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A lark in the Lakes

1/ 8/2002

THE Ullswater Steamer is usually packed with hardy outdoor types in walking boots and waterproofs. Today it's full of Asian superstars disco-dancing.

A group of women in skimpy outfits brace themselves against the biting wind and shimmy along to a bhangra soundtrack. Down in the tiny cabin, shivering actors clasp vacuum flasks while make-up artists try to keep a steady hand despite the pitching floor. Someone with a mobile phone attempts to locate a helicopter. This is Bollywood on a boat - and it's bedlam.

The film crew has flown over from Bombay to make use of the mountains. This seems strange, given that the Cumbrian fells are mere goosebumps compared with the peaks of the sub-continent, but in screen terms the Himalayas are old hat.

Bollywood now looks further afield - to Switzerland, New Zealand and recently to Scotland, where the big hit of 1998, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (Something Is Happening), was shot almost in its entirety.

The precise location of the present film, Mujhse Dosti Karoge (Will You Be My Friend?) is a closely guarded secret. It is a major £4 million production from the stable of Yash Chopra, India's most revered film-maker.

This production brings together three of the hottest young stars in Indian film: Rani Mukherjee, Kareena Kapoor and Hrithik Roshan, the emerald-eyed, Elvis-quiffed, three-thumbed golden boy of Bollywood (his right hand has a double thumb). It is almost impossible to conceive of the extent of this trio's fame in India. The Beckhams lead a quiet life in comparison.

Western film shoots are planned like military operations, with everything plotted meticulously in advance. Bollywood location work depends on what the director feels like doing after breakfast. When we ask the location manager if we might see a shooting schedule, he laughs. "This is Bollywood," he says. "There is no shooting schedule."

The film unit has taken over a Windermere Hotel, even staging a full-scale annexation of the kitchens under the supervision of the producer's wife, Mrs Chopra. It's hard to imagine Mrs George Lucas taking care of the Star Wars catering, but the Bombay film crew eats and socialises like an extended family.

Film units have notoriously early starts. We are ready in the lobby at 7am. By 9.30, one or two members of the crew start drifting down for breakfast. At 10, a couple of buses draw up. By 11, we are ready to leave. The stars board the bus with the rest of the cast. There is no attempt to clog the Cumbrian lanes with limousines. None of the actors has been to the Lake District before. They are excited by the proximity of Dove Cottage. "We love your William Wordsworth," says Sachin Khedekar, who plays the heroine's father. "Also WB Keats." "But they're dead now, right?" says Mukherjee. "Are we near Stratford-upon-Avon?"

The shoot commences on a choppy lake with a sizeable chunk of the Bollywood aristocracy packed on to a little boat. When Roshan's father, a film director, survived an assassination attempt two years ago, the country was less mortified by the attempted murder than by his son's statement that he might abandon the movies. It would clearly be a national tragedy if the Ullswater Steamer were to go down right now.

As long as the actors are stranded in the middle of an English lake, they cannot be working on any other films. Film-making in India is entirely scheduled around availability, and as actors often work on six or seven projects at once, it can take years for a film to reach completion. So for big-budget projects like this, it can be quicker and more economical to shoot abroad.

This explains why the Cumbrian hills are standing in for the Indian mountain region of Shimla, appropriately. In the days of the Raj, English settlers built holiday homes in Shimla because the verdant slopes and pleasant climate reminded them of the Lake District. The other great benefit of filming abroad is that the actors can work without being mobbed. Below decks, Roshan is enjoying his new-found anonymity: "Back in Bombay, the atmosphere is crazy," he says. "The pressure is intense, the expectations are absurd."

He glances across the cabin to where two of India's most famous female actresses giggle and chat like schoolgirls on an excursion. "Don't get me wrong," he says. "We've come out here to get the right shot - but compared to working in Bombay, this is a party."

I mention that there seems to be a refreshing lack of ego involved. "Yes, but this is how it is among the younger generation of actors," he says. "This is a young cast working with a young director and an up-and-coming composer. There's no need for ego if you're honest about your work."

I say it doesn't seem like a radical departure for Hindi film. "That's true, but the stories that work best are those rooted in traditional, Indian values. Every time we have tried to move away from our cultural tradition, it has been a disaster - because the cinema is perhaps the one thing that brings people together in India. That's not to say that we do not try to give our audience something new each time. The art is to strike a balance between tradition and innovation. One day, I would like to make a film about the Internet that people in the villages will understand."

Back on dry land, the dance recommences. Surprisingly, the musical sequence hasn't been rehearsed. It is broken down into fleeting segments, with the choreographer devising moves between takes. Most of the hip-thrusting and eyebrow-raising comes from a stock repertoire of gestures the actors develop from birth. Roshan and Kapoor come from film dynasties and have been pouting like this since they were babies.

"That is mind-blowing!" the director enthuses, as Kapoor hops off a log. After a few more attempts to make it more mind-blowing, Kapoor complains that she has been wearing the same costume all day and would like to slip into something else. The director assures her that she looks mind-blowing. Besides, there's nowhere to change.

By the end of the day, the lack of wardrobe facilities has become a problem. And this being lamming season, the Lake District is peppered with droppings.

After seven hours of chugging round a freezing lake and tripping through a field, the crew has collected maybe a minute and a half of musical footage. This, I'm assured, is good progress. The location manager confidently believes that they may even have pulled ahead of schedule. If there had been a schedule to begin with, that is.

This article first appeared in Asian News sister newspaper, the Guardian in May.