Monday, December 12, 2005

I met SRK!

I am not kidding. On my way over to the Cleo faculty cocktail party last Thursday night, I stopped for a pack of cigs, and I found out from my friendly gas station attendant that Shahrukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee were shooting scenes at the New Haven Amtrak station, so to hell with Cleo -- I and my daughter jumped in the car and ran down to NH. Sure enough, there were about 100 Hindustanis standing outside one end of the station peering through the windows. We went into the station by the door at the other end of the station, pretending to be simple commuters, and innocently took a seat on a bench near the filming. Apparently, they were throwing out all the South Asians because they wanted only Americans in the background. I ended up sitting next to a very nice person who was the extras coordinator, and she said we could stay if we didn't stare. And so we sat for 2 hours watching Shahrukh and Rani in a scene. They've been shooting for 3 days, and this was the last night. We may even appear in a shot. By 10 pm, work was done, and I noticed Shahrukh go off to the public bathroom with a group of security men. After about a 30 second delay, I went into the bathroom, and found him washing the makeup off his face. I did my business, and then signalled to one of the security men that I needed to wash my hands. So there I was, standing at the sink directly beside THE MAN!!! What to do? If I opened my mouth, the security people would have pounced on me. (I should've started humming Kal Ho Na Ho.) So now I move over to the hand dryer, and just stare, with the biggest grin on my face. By now, security is suspicious, so I just leave. The name of the upcoming movie is Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, due to be released in May, and has Amitabh and Preity in it. Amitabh is apparently ill, and has already flown home. They were shooting in New Haven for the past 3 days, with the dance sequence (just Shahrukh and Rani) shot on day one. And get this! There will be more location shooting in Connecticut! So keep your eyes open, fans - you just may meet one of the greatest film stars of all time!

1 comment:

  1. Ok. So I know this post is like 3 years late. But I only now discovered you had a blog. So I read your last few posts. Then your first few. And figured I knew the rest. Though I have to say, if you're so obsessed with Bollywood perhaps I should have told you about my 12 hours stint as an extra in Bollywood while I was in Mumbai. The evening ended with all us extras walking out on one of Bollywood's biggest directors, leaving him fuming in anger.

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