July 13th 2009 My traveling companion Kari and I arrived to our hostel in Colaba, Mumbai. Despite warnings about bed bugs at the Salvation Army we decide to stay there. Upon arriving to the hostel we are both approached by Bollywood talent/extras scout Amjad. He recruits us to be foreigner extras in a film portraying the terrorist attacks on Mumbai in November of 2008. We say, “yes” immediately since this was on our to-do-in-Mumbai list. The pay is little, 500 rupees ($10 American dollars), but for the two of us that equals to two days paid hostel and food costs. The hours are not so favorable, 9PM to 5AM. Later in the evening, we run into Amjad on the streets shortly before we are to be transported to our filming location. He apologizes to us and informs us that the director only wanted light-skinned extras and because my skin is brown I would look too much like an Indian, but Kari was still welcome to be an extra. I was blown away. I laughed since for the past several weeks I have encountered this reaction from many other people. I have been confused with being either a native Indian or an ABCD, which is code for an American-Born-Confused-Deshi or in other words one who is born in America (of Indian background) and has come to India to find his/her “roots” because they are going through an identity crisis. I had not up to this point though, ever been told so bluntly that I was being refused a job/position because my skin was brown. I laugh about it now, but at the time I was shocked. Kari was nice enough to refuse leaving me to go film as an extra, but the next day we both got our 15 minutes (more like 15 seconds) of fame when the director allowed the two of us as extras. The next day we were picked up and transported on a big bus for a couple hours towards north Mumbai to an abandoned Hotel called Tulip Star. When we arrived the wardrobe lady had me change into a horrible pink and brown paisley/velvet dress with ugly black clunky shoes while everyone else had more hip clothes. Hippy male travelers were transformed into working-class businessmen. The film set looking like the inside of a restaurant at a hotel with fake food and fake drinks (we snatched a whiskey bottle from the bar, which was ended up containing 0% alcohol). The first few hours were difficult with little direction, hot sets w/o air conditioning and for some reason our director was also an actor. There was plenty of chai to keep us happy and awake. In one scene, which I call my “big Bollywood break” I cried into Alex’s (fellow traveling partner) shoulder while he called for help on his cell phone, but in reality he was pretending to order Chinese food while I laughed. Once 2AM rolled around we all hit a wall, when I look over at Alex and he looks like he had an epiphany and said, “we should do some urban exploring in this building”. We make friends with Vijay Kumar, building keeper and film set chaiwala. We escaped from the set one by one and snuck past security making our way with our guide Vijay up the hotel stairs. Our eyes adjust to the light illuminating throughout the dark hallways full of dispersed trash, cracked bathtubs, empty whiskey bottles and thrown “Do Not Disturb” placards on the floor. Vijay leads us to the viewpoint where we overlook the night city light. We continued climbing the staircase until we reached the rooftop where we viewed the tranquil ocean, swaying trees, and depressing empty swimming pool. Wandering through the hotel was eerie and at times scary, but also fun because it was such an adrenaline rush. Vijay lead us safely back to the film set where we learned we had missed the call for the next scene. We rushed to the scene, but the director had everyone positioned already and did not need us. Finally, around 5:30AM we leave the hotel and try to make up for lost beauty rest on the bumpy bus ride back to our hostel.