The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love (For a Day)

How four Returned Peace Corps Volunteers made it in Bollywood without even setting foot in Mumbai

After finishing my Peace Corps service in China in 2009, I travelled through Asia for four months with some friends I had served with. Nearly two of those months were spent in India. We eventually made our way to Jaisalmer, a desert town in Rajasthan not far from the border of Pakistan. On our second day there, we went out seeking a travel agent who could give us a good deal on camel trekking in the sand dunes. But we were the ones who ended up getting discovered.

A guy approached my friend Paul and asked if we wanted to be extras in a movie about children. In the desert. It sounded kind of shady, but we were intrigued. Plus they offered each of us 500 rupees, or about $10, which would pay for our hotel rooms that night. So we took his offer of a ride to a hotel so we could talk to the producer. If we didn’t like what we heard, we could say no. After being served tea, we sat on couches in the hotel lobby and listened to the producer pitch the movie. It's called Noora. But they may change the name of the movie later. It's about a Pakistani boy who is a suicide bomber in India. At the end of the movie he's supposed to detonate the bomb at a party (this is the scene we thought we were going to be in) but instead goes outside the party to kill himself instead of hurting the people in the party. Pretty dark stuff for our Bollywood debut, but we were in.

We loaded up in a caravan of SUVs and were taken out to the desert. We were surrounded by nothing but beautiful sand dunes and a few scrappy bushes. There were even several camels on set. As soon as we got there, they put us to work. Now, we were told in town that we were just going to be extras in a party scene. But the director immediately had us lined up sitting at the top of a makeshift ditch. He and the crew were below us with the cameras pointed up at us. He was very energetic and charismatic and before we knew it, we were all learning lines. Not just in English, either. Some of us had to attempt a few lines in Hindi. None of us expected to have to speak, let alone be recognizable. All of us were wearing ragged, dirty clothes. My friend Tasha joked about how proud her mom would be of her wearing a Beer Lao tee shirt on screen.

We had to pretend we were looking at street performers. We felt really cheesy, but just went along with it and laughed. There was also an Australian woman and a French guy in the scene. In the next scene we took pictures of a little girl dancing and clapped along to the music. The little girl was only 9 but had already been in several movies. There was some drama among her, her mother, a make-up artist and the director. At one point, the girl and her mother stormed off the set after arguing with the director.

After watching a few scenes being filmed, we sat around in the tent to stay out of the wind and heat. They gave us a free lunch that was really good. There was a cook on set who had his tandoori oven secured in the sand to make roti on the spot. One of the best parts about the day was talking to an actor and a cameraman who had been in the industry for over 25 years. They were so nice and everyone took really good care of us.

We had expected to stay out on the set until 7 or 8 that night. But out of nowhere, these guys ran up the hill screaming. We thought they were just goofing off until we got out of the tent and saw a sandstorm coming towards us. They were trying to get their equipment out of harm's way. We had just had beautiful blue skies a few minutes earlier and then they quickly turned dark gray. Of course as they were rushing us into the cars, we were all trying to snap pictures of the storm. I have to admit seeing the sandstorm was just as exciting as being in the movie. I'm not sure how the driver could even see the road when we first took off. We were driven back to town, paid for our work, got dinner, and made our way back to our hotel. Not a bad start for our Bollywood career.

I never did make that camel trek or find the movie. But besides seeing the Taj Mahal, it was one of the best days I had in India.