India’s COVID-19 lockdown made little difference to Bollywood superstars, but for the industry’s vast army of low-paid, unskilled workers it meant unemployment, hunger and homelessness — with no end in sight even as filming gradually resumes.
Fahim Shaikh used to earn 800 rupees (US$11) a day as a “spot boy” on sets, doing odd jobs such as making tea. When Bollywood hit pause in March, the 23-year-old could no longer pay his rent.
“I just wandered up and down, asking strangers for help and sleeping outside cafes,” Shaikh said.
Photo: AFP
Like many starry-eyed newcomers, he traveled to Mumbai in pursuit of an acting career, before his dreams gave way to the pressures of the daily grind in India’s most expensive city.
The hugely successful Hindi movie industry is tentatively coming back to life, but with strict rules including curbs on the number of people allowed on set.
Jobs for people such as Shaikh are now few and far between.
“I am ready to do anything, I desperately need work,” he said.
The lockdown cast a spotlight on India’s extreme inequality, with well-heeled citizens able to hibernate safely at home while watching shocking scenes of a huge exodus of migrant workers play out on their TV and smartphone screens.
That chasm between the haves and have-nots is perhaps even more pronounced in Bollywood, where jet-setting megastars rub shoulders with tens of thousands of extras, spot boys and other junior crew members, who exist on the margins of the glamorous industry.
“The spot boys are considered the littlest players, till food arrives late on a set,” actress Richa Chadha wrote on a blog highlighting the “disastrous” effects of the lockdown.
During her half-century stint as an extra, Sayeda Mumani has worked alongside virtually every major actor, from 1970s matinee idol Rajesh Khanna to superstar Shah Rukh Khan.
In a good month, the 68-year-old scraped together about 14,000 rupees, but her income dried up after filming came to a standstill.
Unlike the younger Shaikh — who has few industry contacts — Mumani’s long association with leading studios meant that she could count on at least a little help, with top actors such as Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan sending her grocery vouchers and cash, but relying on the piecemeal generosity of individuals has severe limitations, as Mumani found out, when mounting medical and household expenses left her with a debt of 100,000 rupees.
“I feel so useless and helpless,” she said.
Despite generating billions of US dollars in revenue, the world’s most prolific movie industry has no established scheme to protect its most vulnerable members.
The vast majority of the industry’s workers lack access to medical insurance or pension plans.
Director Anubhav Sinha, who paid salaries to his production staff and offered financial aid to other crew members during the lockdown, said the absence of a safety net was because the industry’s workforce is largely freelance.
“My employees ... comprise about 10 percent of the entire size of my film unit. Ninety percent are freelancers, who work on the production and then move on,” Sinha said.
While the industry is home to multiple unions, they lack the deep pockets to look after their members, Cine & TV Artists Association senior joint secretary Amit Behl said.
The association, which has more than 9,000 members, including top stars, had to request donations to support actors who “are virtually living hand to mouth,” Behl said.
“We produce twice the content of other filmmaking countries, but we are not structured,” he said.
Furthermore, he warned that fresh restrictions, which include a ban on filming crowd scenes, hiring large crews or actors older than 65, meant that the crisis was set to worsen, leaving workers such as Mumani fearing for their future.
“We can’t carry on like this,” she said, bursting into tears. “I feel like I am dying already.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese