Working to Exhaustion
Trip Start
Jan 15, 2007
1
21
Trip End
Mar 2007
Pune,
India
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Yesterday, I was booked for a "two-hour" shoot in Bombay. The only reason I agreed to it, since I had been ill the previous couple of days, was that it was for such a short time period, and because I am in desperate need of the money. Well, seven hours into the shoot, they finally decided to begin on my makeup and hair. Hitherto, I had been sitting in a chair alternating between reading my biopic of Genghis Khan (very informative and interesting), and angrily writing in my journal. Sigh. So much for it only lasting two hours. What is particularly disturbing about India, though, is that the rates here are really low, and for whatever reason, even though the client stretched it into an all day affair, they won't pay me any more money for the job. In New York, I would have been making overtime for those hours, and Nancy, my booker there, would have been on the phone telling the client off for treating me that way. Not so in New York.
Tonight, Sky and I drove to Pune. Well, Jignesh drove, and we rode along with him on the five hour road trip that took us south of Bombay. We were accompanied by another van in which rode Rose, another model; Pavella, photographer; and some other people. We were going on location for a shoot!
We arrived after midnight, and set up in a coffee shop that was closed for the night. Pavella had arranged to get clothes from a designer who is showing his collection this week in India Fashion Week. The clothes haven't been shown yet, and so we got the first look. It was a long night for Rose and I as we each wore about five garments. Sky, who didn't have anything to wear save his own wardrobe since the collection was exclusively women's wear, slept in a corner. I was envious of his sleeping, but we did wake him up for a final shot of the evening.
By 6am, we had wrapped everything up. In fact, we had to wrap everything up, as Sky and I had to be back in Bombay by 9am for a television commercial that we would be filming that day. It is true that there is no rest for the weary.
