15 minutes

Place: Mumbai, India

I always thought I was indifferent to the idea of fame. Glamor, stardom, Hollywood never held much appeal. Or so I thought, until we found ourselves riding an 18 hour bus to Mumbai for the chance to appear in Bollywood.
Bollywood, Mumbai's movie filming center, produces more films than Hollywood each year, and has become famous for it's dancing and singing, elaborate costumes, and lack of any physical touch between male and female actors. Also, ironically, they prefer to have Westerners as extras to make their films seem more like, well, Hollywood.
Colaba is the pretty, historic part of Mumbai that has drawn in tourists for many years. Even the terrorist attacks in 2008 has not stopped the flow of people staying at the 5-Star Taj Mahal hotel or eating at Leopold's Cafe (where you can still see bullet holes in the walls), and it is where the movie producers scout white people to be extras. Knowing this, we found a hotel room and within a few minutes were approached by a man asking us to be extras in an ad for an Indian diamond company the next day.
At 6 am the following morning, we, as well as 10 other extras boarded a 3 hour bus ride to an abandoned Arabian style house being used for our photo shoot. They ushered us into one of the rooms, shooed the boys away and the wardrobe lady handed each of the females an elaborate prom dress with tacky plastic jewelry. Then we were rushed to hair and makeup. After the first makeup artist caked our faces with orange foundation and several layers of powder, I was placed in front of the second makeup artist. He rouged up my cheeks several times, then stood with his eyeshadow pallet open in his palm. There was a total of four colors: neon green, sparkly green, royal blue, and baby blue. He glanced at me, then at the pallet, then back at me, then at the pallet. He glanced at me one more time, then chose....bright blue. After encircling my eyes and eyelid up to my brows with blue eyeshadow, he nodded in approval and sent me, sans mascara and looking like a freaky baby doll, to get my hair done.

Jen and Megan were already there. Jen's hair was slick straight, while they had given Megan Bo-beep type ringlets with a teased Pompadour in the front. They threw my hair up in rollers before pinning it in a pile on top of my head. Not exactly sure what look they were going for in this shoot, the three of us together looked like we were from 3 separate centuries: Jen was modern and stylish, Megan from the 1920's with flapper type hair, and myself, like an 18th century grandmother. The wardrobe lady adjusted my gold plastic jewelry with large pink stones around my neck, inserted rubber breast enhancers into the bust line of the maroon prom dress, gave me a pair of silver shoes and nodded in approval and sent me to join the other extras, all dressed similar to myself.


The set, unlike the extras, was beautiful and color coordinated. With bleach white columns, sheer hanging curtains and fake renaissance paintings. The main model was a gorgeous brunette from Brazil. The shooting began and lasted about ten hours, with breaks for Chi tea and lunch. I attempted several types to flatten the huge curl of hair on the side of my face, or wipe away some of the blue eyeshadow, but each time the makeup lady would run over, fluff up the curl and solidify it in hairspray. Then apply an extra layer of foundation.

My look reached it's peak when they called me in for a wardrobe switch halfway through the shoot. They handed me a huge polyester skirt, bright green, with a oriental type frock and huge dangley earrings. I went back to the set, where they put me front and center, and handed me a matching fake green cocktail as a prop.
"Well, that outfit matches your hairstyle at least" the other extras tried to be uplifting. Glancing in the mirror, I knew they were right. I was like a flesh and blood version of the evil stepmother from the Cinderella cartoon. This definitely ensured that I would never have more than 15 minutes of fame. They let me leave the set early, as I was laughing so hard I cried off all my makeup and was ruining each picture and annoying the photographer.
After a 16 hour day, we were paid our promised 500 rupees ($11), which made up the first income I've earned in the past two months. They said the ad would come out in a few weeks on the internet, Indian magazines, and possibly even billboards. We celebrated with the other extras that night at Leopold's Cafe, since we could officially call ourselves international models.