Filthy locations
In the early days of my career I remember this really embarrassing situation on a recee in Switzerland. My producers and I went to book this chalet for the crew in the pretty hamlet of Gstaad. The estate agent looked at us and frowned. When we confirmed her worst fears that we were from the Indian Film Industry. she went
catatonic. “No! No Bollywood! Get out!” I was upset. That was rude and uncalled for and then I was made to understand the reason for her ire. The last “Bollywood” crew that had gone there had left the property in such a deplorable state that the Italian owners had a minor cardiac arrest when they saw what state their property was in.
Apparently we are famous for it. Wherever a Bollywood crew goes they are never allowed there again. But as we stand sometimes wrongly accused, I could not help but notice how sometimes a Bollywood crew can be shocked at the state of a place even before we start shooting there.
Ooty and the famous location called Old Mysore road. It has been the favourite of filmmakers through years. To refresh your memory it is where the Chaalbaaz picnic song with Sridevi was filmed and Amitabh Bachchan romanced Smita Patil in Shakti. I have filmed there so many times myself, including for my film Raaz, but when I went there to film my recent film Haunted I was shocked beyond belief.
The old Mysore lake has become a sewage dump. The entire lake is thick green with what looks like oily chemicals and there is waste all around the banks that you cannot imagine. Plastic bags, plastic bottles, shoes, slippers in abundance. Every time I put up a shot I had to get a crew of cleaners to just clean the field of the litter. I was shocked and pained beyond words. I had to write this piece as a lament and as a fervent call to any authority reading this to do something for one of the most scenic and once the most pristine of locations.
Then we hear people make comments like, “I wonder why people shoot in Switzerland and don’t find beauty here in India.” Sure, there is beauty here. More than anywhere in the world but if the Old Mysore Road was in Switzerland the concerned clean up authorities would surely have lots to answer for.
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