Mumbai being the capital of Indian film industry has played a major role in the development of cinema for a period of a century.
To provide facilities and convenience to the film industry the State Government has built a Film City at Goregaon. Given the nickname Bollywood by everybody across India, Film City is situated on the outskirts of the National Park. Since Bollywood churns out about 120 films every year, Film City sets are booked around the year. They are normally closed to visitors, but special permissions can always be granted for an occasional tour around the premise.
I was once lucky to be part of this tour around Bollywood. A chauffer drove a group of us around accompanied by an escort who pointed out all our favourite star’s houses like Amitabh Bachhan at Juhu, Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan in Bandstand after which he drove us to the Film city at Goregaon. We were taken to a typical film set that was of an elaborate palace. It was the set of Jodha Akbar, a high budget film casting Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai. We were told that the film was mostly shot in Rajasthan though several indoor shots, song sequences and retake shots were shot in Mumbai. This is a similar case for most big budget films. Most out door shots are done outside Mumbai or even out of the country.
As soon as we arrived we were given chairs to sit tactfully faraway from the site of the director yet close enough so we could se clearly. We were lucky to get a quick glimpse of Aishwarya Rai who did her shots (which to almost an hour for a single dialogue) and quickly went back into her van. The Asst Produce of the film explained that such is the case with most film stars. To keep their sanity they almost never interact with anybody else on the sets except for the director, co-actors and secretary.
While on our way back from the Film City our escort informed us that we were one of the few very lucky set of tourists to actually get a chance to watch a shoot courtesy an assistant executive producer. Usually a bunch of tourists wouldn’t be let into the studio. Feel lucky to have the same experience or if you get a chance to click pictures with the starlets of Bollywood.
