Some solid career advice: Bollywood, Here I Come!

Looking for jobs, college students?

So, good news, all you laid-off American workers: Bollywood is hiring. If Plans B, C, and D don't work out here in the United States, remember, there's a guy in Mumbai who can use you tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that. There are, of course, easier ways to earn what amounts to $10.50 for a day's work. But none of those jobs involves tacky outfits or close proximity to celebrities you've never heard of. And it's hard to imagine another job that ends with a grown man pouring bottled water on your head and sternly instructing, "Just walk normal!" as the camera begins to roll.

Hey! That's a good wage, you may say. But how much more weird stuff can you put up with?

I'd been pegged immediately as "middle-aged business dork" and ended up in a pink striped shirt, a thin black tie, and a tight suit of green and blue fabric that looked like industrial carpeting. I assumed from my outfit—wrongly, as it happens—that the movie was set in the '70s.

The only other Westerner to show up was a 26-year-old from Buenos Aires named Maia, whom they put in a colorful frumpy dress with a big red rose in the middle of the neckline. "I look like a clown!" she shouted. "Why do they want me to look like a clown?"

Quasi, unintentional humiliations aside, you have to feel for Bombay. (Don't say Mumbai and give in to the Hindu fundamentalists. Or do: we say Myanmar now, don't we? Forget all those controversies)

But seriously, it's pretty irrational to not go to Bombay after the attacks. Granted, India suffers from a preponderance of terrorist attacks, but this would probably be the best time to go, judging by the descriptions of security in the Slate article about Bollywood.