Today is our last full day in Mumbai as we start heading home tomorrow afternoon. With more rain threatening, we took our chances and booked a tour to one of the Bollywood studios. We’d organised a 10:30 pickup and a man arrived on time. The first part of the tour was to retrace some of our steps from yesterday and drive to Lands End, past some of the residences of the stars. It was good to get some more context on the who’s who and the guide also pointed out a couple of murals that we didn’t see in yesterdays’ rain.
From there we fought the Mumbai traffic, which is apparently much improved since they put in a Metro system. We arrived at SJ Studios, which is best know for a soap opera that they export to Canada and the UK that translates to ‘This is Life’. As per the usual Indian method, setting up to do some filming means there are a few people moving things from one place to another and a whole lot of extra people standing around. The actual filming had to get deferred because of the noise from a nearby mosque and Friday prayers.
With the filming suspended, we were taken to another room to watch some informational videos and see some Bollywood dancers. There was somewhat of a delay while they worked out how to turn the television on.
There were 4 dancers and they demonstrated some regional variations of dance used in Bollywood cinema … and they were very good.
The video presentations gave an overview of the Bollywood film industry which produced its first film in 1913 and has continued to increase it’s output since then. Milestones like colour and sound were achieved at similar times to Hollywood studios. Last year there were over 1200 films released.
To finish the dancing part, a little audience participation was required and yet another photo to show that I am above-average height in India.
From there we were taken through a number of the sets that were not being used today, including a corporate office, a cafe, a courtroom, 2 hospitals and a few apartments. The hospital set is one of the most used set in Indian cinema with at least 60% of movies needing a character to have surgery.
By the time we had completed seeing all the sets, filming had resumed on the soap opera. One of the lead actors was standing around waiting for her part…
While others dealt with some sort of very sad circumstance!
The tour included lunch, which was a delicious Butter Chicken and a Mutton Biryani. A great way to complete the day, prior to happy hour at the hotel.
I’ll publish the wrap-up blog tomorrow and that will be it for this trip!
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