Location Diaries: An unlikely mobbing

This weekly column details the fascinating encounters that often take place on the sets of a film and this week it is Jarugandi
Location Diaries: An unlikely mobbing

When you’re a popular actor, you expect to get mobbed every now and then. Actor Jai, however, scarcely imagined the sort of mobbing he would have to experience while shooting for producer Nithin Sathya's Jarugandi at Pondicherry.

The shooting was going on as per plan in Pondicherry. Jai stood on one side of the road, with the villain facing him from the other side. The scene being shot demanded that Jai speak some dialogues out loud and make some animated gestures. As the road was rather crowded, the camera was hidden from sight, so as not to attract passersby.

 Jai finished the scene as planned, and that’s when trouble began. A few onlookers suddenly rushed at Jai to convey their disappointment with him. “They seemed quite upset, and kept telling me that I’d done something wrong. One person said he didn’t expect it from me at all,” recounts Jai. “I stood puzzled, and had no idea what they were talking about.”

And then, it finally dawned on Jai, as the onlookers continued to make a big hue and cry, that he was standing in front of a shop that was selling pirated DVDs. “And as I was standing there, they had assumed I had come there to buy pirated copies.”

Before he could gather his wits, a sizeable crowd had formed around him, and the situation had began getting out of hand. Meanwhile, traffic on the road had come to a halt, and the commotion continued. “I’d been mobbed before, but this was the first time I was in a horrible situation. With the crowd yelling at me, it was impossible for me explain. Luckily, the camera team managed to break through the crowd, and explained that I was merely shooting. Finally, they understood.”

It took almost two hours for the crowd and traffic to be cleared. “We were behind schedule by almost two hours. I’m just happy we finished that scene at least. You’ll know which scene when you see it in the film."

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