Monday had to have been the longest, but most productive day of our trip so far. After going to bed around 5:30AM, I was up today at 8:00AM getting all the people in our room up and ready, escorting them over to Pradipto’s place to get a hot shower, and scouring the local area for breakfast. It has been really interesting mobilizing 9 people in an apartment that has absolutely no hot water. (The 9 people are the 4 of us: Elena, Jon, Arieh, & me, and the 5 from Bangalore: Lourd, Richard, Madan, Alex, & Bindu)
I have to take a second and talk about our shower situation… For the most part we all just suck it up and take the cold shower. Surprisingly, I don’t mind it. I’ve discovered that I actually feel a lot cleaner after a cold shower in this warm humid climate. After a hot shower, I feel so sweaty and sticky that I need another shower just stepping out of the shower. Another really strange thing about the shower here is that it is in the MIDDLE of the bathroom. There is curtain that separates the shower so you don’t splash the toilet with the water from the shower, but there’s no separation from the sink or the floor. The entire floor just slopes to the back corner of the bathroom and all the water from the shower and bidet flow to into it. It never really feels like taking a shower. It feels like taking a shower at one of the outside shower stalls at the beach.
OK, back to the morning… So I had been up at Giju’s and Kristen’s place until around 4:30AM the night before going over all of the details and goals for the day and then came home to shower and go to bed. After our breakfast was delivered 45 minutes late on Sunday morning, we decided it would be best if we all just figured out our own breakfast on Monday morning. Well, I tried waking up everyone at 8:15, but no one really seemed to want to budge except Bindu (our only girl from Bangalore) so I escorted her over to the director’s flat so she could get a hot shower and I went on a mission to find breakfast for the group. I couldn’t seem to find anything that would make everyone happy so I ended up at a tiny little market where I bought 2-3 packages of all the cookies and crackers that they had and tons of different drinks that everyone could choose from. I bought 2 huge bags worth of snacks and 3 bags of different drinks (including a Red Bull, of course, for my sleepy butt) and the entire thing cost 725 Rupees. That’s about $18! I still can’t get over how cheap everything is. Everyone seemed to appreciate my efforts, but it was still a strange experience to have cookies for breakfast.
We got into the studio where we got to work on our acting skills with the director. He told us all the emotions we were feeling for each point of the story line and we started choreographing the acting and blocking the formations for each scene. It was a new experience for me. I’ll let you be the judge when the video comes out, but I think I’ll just stick to dancing…
Today’s practice was our longest yet. We stayed in one studio from 10:00A to 7:00P where brunch (because everyone was so darn hungry) and a late lunch were delivered so we didn’t have to go anywhere to eat. Both meals were pretty much working meals. We were working on the choreography, acting, and finalizing all the costumes all day long. They used my camera to take pictures of all the details for everyone’s costumes, so I’ve got pictures of all of them for posterity!
At 7, we transferred to a larger studio and the Mumbai dancers joined us for an evening practice until after 10:00P. It was a long night of continued choreography, acting, and costumes. We were all beat after the longest day of rehearsal ever. It will be interesting to see how the 2 days of actual shooting go!
After rehearsal, a group of us (Giju, Kristen, Elena, Arieh, Richard, Madan, Bindu, and me) made our way to a really good restaurant right next to our place where I got to try some new foods and finally got my paneer tikka masala. At home, we always eat paneer tikka masala whenever we go out. The version I got here was pretty different, but so delicious because it was so spicy! We also got yummy lassi’s and this really cool appetizer that you make with a crispy hollow shell thing. You pop a hole in the top and add a sweet sauce, some potatoes, onions, garlic, and a minty spicy sauce. It was one of the best things I’ve eaten since we got here! Giju even made one with some vodka in it for me (that’s the way he was eating them).
Whoa… I won’t be doing that again! We celebrated the end of the night with a local vodka shot. Boy, after no sleep, lots of exhaustion from practice, and not tons of food, I was all red in the face and feelin’ it! We got back to the apartment around 12:30AM where I proceeded to pass out from exhaustion.
Bindu, Elena, and I made our way over to a vegetarian restaurant right next to the flat we’re staying in that was just amazing. I had some delicious food for dinner, but it was the dessert that will forever stay with me. If you ever get presented with the option of ordering kulfi falooda, definitely do it. It’s this wonderful kulfi ice cream that is so thick and creamy it has the consistency of frozen cheesecake mixed with cream, tiny tapioca balls, noodles, and jello. It may not sound entirely enticing on paper, but oh my, it was the best dessert I’ve eaten in all of India!
After the delicious dinner, we met up with everyone else from the flat to take taxis into Film City to have the evening practice on the set. Driving into Film City was like driving into another universe. First, you have to pay an entrance fee that makes you feel like you’re entering a national park. It’s beautiful and green with dirt roads lined with huge trees. It’s so peaceful. It certainly didn’t feel like driving around the cement sets at Universal Studios!
When we got back to the apartment, it was after midnight, Lourd’s birthday! So we celebrated with a cake that Richard picked up from the Brownie shop near the apartment. It was a fun but brief celebration!
