BOLLYWOOD

Anyone that knows me, knows that I'm in love with India.  I've been travelling around it twice now, and it is probably my favourite out of all the countries I have been to.  That said though, you do have a funny relationship with India when you are there, as it pushes you to the edge, so when its good its the most amazing experience ever, and when its bad it drives you crazy, thus ending with a love hate thing with the place.  Its pretty much the same working on a Bollywood movie, as I have found out!  The day after I got back from Barbados I got a phone call from an old friend Tessa who is a production manager and was working on a Bollywood movie that was filming in London.  She needed extra costume people to help out as half the team from India had not got Visa's.  Cool, I thought.  Bollywood=cool costumes, singing and dancing and great locations.  All that was true, but it turns out you also get a lot more than you bargained for:  CHAOS!  I have been working in costume for film and TV nearly ten years now and have never experienced anything like this.  You see the Indian's seem to have this system that makes things 100 times harder than they should be!
The caste system seems very much there within the work system as only certain people can do certain things and you can't talk to someone direct:  You have to get someone else, who talks to someone else, who talks to someone else and then maybe they will then talk to the person you wanted to talk too, but by then there is probably only one world left of the original message you wished to relay!  The Indian's also work on fear, with shouting being more common than talking and a daily bonking usually to my department, seeming to be the usual.    It didn't help that my department all seemed to have the combined age of 7 between them, had never none a film before, were lazy, more interested in plucking their eyebrows and had only got on the film because they had family connections.   Me and my friend Deb's who had also been drafted in, took to hiding behind the clothes on the truck and laughing at the whole mad situation otherwise we would of cried: A LOT!
The film itself had two of Bollywood's biggest actors in it.  The main guy who  is the highest paid man in Bollywood and their answer to Brad Pitt, was rather disappointing to look at after all the fuss.  We called him Lego head due to the amount of Brylcream on his hair!
In the end I couldn't take it anymore and walked off, in dramatic style after having a huge argument with the supposed, in charge costume girl.  What follows are some of the sentences I used in that argument:

• You don't know your arse from your elbow!
• Your stupid!
• Your Lazy!
• I wouldn't employ you as a trainee!
• Go fuck yourself (To be fair though she said it to me first!)

So all in all very dignified, like the lady I am.  It wasn't all bad though.  I met some great people on that job, who I really liked. They also do this funny thing of putting on really loud music on when someone is acting, to get the mood, which was interesting but also piss funny.  So conclusion;  India I still love you, I just can't work with you!