Monty’s Indian Outlook – Issue 71

The Bollywood film crew had left six lines of cocaine on the breakfast table in my friends’ house as they prepared their two children for school.

Not really the example you want to set for your kids even though you’re being paid a fortune to rent out your house for a movie, but fortunately the ‘cocaine’ was just props for that day’s filming.

Well, that’s what the film set people said. Cynic as I am, it’s like William Burroughs telling his Parisian landlady that the needle hanging out of his arm is for diabetes, not his beloved heroin.

As some of you may have already realised, I have a role in this movie, Dum Maro Dum or the imaginatively titled Take A Hit. I am the British baddie and after only three days’ filming, this has proved to be an infinitely different experience from my first movie as a 1930s British officer when I had a stick-on moustache and wore the heaviest uniform in film history.

The scenes in this film have involved an all-day Goa party on Vagator beach and an all-night rave in the forest and I have to give the scriptwriter credit, it has been like going back in time 16 years. The forest scene even had a police raid, just like the good old days of 1994 at that old Portuguese fort I can’t remember the name of.

On set itself, I’ve never had my picture taken so many times surrounded by beautiful women. When I told one of them I was a ‘British drug-dealer’ in the film, she told me I looked more like somebody who would lend her a beautiful book. She should have been French, but was Norwegian.

Not the best testament to my acting skills, but these things don’t happen every day (like they used to, I may ADD). And the things women do to get in the scene. When they realised I was on first-name terms with Abishek Bachchan (the chief cop) and that I was ‘dancing’ in the same place every scene it was like being James Foxx in Las Vegas. Hilarious.

I go back to filming in Mumbai in the first week of May and no doubt there will be more stories to tell, but for now, I’m on holiday in Uttarkhand in the Himalayas knowing that the mountains I can see aren’t props, they are the real thing. At least I think they are.

Monty (709 Posts)

Monty Munford has more than 15 years' experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism. He is the founder of Mob76, a company that helps tech companies raise money and exit. He speaks regularly at global media events with a focus on Africa, writes a weekly column for The Telegraph, is a regular contributor to The Economist, Wired, Mashable and speaks regularly on the BBC World Service.


This entry was posted in India by Monty. Bookmark the permalink.

About Monty

Monty Munford has more than 15 years' experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism. He is the founder of Mob76, a company that helps tech companies raise money and exit. He speaks regularly at global media events with a focus on Africa, writes a weekly column for The Telegraph, is a regular contributor to The Economist, Wired, Mashable and speaks regularly on the BBC World Service.