Mumbai Redux

I flew from Kochi, Kerala to Mumbai on Friday, January 31. My plan was to spend the weekend in the city and see my friends there before continuing north to Rajasthan and other parts of northern India for the month of February.

For my stay I'd rented the same small make-up studio/apartment in the Bandra West district where I'd stayed for a few days during my initial visit to Mumbai a few weeks earlier. After three weeks of travelling through new places, it was a great feeling to be back in familiar surroundings.

Once settled and showered, I made plans to meet with Dolly and her friend Bakhu at Ghetto, a bar they'd taken me to once before. Prior to heading downtown, I caught up with some of the neighbours I'd met previously, including John, the landlord upstairs, as well as Peter and ??? and their dog Pebbles, who invited me in for some masala chai and delicious sev puri (purchased from a vendor who walks the narrow alleys of the neighbourhood balancing on his head a table top with all of the required sev puri ingredients in various pots and containers. If you want some, he rests the table on a small tripod and prepares your dish. Amazing.). Later on, I made my way to meet Dolly and Bakhu at Bakhu's apartment (near Leopold's, of Shantaram fame) for some drinks and fantastic Parsi food before heading to Ghetto. It was a good night with good friends.

The next day I got up late and started the morning right with a grande Americano at Starbucks. I then met Dolly, her friend Gauvind and some other people for lunch and 'happy hour' at a local restaurant / bar in Pali Market, not far my where I was staying. I spend the rest of the afternoon and evening close to home to do some laundry, catch up on my blog and plan the next stages of my trip.

On Sunday I made plans to meet with Sharvari and Neha, two Indian girls I'd met in Hampi and who lived in Mumbai. I also arranged to visit my friend Kaashvi who was directing a one-episode show for MTV India. She'd invited me to check out the set, but also asked if I might be willing to participate as an extra. I agreed and said I'd be at the set for 6:00 pm. It was only later that I realized that I'd kind of double-booked myself, as I'd made plans to meet Sharvari and Neha in southern Mumbai at 4:00 pm. This would not give me much time with them before having to take a 30-45 min cab ride up to where I was meeting Kaashvi. So after a quick but nice visit with Sharvari and Neha, I got a taxi to Juhu, a district north of Bandra West. Along the way, I was in touch with Kaashvi's assistant, Kushal, who gave the taxi driver directions to the set location. But once we hit Juhu the traffic slowed to a crawl and it became clear that I was going to be late. Worse still, the driver actually didn't know where he was going (or pretended not to) and ended up taking some wrong turns into terrible bumper-to-bumper traffic. All the while, Kushal was calling me to ask where I was and I would in turn pass the phone to the driver for him to explain our location and get additional directions to the set. It maddening, as I was pretty much at the mercy of the driver (I had no clue where we were) and he was at the mercy of the horrendous traffic.

On set in Juhu: location of the dance scene

Just before 7:00 I finally got to the location where I'd arranged to meet Kushal. I was stressed out from the ride, but excited to see the set and learn more about what I was going to be doing there. Kushal led me through some back streets and up the narrow stairs of a building that finally brought us to an apartment packed with people and film-related props and gear. Not five minutes after I arrived Kaashvi asks "Jeremy, are you ready to dance?" After a stressful hour in a cab, of course I'm ready to dance in front of a bunch of strangers! This particular scene involved five wedding guests who were planning some dance moves in anticipation of the upcoming wedding reception. The only instructions I was given were "Follow this guy beside you and just look like you're having fun." Suuure, no problem. So we did about five takes, each of which consisted of us dancing to upbeat music, then somebody coming to tell us that there would be no dancing at the reception, and then us stopping to dance and looking disapointed. I tried my best to just go with it, but I can't say how natural I looked. I definitely felt awkward dancing with a small group of strangers in front of a film crew. Anyways, we'll see if the scene makes the cut and Kaashvi promised to send me a copy of the show once it was completed.

I flew out of Mumbai at noon the next day, bound for Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Unfortunately there had not been enough time for me to see all of my friends (sorry Reema and Tanvi!), but I'd still had a very nice and relaxing weekend. Most notably, it was a weekend free of pressure to see or do any sightseeing or anything touristy at all. That is one thing that I'm starting to miss a bit as a write this, but more on that later.

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