My encounter with a Bollywood star

I am going to attempt to write this blog in one sitting, but I’ve just come off of supervising 9-14 year old boys for a few hours, so I’m pretty drained! :P

There are currently two American girls, two British girls and me here as short term volunteers. Because there are so many of us, we were able to hire a car (for 10 bucks each) to and from Nenital, a town in the foothills of the Himalayas with a big lake parked in the middle of it. It takes about 3 hours one way. We had a good mix of nationalities which was nice, I partnered up with Pricilla (Clifton’s Indian wife) because we were the only ones without a patriotic buddy.

Before we left we had been told that car sickness on the roads was going to be inevitable on this journey. We put Pricilla, the only one who had been there before AND who suffered from car sickness, in the front. Brit (UK) and Katharine (USA) were in the far back, and then Uaine (UK), Beth (USA) and I sat in the middle. This worked for about 30 mins before Brit started getting sick and we reshuffled to get her in the middle. Then about 2 hours into it Katharine caved and needed to squeeze in the middle with us. About 20 mins before we reached nenital, Beth suddenly jumped from her seat in the back, lunged forward to the middle section, stuck her head out as far as it would go out the window, and vomited her heart out, all over the side of the guy’s car.


The roads were terrible, potholes everywhere as well as an hour of winding through the hills in a jerkey Indian driven car. I kept myself entertained by reading the many different road signs they have up everywhere. The English ones were entertaining: “We like your face, but not your fast speed”, “If you sleep, your family will weep” and my personal favorite- “If married, Divorce speed”.


Funniest moment was when we were winding our way up the hills and we reached a section big enough for only one car at a time. As we approached the narrow road, I realised that there was going to be confrontation when our car started to pick up speed in an attempt to beat the car that was now coming towards us. It was a race to get to the lane first. When the cars met half way and it was obvious that one of us would have to reverse, instead of backing up like we expected our driver to do, (our driver was so in the wrong) he turned off his engine and stubbornly refused to move. We all waited in disbelief. I double checked with Pricilla to see if there was any reasonable reason as to why we had stopped. There wasn’t one. Cars started banking up behind us, and after the 10th minute, some men started getting out of their cars to approach our driver. We girls were telling the driver to back out, frankly to stop being a complete jerk, but he absolutely refused. The whole situation had us all in hysterical laughter, because we could not believe what was happening. I thought that maybe if this had happened at home, there might have been an all out brawl due to road rage. Pricilla said that if the driver opposite us hadn’t finally decided to reverse (after 20 mins!) there probably would have been a fight. I can’t believe that a grown man could act that childish! Haha anyway, we got there in the end!


OK, I have to admit, the lake and the mountains were a lot more impressive than I was expecting. Every place I go here, I never expect it to be spectacular because quite often, compared to postcards anyway, it’s not (we are still in India- home to rubbish and pollution). I was wrong! This place really was gorgeous! We were greeted by rain and fog –of course- but we could still make out the lake and the mountains. It was going to be beautiful. The lake sat in between the mountains, and there were monasteries and tiny houses scattered across the mountainside.

After we had some lunch and walked through the Tibetan markets, we went boating on the lake. The boats were incredibly rickety, but took three of us really well and as soon as we were on the water (each wearing life jackets which impressed me immensely!) I forgot about any safety worries. As we were being rowed around we saw that there was a set of spotlights and crowds of people around the boat club. It was a film set! We asked to be rowed closer, and Pricilla recognised one of the actors as a Bollywood star who I would say is our equivalent of Russell Crowe (Older, popular in his younger years, known but not beloved by all, but everyone recognises him).


As soon as we hopped off that boat, our mission became to get into the club and get a pic with Jackie Shurov- the Bollywood actor.


Being three white girls (the Americans had gone off to do their own thing) really gave us the upper hand when it came to getting into the club. At first we were told to come back in a few hours because the filming hadn’t finished, so that’s what we did. Now is probably a good time to explain a common occurrence that happens wherever I tour here. The last thing I expected to happen when I was touring was that I myself would become the tourist attraction, but that’s what happens. We were asked by at least 5 different groups of guys to have our picture taken with them. So awkward! I didn’t think that being white would be all that much of a spectacle in India, but the stares and the amount of times I have been videoed on peoples phones just while walking around, has proven me wrong about that! I now know a little of what it’s like to be a celebrity, and quite frankly, it doesn’t appeal to me at all! Haha :P


Anyway, we came back at 5 that evening to get in and see Jackie Shurov. Our plan now was to not only get a pic, but talk to him and invite him to the orphanage ( which of course we knew realistically wouldn’t happen :P). When we got to the club there was a crowd gathering, when the guard saw us white girls he ushered us through quickly. We got the power! Haha. Anyway we got into this exclusive club thanks to the colour of our skin, and had to wait about 2 minutes before Jackie walked out. The people in the club started to flock to him and the flashes started and I realised that getting a solo pic with him was not going to happen! There was quite a lot of noise, but when he spoke, it was only to us white girls!! Here is what he said, word for word:

“Hi. How are you doing? Are you enjoying India? Have you been to Bombay? Catch you later”.


Profound, I know.


So our 4 minute glimpse of a Bollywood star was pretty awesome, Pricilla was particularly ecstatic. On our way out we were greeted by one of the producers/directors who had studied acting under Ben Kingsley who won an Oscar for his performance as Gandhi in the 1982 film!! We left star struck :P
The rest of our nanital holiday was sent sampling Indian ice-cream, drinking mango juice and wandering the markets. Our journey home was much less eventful than the one to nanital, I think this had something to do with the extra volume the driver put his Hindi pop at and the fact that we were now all squished across the middle seat.

I love you all, and I just wanna gloat and say, gosh I love my life right now!