Late last week, just as Manish was zeroing in on me after scouring the entire blogosphere to find a guest blogger who could make the rest of the Sepia Mutiny gang look good, a friend approached me with a plan. I was on my first visit to Hyderabad - the rapidly growing capital of Andhra Pradesh - and the friend was trying to convince me to go to Ramoji Film City, a Universal Studios type setup on the outskirts of the city.
But this is not like Universal Studios at all. It is a functioning studio, not a theme park. No trip to Hyderabad is ever complete without a visit to the film city. It is a happening place. We should go.
Happening place? I see you’ve never been to K-Mart.
No, but this is happens to be largest movie studio in the world. Sometimes you can even see live movie shootings. Imagine seeing Nagarajuna in action. We are going. This from the increasingly hysteric friend, who was starting to drool.
So we went. And it was a very disturbing experience. I might have grown up building elaborate temples for film actresses, but I know as well as you that not everything I see in movies is true. Like the blood spurting out of people is tomato ketchup. That the vamps are all drinking Sprite, not vodka. That there is a small possibility the email Aishwarya Rai wrote to me asking me to go check out her topless pictures on the internet may not be from her. All this I know. But then, this trip proved to me, there is so much more to add to that list. Such as the Taj.
The friend and I entered the studio, and after a cursory glance at a rather crowded Wild West set (for cowboy scenes, man) whose highlights were (naturally) Bills Gun Factery and the Flying Fish Beach pub, we were whisked away in an Ashok Leyland bus whose top has been sawn off for a tour of the city.
As the bus wound through the city at an alarming speed, we passed several buildings - each one of them designed to appear differently from different directions. Airport from the front, Church from the back. Imperial bungalow from the front; seedy apartment building from the side. Standard deception. The friend has almost his entire body out of the bus, trying to catch a glimpse of a sitcom being shot about a couple of miles away. Meanwhile, a tour guide with a karaoke microphone starts up a running commentary of the sights, rapidly switching between Hindi and Telugu. Remember all those Bollywood movies shot in London? Well, you remember wrong. There was one shot of the Tower of London borrowed from some old classic, and then they moved the crew here for the rest of the movie.
Phoreen shoots are expensive, so this can pass for London, I suppose. The tour guide continues as the bus driver morphs into a speeding maniac. [Excuse for bad photography: Done.]. And when the dashing old man proposes his undying love to the charming young girl with the Taj in the background, the couple might actually be standing right here.
Id had it by now. But sir,this structure bears little or no resemblance to the Taj
Good camerawork can take care of it, the guy mumbles as his driver speeds up. He continues speaking. The highlights of the Ramoji Film City, he says, are the parks and gardens with pretty flowers that form a great backdrop for song sequences. And then my friend points to a tree, claiming that hed seen a song shot around it.
No way people are gonna believe thats a tree. No way.
Thats what you think. Why do you think they make the girls wear those dresses - its all a giant distraction strategy to save money on real trees.
Oh well, at least the girls are real. Or so I thought, until I came across this. (from the Indian Express Online.)
Eight years ago, film star Sushmita Sen held a teary-eyed press conference to deny her breast enhancement. But today, almost every actress or actress-in-the-making has had one. Shilpa Shetty, Priyanka Chopra, Ayesha Takia, Koena Mitra (shes apparently had two), Shamita Shetty, Bipasha Basu, Aditi Govitrikar, Jessie Randhawa and, most recently, Sushama Reddy have supposedly had implants.
I am shattered, but I have that email from Aish I can go back to.
