Hooray for Bollywood

So what do you do on a rainy Tuesday in Mumbai? Be an extra in a Bollywood movie, of course! I’d been stopped by a scout on the street the day before, and joined 30 other tourists on a leaky bus the next morning.

I always love watching party scenes in movies, mostly to enjoy quite how unconvincing they are, so imagine my delight when I found out we were bound for one of the city’s groovier nightclubs, which was standing in for a London club.

We were given the once-over by wardrobe, hair and make-up – short skirts and ringlets for the gals, vivid T-shirts and spray-on hair colour for the guys (blue and gold stripes in my case – London’s obviously changed while I’ve been gone).

The Assistant Director positioned us all on the dance-floor, with me in a solo position by the bar. The main actress (who we soon christened Diva) had to walk through the throng to get to her friend at the bar, stopping on the way to say hello to someone. As I was standing apart from the others, I was the natural choice.

Her face lit up as she approached me. ‘Hey!’ she said. Quick-thinkingly, I improvised. ‘Hey!’ I replied with a broad smile. ‘OK, let’s go for a take,’ boomed the director. Oh my god, I’d done it. I’d landed myself a speaking part.

Diva had a quick chat with the director, after which the A.D. bundled another guy towards me. ‘You stand there,’ he ordered him, before bundling me off to the back where the other guy had been. ‘And you stand there.’

Chewed up and spat out by Bollywood, I relayed my fate to the extras beside me. Diva must have heard, because she turned round and smiled apologetically. ‘Too small,’ she said, illustrating her point with a downward motion of the palm.

Oh. Thanks for clearing that up.

The rest of the morning was spent dancing frenetically to the same tune over and over again, which was actually a lot of fun. ‘Dance louder!’ the A.D kept urging us, by which he meant increase the jumping and flailing of arms – he even suggested throwing in a few high-fives. We were happy to oblige – I really hope they use the take where we decided to do that old cheesy synchronised dive move.

Each of the stars had a mirror man – a guy who rushed in between each take to hold a mirror while the actors touched up their foundation (female) or squirted extra sheen into their hair (male). But the best thing was the smoke machine – a little old guy wandering about the set scattering incense onto a pan of hot coals. I bet they don’t have that in Hollywood.

It was a long day, and the novelty had worn off by lunchtime, but in true Bollywood tradition, they got us hooked back in with a song and dance number to round things off.

I was pulled out of the synchronised dance routine to be part of two couples doing synchronised ‘making out’ on the sofa as the camera moves past towards the crowd. So you might get to see me after all.

‘Namatey London’. Coming soon to a movie theatre probably nowhere near you.