BEC

For all you accountants out there, don't worry, I am not referring to that BEC! (For the non-accountants, BEC in the accounting world is the acronym for Business Environment & Concepts-one of the four parts of the CPA examination). The BEC I'm referring to stands for the Bangalore Expatriate Club. Every Friday, the BEC holds a gathering somewhere in the city for all the ex-pats to network with one another. So yesterday, myself, Ann Lindsey, Anna, Sanjay, and Shahid, another EY rotator from the Atlanta office that just arrived this week, decided to go check it out. This week, the event was held at ICE inside the Taj Residency Hotel. ICE is described on the website as the smart, hip, high-energy lobby bar at the hotel.

I must say, though, that we did a poor job of networking with the other ex-pats there. We pretty much just grabbed a table for our fairly large group and kept to ourselves. Since none of us had eaten dinner yet, we decided to check out the restaurant inside the hotel, Graze. The food was pretty good, but it was REALLY expensive, at least relative to everywhere else I have been thus far. The reason for that primarily is due to the fact that the Taj hotel line is very prevalent throughout India-similar to the luxury hotel chains in the U.S. such as the Ritz Carlton. Since these hotels accomodate primarily to foreigners, or ex-pats, the prices for everything are inflated signficantly. Needless to say, I hope to stay away from these 'tourist' restaurants from now on and stick to my $10 Indian dinners!

After we finished dinner, we actually did do a little bit of networking. This gentleman approached us to introduce himself and starting talking about how he was involved with the Kannada Film Industry. I'm not exactly sure what this guy does in the industry, but for you Entourage fans out there, he reminds me alot of Ari, making me think he is some kind of agent for the actors/actresses. This sparked some interesting conversation with respect to whether or not he was looking for 'American extras' for any movies currently being filmed in the area. After thinking it through a little bit, he indicated that he thought there might be some opportunities out there. He informed us of a private party being held at one of the hotels in the city for some Kannada and Bollywood film stars on Saturday evening and invited us to attend! He said this would be the perfect opportunity for us to meet some of the folks in the industry and if we were really serious about trying to grab an 'extra' role in a film, this would be the place to do it! (On a side note, Indians LOVE Americans showing up anywhere, especially weddings. Could some wedding crashing be in the cards sometime in the future?) So, Saturday evening, we are going to head over that way to see if this guy is really who he says he is or if he was just blowing smoke. Could I be showing up in a search on IMDB before long? More to come on this in a future post.