FAB INDIA

There is a great clothing store here called Fab India
fabindia.com
I have been in several times but have so far been able to control
myself, only buying one shirt, a super-short kurta in fact,
with a wild red and green interwoven checkered pattern,
like a sort of mini-plaid. It's a bit more expensive than
the cheap cotton shirts I bought on the street,
but those have all started falling apart so I think it's worth spending
a few more rupees and getting something that will last.
I think of Fab India as the Indian version of H&M,
hip and affordable , or as they say here, 'cheap and best!'...

Taking The Train

Still in Bombay, I've been taking the city trains quite a bit,
it's amazing to see the packed trains speeding past with
men hanging out the doors (the women usually have their own, less crowded,
compartments which men are forbidden to enter).
I took one train, out to Bandra, a sea-side area, that was so full,
at one point my feet were not touching the ground,
and I was clinging to a pipe along the ceiling.
It was like being in a mosh pit, and the thought of crowd-surfing
to the door when my stop came crossed my mind more than once.
Actually, it is closer to a rugby match, especially when the train pulls into a station
and the men disembarking basically smash straight into the sea of bodies trying to
board, everyone yelling, punching and pushing in sheer desperation.
The cheeky, young Mongolian guy I was with called it an Indian body massage!
This potentially unpleasant inconvenience is easily offset by the experience of riding the trains
when there are few passengers and I can hang out the doors and watch the city
roll past (slums, filth, art deco buildings, crazy temples) with the wind rushing against my face,
and the moon glowing in the hazy darkness of the Bombay night sky. Incredible.

Friday December 16th- Bombay-Bollywood Voice-Over

A couple of us here got roped into doing some voice
over work for a Bollywood film
entitled 'Rang De Basanti' (A Generation Awakens)
http://www.zibamusic.com/product_info.php?products_id=11332
if you want to buy the soundtrack (!?!)
it was a cool studio near Andheri station,
there were tons of awards from
various Bollywood hits on the walls of the lounge area,
a few small rooms for overdubbing and editing and a
large foley room, for sound effects, where we recorded our voice overs
of colonial era British military officers barking out orders.
By coincidence, I had bought a Hindi dictionary and phrase
book the day before, which dates from 1957 and which has
an entire section of military phrases,
so the director chose quite a few phrases from that,
including the dubious "Show me the cock!" which I would
assume refers to a rifle's trigger mechanism, but had us in
convulsions trying to suppress our laughter.
The fact that neither myself, nor the friend with me, a med student from New Zealand,
could pull off a convincing British accent seemed to be a concern...
At the end of the day we were payed 500 rupees, 100 more than promised,
but in reality we should have made three or four times that,
as the money gets split up between the various middle men,
the guy who took us out there, the guy who paid the guy to take us out there,
and the guys here at Salvation Army who get a commission for pimping out
the Westerners here to various films, ads and music videos.
I am certainly not complaining though, as it was a fun experience and
now I know to skip the middle men for the next time!

Bombay

Bombay- Thursday December 15th
Went to an incredible concert tonight at the park in
Horniman Circle, Peruvan Kuttan Marar and Group,
from the Kerala region of southern India...
it was a huge ensemble of several dozen drummers (my ears are still ringing)
and two dozen or so horn players- wearing only white silk sarongs.
Musically it would be impossible to describe,
as it was really a visceral, trance inducing experience, but in a pinch
I would have to say Jujuku meets Kodo drummers...
the guys behind me were screaming and thrashing about as the music
built into these wild rythmic climaxes, and the older gentleman beside me
was waving his arms in the air the entire time.
Bombay is an incredible city, but quite exhausting,
I think I need to go to sleep!