It feels like just yesterday when I was on my 16th Bollywood film. I remember it so vividly… I began the day, like I always do, with my merry band of servants (my American advisers keep telling me to call them “domestic staff”;-) and went to the airport. I was walking thru the terminal in my burkha (I am Hindu not Muslim, but I get mobbed everywhere I go in India so I use it to conceal my identity)… on my way to America for the post-production of my new film HISSS, Bollywood’s first real creature feature!
(THIS SCENE BROKE ALL LAWS IN INDIA AND CHANGED INDIA SOCIALLY FOREVER)
I got off the plane in Los Angeles and I braced myself for the hailstorm of fans and flashing lights of paparazzi. I took a deep breath, exited the baggage claim and waited. And waited. AND WAITED. Nothing…no one recognized me. Whatever;) The American fame will come soon enough, I told myself. Sure, at that moment it was definitely a lil scary and I was alone and virtually helpless, but you don’t become the Marilyn Monroe of Bollywood by shaking in your boots;-)
When I began to live in LA, it was actually quite the transition for me– with no “help”, no fame, learning to drive all by myself and shop for my own groceries, (I even had to call some friends to teach me how to use the stove!) and for the first time in a long time, I had to fend for myself! :-0 This newfound independence has indeed provenitself a blessing rather than a curse. (Who knew it would feel great to walk around the streets of LA, just another stunningly perfect face and bombshell body in the crowd? lol;)
Lately, I’ve been studying Black America, simply the coolest cultural experience of my life, (U don’t hear Drake on the radio in India), which will help me greatly for my new role in the film “Love, Barack.” It’s directed by the legendary Doug McHenry and takes place during the ’08 elections. (BTW, Obama’s election was a huge event in India? Inthis new film, I play a half-Indian half-African American woman (like “the female Obama” Kamala Harris) who falls in love with a black Republican! With a lil hard work, combined with some gospel churchin’, hip-hop dance classes and slanguage lessons: I’ll be a swaggaliciou
