Bollywood Stars!

Well, we arrived safe and sound in India after our bus trip to Jordan. Our flight was from Amman to Mumbai, and it was 500$ cheaper if you flew from Amman instead of Tel-Aviv, and only 20$ on the bus. We arrived in Mumbai early in the morning, only to find that we had mis-reserved our hotel for a day later than we needed. We checked into another hotel, far substandard to the first, its only redeeming feature being that it is where Bollywood directors go when they need Western "extras" for movies. Apparently we were just what they were looking for, and we were recruited on the spot!
We were picked up the next day and taken to the shoot. Usually Western people appear in cafe and bar scenes to add an international flavour. Sensing our musical abilities, however, we were given small annoying percussion instruments and put into costume for a Hare Krishna parade scene. We later found out that the movie is a horror film called Raaz, and it seems as if we were the sub-plot within a sub-plot. It took all day to shoot what will probably be only 2 minutes in the movie. We shot the parade in a variety of locations, from a variety of angles and ....in a variety of weather conditions. Logically the first one to shoot was the MONSOON! We learned a new word, which was "Pani", Hindi for water. Every time we would start the director would shout "Music, Camera, Pani, ACTION" and six men would spray us with shower nozzles attached to fire hoses draining water out of a huge truck. We were completely soaked, and after being very careful not to get too much of this water in our mouthes, we discovered at the end of the day that the bottles of water on the set were also being filled from the same truck! We met many interesting people in our little "Hare Krishna band", such as the troupe of pupeteers from Rajasthan, a construction worker from Bijapur and an English guy who is currently doing this for a "living". For many hours afterwards the jingle jangle of percussion instruments rang in my ears.