that I found this scene just very remarkable, just shows how dumbed down and stupid daily western images of Muslims, let alone traditional women in burkhas, have made me already. Either that, or Ksenia has been out of town for too long already, or probably both.

Family Electrician

  By spinetrak | August 14, 2005 - 6:44 am | India
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Well, against all odds, I actually got my car. The dealer called me Friday to tell me that I can pick it up at 5:30pm on Saturday. And, surprisingly enough, it actually was there, in all its beauty, ready to get picked up, and so I did. Of course, it quickly turned out that I had bought a piece of crap junk car, just like many Indians had told me. The door handles are pretty flimsy, the doors are close to impossible to lock from the inside, and the gear box is one clunky piece of mechanical engineering gone pretty wrong. And the engine sounds a bit like some badly underpowered 70s Oldsmobile, but I love this car with all its faults.

Sadly, I had to say Good Bye to my wonderful driver. We had developed a very nice relationship, and he turned out to be fantastic. He was pretty sad, but I told him that we will call him, when Ksenia comes back from NYC, because then we’ll need him again. The last couple of weeks, he had sometimes tried to teach me a bit of Hindi, so now I know that sticking your pinky finger into the air means going for a pee. And the main phrase he had learned from us was “a little bit”, because up until recently, he would always say “something something” instead. Whenever I thanked him at the end of the day, he would say “It is my duty, Sir” and laugh – at one point, when he had found me a place to buy TimeOut Mumbai, he actually said “It is my duty, Sir” and laughed like Ernie from Sesame Street, as if he was laughing about that phrase himself, which he probably didn’t. Or maybe he was, I don’t know.

Our maid also seems to be doing ok. Well, she came pretty late twice, and she left some laundry in the dryer instead of taking it out, but I don’t really care. She’s not bad, and I quite like her. Of course, the other day I made a bit of blunder when my landlord came over with his family electrician yet again, and I actually tried to introduce him to my maid. So when I asked him, have you met my maid, he looked at me as if I was out of my mind, and just said “I don’t know, if I did, I don’t remember her face.” Ooops. I guess I had forgotten that in some Indian households the maid never leaves the kitchen and actually sleeps on the kitchen floor.

The landlord by the way is a bit of a character himself. He had lived for a while in NYC, so he’s quite understanding about a number of things. But since our phoneline is still not working, he keeps bringing his electrician in, always repeating the same old and apparently cricially important story that this electrician works exclusively for his family, because it is very hard to find one in India, so he works exclusively for his family. Why the electrician keeps coming back for “full investigation of the problem” (quote my landlord), and nothing actually gets fixed, I don’t know, but that’s a different story. Bottom line is that the walls must be soaked with dampness and mold (the mold is actually showing everywhere on the walls), so the main fuse keeps blowing then and again, and one of the many switch panels is unusable, because turning any of its switches will make the lights go out in the whole apartment. The funny part is always that clearly the landlord is telling the electrician what he needs to do, because apparently the family electrician is not really an electrician. But the two of them keep showing up in my apartment unannounced, seemingly discussing the progress of their full investigation.

The landlord also told me that I can park the car on the little parking lot that’s part of the apartment building. There’s really not enough space for the six or seven cars standing around, so I asked him, how does it work, and whether it’s on a first come first serve basis, or what? He assured me, no problem, I can park, there are no designated parking spots. So when I tried, the watchman makes a few wild gestures, so I understand I should park on the other side of the building. Now, there is a very small elderly’s home in the ground floor of the building, so as soon as I park there, some young modern chap comes up to me telling me in a very important sounding tone that that parking space is reserved for the doctor. Of course, the doctor doesn’t live there, he just works there, if that. He probably just shows up then and again, because the home is pretty small, the size of my apartment. Anyways, but the parking space is for the doctor, very important. I am not in the mood to get into an argument with either the landlord or the neighbors, so I guess I will be parking on the street, which should be fine.

In other news, I finally found a very cool little club that’s the way little clubs should be like. It’s in a stinky little hotel that looks like it had seen better times. The club was nice and very laid back, people obviously just wanted to dance, so there were no posers, macho guys, or bimbos, like there are in so many clubs in any city you go. The music was pretty good as well, so I guess I will be going back there some time.

Oh, and very funny, I find, is this…

Indian Dance

  By spinetrak | August 8, 2005 - 12:10 pm | India
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Last Saturday, just before Ksenia took off back to NYC (and actually was lucky enough to get out of the floods on time), we went to her Indian Classical Dance teacher’s performance. Ksenia had taken up classes a while ago with that teacher and is trying to get her foot and finger movements straight, which is quite a challenge. Of course, I know nothing about Indian Classical Dance, but basically, a lot of them, if not all, have religious roots, there is not just music, but also vocals, and it seems like the vocals tell a religios story, which is then acted out by dancing and by the all-important hand movements, where every single hand gesture has a very particular meaning. So if the hands and arms are one way, it means “Lion”, and held a slightly or not so slightly different way, it means “House”. Or something like that.

So the art is then in the execution of these movements, there really is not all that much space for interpretation – and improvisation or any other Western concept of dance is entirely foreign. Of course, in the West, art is most of the time all about me, myself, and I, so this is a whole different world. Apparently, if not for the Love Of God, then why bother dancing or being an artist? Unfortunately, if one has no clue what the story is, or what the hand gestures mean, or how they should look like, if executed correctly, then watching a performance like this, is a bit of a challenge. I can’t say I hated it, but I was definitely looking for the subtitles somewhere.

The teacher’s husband very helpfully spoke some introductory words at the beginning of each segment, but of course it was in Hindi, and I could only make out a Shiva here and a Vishnu there. My seat neighbor tried to translate a little bit, but it was pretty hopeless. The fact that these introductory words tended to drag into rather longish 15 minute monologues didn’t exactly help. But certainly the costumes were very colorful, and her student dancers very very cute and dedicated, and the whole thing had a nice family affair touch to it, even though it was performed in a real auditorium, with a light manager, a sound manager, etc. I didn’t quite get the light effects, becuse they were a bit like Disco, and it was too dark to take any good pictures during the performance, but maybe it was meant less for entertainment as for reflection and devotion, so I should shut up.

Surprisingly, maybe, my seat neighbor knew all the tunes and all the lyrics, and he was happily humming along. The teacher’s husband’s words also seemed to make an impression on the audience, and he spoke with a lot of pathos. In between, there were flowers and ovations, I suspect for the benefactors and supporters of the dance company, who were called on stage as well, gave a longish nice speech, and then went back to their seats. The auditorium was sadly empty, and a lot of people left early. The whole thing was over two hours long, and they started maybe one hour later than what the invitations had indicated. The Temptation hipsters would happily refer to that as Indian Stretching Time (IST), and I can’t argue with that.


Pvt. Ltd.

  By spinetrak | August 8, 2005 - 11:22 am | India
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Today I got a call from my car dealer at work saying that my Demand Draft (i.e. certified check) has been rejected. Why? Because it’s been made payable to “FortPoint Automotive, Mahim, Mumbai” instead of “FortPoint Automotive Pvt. Ltd., Mahim, Mumbai”. Well, I don’t use checks all that often, but this was a new one to me – I mean, what were they thinking, really? That the car dealer faked the check? That they found the check on the street and it was really meant to go to Mr. FortPoint Automotive, who happens to live in Mahim, Mumbai as well?

Maybe this is better than Chase Bank in NYC, which once cleared a check that I had forgotten to sign, but please! Of course, everybody I talked to seemed to think that surely, there must be a good reason that such a check would be rejected – no, there isn’t, it’s pretty unambiguously clear whom this check was intended for, so any reason there may be is just legalistic nonsense, by definition not a good reason. Well, the upshot was that I had to go to the dealer yet again, pick up the check and have it changed at the bank – except that, of course, banks around here close at 2:30pm. I am pretty sure they are need to close that early, so they can manually spell check every single Demand Draft. Or maybe they just look at all the passport pictures they’ve collected that day.

In other news, I found a college bar. On Saturday, I had gone to Mocha, the better one of the two Indian Starbucks, and started talking to some hipsters, who told me where to get a beer on a Saturday afternoon. The place was packed. It’s right accross from a mall (that’s bad) and is called Temptations (that’s really bad). But it’s just your regular drinking hall, a dark but large space where they spill their beers, watch Cricket and sing along some rock tunes. At first, I actually thought I had hit the Jackpot, because when I walked in they were playing Eminem. This was followed by some cheesy rock ballade, but at least that one was somewhat more recent than the usual pre-1987 stuff, so I can’t complain too much.

Since I no longer have any inhibitions in terms of acting inappropriately (well, not too many anyways), I quizzed the hipsters about a bunch of things, like who is hanging out here, what do they do, etc. Turns out that this Mocha cafe and this Temptations bar are both heavily frequented by students of St. Andrew’s College, which is right next to these places. Now, St. Andrew’s College is a catholic school, there’s also St. Andrew’s Church right there, so most of these students are catholic. As it turns out, around here, the catholics are the progressive/modern types, if those labels mean anything, which I found a bit surprising.

So these kids have no inclination of having arranged marriages (which, by the way, don’t strike me as all that preposterous as they might seem at first glance), and apparently being catholic means three D’s – drinking, drugs, and dancing. Well, I didn’t see too much dancing, but there certainly were drugs – albeit only in the form of waterpipes, and at Temptations there was a good amount of drinking, too. I guess now the name Temptations also makes a whole lot more sense. Hm, I should tell the Pope or maybe Mel Gibson about that!

An Even Better Day

  By spinetrak | August 6, 2005 - 5:56 am | India
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Incredible India! So I was able to get my router play nicely with my cable internet access and I just dialed my NYC number – and guess what? My phone in India is ringing!! Gotta love voice over ip!

Even better than that: this morning, I got a call from my car dealer, and my lovely HM Ambassador Avigo has arrived from the factory. It still needs to get registered though. Unfortunately, that requires the original of my lease plus some official letter from my company, both of which I had left in the office. So I had to go pick them up, but that was no problem. Of course, the car dealer also wanted the full amount of money, but I insisted that they only get another installment and then the full payment once they have registered the car and hand me the keys. Apparently, that’s not how things are done here, but eventually they agreed.

So I went to the bank, then to the office, then back to the car dealer. I was thinking the car has arrived means I can actually see it at the dealership, but no such luck. Apparently, it’s on some lot somewhere outside of Mumbai. Ah well. But the registration should only take a few days, so the sales woman promised everything will be done and ready next Saturday. Life is Good.