Mumbai, Linbaba, No Bike & Bollywood
January 05 2008 William writes:
Mumbai is huge. Downtown is 40km from the airport and the metro train runs 125km from one 
end of the city to the other. Wyatt’s and my goal was to buy a motor bike, learn to ride it, and act in Bollywood.
We must have asked 40 people if they know where we could by a motor bike and 35 of them tried to sell us their own. None of which had enough life still in them to reach Delhi, our final destination. After finding a dealer we learned that an international drivers license is required for the India state of Maharashtra. Not needing to temp the law, we bought our train ticket to Rajasthan.
Wyatt is currently reading Shantaram, the non fiction thriller of an Austrailian fugitive who joins the Bombay mofia and fights the Russians in Afganistan. It is an amazing book and the 900 pages fly by. We met the the author, Gregory Roberts (Linbaba), in Leopolds and his rough face and stocky build validifies the book’s rough and tough plot.
As we read in Shantaram, various casting agencies scour the Colaba causeway for westerners willing to work for 500Rs. / day as an extra in a Bollywood production. Wyatt and I got asked in the reception of our hotel to work from 5pm to 5am on a shoot for a national family soap opera. Knowing the family soaps are the fastest way to fame we jumped at the opportunity.
Wyatt, two French girls and I took the long limo on rails to a metro stop where our private black and yellow threewheler picked us up and took us to the studio. 
We quickly realized that they didn’t give a damn who showed up as extras when the couch we were told to sit on was moved for a place to hold the cameras. The soap stars were hard at work acting out some honeymoon scene supposedly set in Goa. Our job was to act as tourists at a bar and dance the night away… without music. We returned to Colaba around 4am and walked around the empty city unit our hotel opened at 7.
Never did get to see the show, Maayka, but I’m sure it was amazing.
Click here to read Wyatt’s take.
Categories: India