Chura Liya Hai Tumne. “You stole my heart.”
Another frequent question about my trip is people asking if I can post a scene from my movie. “Nothing beats a bad Bollywood movie!” they say. Surprisingly, I found the movie, amongst thousands of others, in the very unlikely place of my hometown, Milwaukee, on the shelves of the local Indian grocer. I tried to upload a scene but got my account flagged. Oops! Finally, someone has posted a licensed copy of the music video on YouTube.
This is my debut video as a backup dancer in a Bollywood movie. This video took three days to film. I heard the song play hundreds of times. Oh, it was torture. I absolutely hated this song. But now, I absolutely love it. Weird. I must have been brainwashed. Can you spy me dancing? It’s tricky. I’m in the crowd a lot but featured fairly prominently in one scene.
I first saw the music video in a hotel room on MTV. I had a fever from dengue fever, and I swear when I saw an extended cut of myself dancing on Indian MTV, I thought I was hallucinating. And again, my head would spin when I would see the movie premiere in the theater with the disclaimer, “All people in this movie are fictitious.” I thought, “Am I fictitious?” Descartes must have had a similar experience wondering if he existed which culminated in his famous expression, “I think, therefore I am.”
There is a story in my book Falling Uphill about making the Bollywood movie in Mumbai, India. It was a strange experience being treated like a celebrity and being paid ten times more than the people in my hotel earn working day and night. They slept in the hotel lobby behind the desk. In the story, I meet a wretched boy and a homeless man who cause me to confront my newfound fame and fortune.
About this movie
The Bollywood movie that I was in is called “Chura Liyaa Hai Tumne”, which means something like “You robbed me of my girlfriend.” Sometimes the movie translates to something like, “You stole my heart,” which must be a reference to an older famous song, “You have already stolen my heart.” (Chura Liya Hai Tumne Jo Dil Ko.) Supposedly, this film was inspired by the 1963 Hollywood film Charade. This movie was a blockbuster that summer even though it rates only a 3.9/10 on IMDB. The description reads, “An old acquaintance (Zayed Khan) may have ulterior motives when he helps a young woman (Esha Deol) evade the slimy associates of her late uncle in Bangkok.” And even though our video took place in a Bangkok nightclub, it was filmed in Mumbai and there wasn’t a Thai person anywhere.
