To live in India and not have a tale that begins with, “Once upon a time when I was in an auto”, would mean that you have truly not experienced the culture. From the bickering driver to the shifty meter, bumpy ride to the exorbitant fare..., are what one can easily share when it comes to the annoying autowalas. You can imagine, how hilarious and complex the auto rides might be for two Swedish guys, aka ‘2 Foreigners in Bollywood’, who landed in Mumbai nine months ago.
Hampus Bergqvist, 25, and Johan Bartoli, 26, recently shared a video on their Facebook titled ‘some auto guys can be real pain’. “When we were new in India, a lot of autowalas tried to rip us off because we had no idea about the prices and they saw us as walking ATM machines,” says Hampus, who moved to Mumbai with his friend Johan. The two of them, along with their Indian flatmate Pratap came up with the idea to make a fun video clip out of this scenario. And in less than two days the video got more than 171k likes. “Pratap asked an autowala if we could borrow his rickshaw for 10 minutes and then we just recorded the clip with an iPhone. We had no idea it would become such a hit,” says Hampus.
Apart from the auto ride, it’s also their personal journey that’s interesting. Best friends since university, the two decided to follow their dreams of acting in Bollywood. “The mystery of B’wood intrigued us deeply, so we felt that we just had to go there and experience it ourselves. Our families were shocked when we told them about moving to India to work in Bollywood. Our friends from business school, too, told us moving to India will spoil our chances of having a good career in Swe-den,” Hampus says.
When the two landed in Mumbai, they knew absolutely no one. “We did not know where to start. We started to explore the city, telling people in the streets about our journey and our goals of working in Bollywood. Most people thought we were crazy.”
The two met a guy in Andheri East that knew a person working in Bollywood as a co-ordinator. “We got his number and a few days later the same person had hooked us up with our first movie job. It was a one-day shoot where we acted as drug addicts in Goa, the shoot took place in Madh Island.” Since then, they have worked in five different projects — including Banjo and Rangoon (starring Kangana).
