AS A HUMID OCTOBER EVENING SETTLED over the asbestos roof of the Junior Artists Association to the east of Jogeshwari railway station, a production house rang to say five ‘constables’ were needed for a soap opera. Aziz Khan, the union leader, yelled out to the room: “Majeed uncle! Dinesh Andheri! Kishore Chembur!” After briefing the chosen five on the job, he added, “You can wear a normal pant-shirt. The company will give costumes to you.” Since the shoot was only the next day, the men returned to their seats to gossip with the others.
These ‘junior artists’, or extras, assemble here each day for the prospect of being chosen for an eight-hour shift on location at a film or television shoot around Mumbai, at the rate of Rs 660 per shift (only men come here—women extras have a separate association that manages their affairs). That payment only covers walking or standing in a fixed position. Additional work, such as getting wet or besmirched with gulal or shouting a slogan, can fetch them Rs 400 or so more, depending on the specific requirements of the job.
For the 1,500 members of the association, October is usually a busy period—a time when the end of monsoon makes outdoor shoots in the city feasible again. This year, though, business was slow after the studios cancelled a number of underperforming television soap operas; things weren’t expected to pick up until November. But the extras had learnt, from studio sources only hinted at, about a film on Ajmal Kasab, which would require CST terminus to fill up for the scene of the terrorist attack—provided the Central Railways consented to the idea. The suspense about whether or not the work would come through was making them jittery.
But 20-year-old Firoze Khan didn’t seem troubled. He was playing with his smartphone, which he had bought earlier that day and already filled up with film clips and screen grabs of various scenes featuring extras. As his peers ribbed him about his expensive purchase, Firoze grew embarrassed. “I’ll use it for work,” he said softly and shoved his phone into the pocket of his jeans.
Unlike the others, Firoze has contacts in the industry, which helps him secure a steady stream of work. While his peers might make between Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000 a month, Firoze usually manages to make Rs 30,000. He likes his steady work as an extra, and said he isn’t particularly interested in getting a ‘break’. “I don’t even watch movies,” he added matter-of-factly.
Sitting at the back of the room and smoking a beedi in breach of office decorum, 54-year-old Abu Lala didn’t pay much attention to the announcements. In the decades Lala has been in the profession, he has earned enough to get a daughter married and put two sons through school. But he knew the demand for his ‘look’ had fallen, and that this was increasingly a young man’s game.
Lala knows the kinds of ‘looks’ that sell here now: B-types like the ‘Inspector’, moustachioed, stiff and stern; the ‘Constable’, a meeker version of the ‘Inspector’; the perky ‘College’ type and the menacing ‘Goon’. Then there were the elite A-types or ‘Decent’ lookers, meaning the fairer and the straighter-nosed, who play office- and party-goers, lawyers, or distant relatives at weddings. Importantly, none of the extras are attractive enough to risk drawing attention away from the often insecure stars who occupy the centre of the frame.
Lala will soon be seen as a prisoner in the under-production Shootout at Wadala, directed by Sanjay Gupta. “I have a jail scene with the lead actor, where I tell the jailers, ‘Give him one more roti, one more, give it!’” he said, emoting heavily. But Lala’s most treasured memory of his 35 years on the sidelines of tinsel town is of playing the dead body which Sanjay Dutt was asked to dissect in Munnabhai MBBS. “I am that corpse,” he said with evident pride, before turning unblinkingly to the front of the office, where a television set blared on, helping the junior artists pass time as they waited for work to come their way.