Ode to Bollywood

Madhuri Dixit and Ashwariya Rai shine in Devdas

Unlike 3 billion other inhabitants of this world, Indian movies were not part of my childhood or upbringing. My parents loved the movies, and we had a custom of going to the cinema regularly on Fridays as I was growing up, but they were occidental in their cultural outlook, and I ended up watching many foreign-languages films - French, Italian, even Swedish, but not Indian.

Let me then tell you the story of my discovery of Indian movies.

It was during a 2004 British Airways flight from London to Los Angeles. You know those in-flight traveler magazines that list the airline’s destinations, food menus and duty free gifts? I’m sure you’ve browsed through them. Well, they also list foreign language movies that are streamed during flights to countries of that language. On this day, there it was, a dramatic photo excerpt of a drop-dead gorgeous actress (turned out to be Ashwariya Rai) and of a man (Anil Kapoor) in silky black hair standing behind her with his hand resting on her shoulder. I did not recognize them, but curiosity killed the cat, as they say.

Back home, I took the cutout of the magazine and headed to where confused people go in America in search of a foreign culture:  The ethnic grocery store, to Delhi Spiceland specifically, a few miles away from my house. I now know that there is an Indian grocery store by that name that also rents movies in almost every other big city in America.

At the store, wad’ya know, the man behind the counter immediately recognized the title. He picked it off the shelf and put it on the counter and asked for 1.99 for a 5 day rental. Heck, I’ll buy it, I said. Paid 4.99 and came home with it. It was the beginning of my love affair with the looks and sounds of a far away land, and a civilization that I had not studied as part of my “western” upbringing and education.

Time passed, and I’m sloshing along with a supply of used VHS’s by my neighborhood spice merchant when, one day, by accident, while skimming down a list of movies in the L.A. Times, I came across the name of a film that did not sound French, German, or even Japanese. Veer-Zaara. Huh! I called the theatre, and found out that in fact it was an Indian movie. I got excited at the thought that, finally, I was to see my curiosity come to life on the big screen. I rushed home to announce to my family that we were to go see an Indian movie, with the enthusiasm of a man who proclaims his grand plan to take his family on a trip to Paris for the first time. Little did I remember, in my boyish enthusiasm, that it fell on the same day that Edith was getting married. A dear friend of the family (and someone in whose career choice I had played some role.)

Veer-Zaara was a whirling joy ride. I went to see a movie, and all of India showed up with the colors and sounds of Bollywood. Three and a half hours of love, loss, tears, joy, and tears of joy and the whole patriotism/family/chivalry/emotional masala. It was Wow! I had never seen a movie like this in my life! The music, simply sublime. The costumes, definitely beautiful. The actors, very exotic. There he was, Shahrukh Khan, the most famous actor in the world. More popular than Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Johnny Depp combined, in the role of Indian Air Force squadron commander Veer Pratab Singh. Yoohoo!

I was smitten for life.

On a list of my ten favorite movies, by now five are Bollywood: Veer-Zaara, Devdas, Bunty Aur Babli, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, and Dil To Pagal Hai. The sixth is a David Lean panoramic movie “A Passage to India,” yet another Indian fare, based on D.H. Lawrence’s novel of a perceived (and forbidden) love between an English woman and an Indian physician during the British Raj.

Why the fascination with Bollywood? I guess, some of it has to do with my curiosity of the British Empire, and its reach to places such as India in the farthest corners of the world, and into societies that were closely sheltered, and remained closed during their rule for the purpose of maintaining the British monopoly over the grab of the wealth and resources of those countries. A case-study in imperial overkill. Isn’t it amazing that the same applies to empires to this day?

And also Bollywood, as a fine-tuned machine that produces over 600 movies a year, is noteworthy as a mighty enterprise that has mastered its own craft over one-hundred years to unite under its cinematic output, an entire sub-continent of over a billion inhabitants, 30 million gods, and 30 official languages. Cinema is the unit that bonds India and Indians. Indian movies are fantasies, as unrealistic as you can imagine. You want realism? I suggest you watch a Hollywood movies. The Indian government has the monumental task of managing a billion people, and they need Bollywood to help them do it. That explains why all Indian movies have to be certified by a Censor Board before release.  No American-style realistic depiction of sex, violence, individuality, religiosity or ethnic opinions please.


Madhuri and Shahrukh in Dil To Pagal Hai

Movies are where a billion Indians come together every day under one roof (or under the sky, in villages) to share life’s fantasies and dreams, be entertained, watch buxomous women gyrate to the rhytmic beat of the tabla and find sameness with their society’s 80% Hindus, 14% Muslims, 3% Sikhs, 2% Christians, 1% Buddhists, plus Jains, Baha’is and Parsis, all living together. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the not-so-hidden mission of Bollywood, and a feat that no other cinema culture in the world can duplicate.

The years since Veer-Zaara have been busy for me. Shahrukh Khan remains the only superstar I am still pursuing to have a picture taken with. This is coming from someone who meets many of them at work, occasionally including Leonardo Di Caprio. Ever since watching Dil To Pagal Hai, Madhuri Dixit , in her feminine majesty, stares at me every day from a poster at my workplace. Yes, I did go to India, and I loved it, eating food with my fingers, that is. I believe that Edith has forgiven and forgotten my blunder (!?) We have since been on stage together with 12 others dancing (in orange, green, red and yellow) to the beat of Bole Chudiyan in a musical number performed at a farewell event for an artist friend of ours who was about to move to India and live there.

Shahrukh Khan’s latest movie was playing last month. I went to see it. He’s still got it - playing a tortured soul at the mercy of lost love, in an unrelenting search to find it again. But this time, I made sure that it did not fall on the same day of a good friend’s wedding.

I wish you all, and to you all who have shared a precious gentle Bollywood moment with me, at an event, on stage, at the movies, in India, or at my house, a very Happy New Year.
Naya Taal Mubarak.

नव वर्ष

The Numbers Don’t Lie

Gagik Tsarukyan, president of NOCA

2012 is winding down. How did the nations of the world fare? The answers lie in the final statistics of an event or, shall we say, a gathering of all the nations of the world this summer. Its final outcome says something about the state of affairs in many countries. The event was the London Olympics.

Politicians know and understand the impression that Olympic medals make on the rest of the world about their country. Governments, including those of the very powerful and wealthy, fund Olympic athletes, to go grab medals at this most prestigious of festivals, held every fourth summer. The president of the United States hosts a reception at the White House for all medal winners.

I was about to make my assessment of how countries fared in the year 2012, and I found plenty of pointers in the final medals table of the 2012 London Olympic Games, where a total of 85 nations won medals of different colors (gold, silver, bronze.) Gabon, Trinidad and Tobago, Botswana, and the Bahamas do not interest me, but Russia, China, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and of course the United States do.

So, let’s begin.

China and Russia (with 88 medals, and 82 medals respectively) did very well. They were very good, but not good enough, which is pretty much what their influence is in the bigger picture of current world affairs. Neither tally could challenge the American harvest of medals, and that also says something about their stature in the world vis-à-vis the US. Both are big players, but not the big cheese, and the medals table shows that.

Turkey. Oh yeah, Turkey, that nation of ambitions bigger than its capabilities (or demographics.)Turkey’s performance in London was all show, but no substance. It resembled their political posturing at all regional problems these days: Chest thumping, bombastic declarations by their Prime Minister and minister of Foreign Affairs. Talk, talk, talk! Their politics is the same as it has always been: NATO-centric policy of mediation, adamantly anti-Greek and anti-Armenian. Turkey finished the 2012 Olympics with a very poor showing, and a miserly 5 medals. It indicates that their government does not care to invest in health, education or sports. They are, instead, busy building themselves an image of importance in a world marred in deep financial crisis, and conflicts in neighboring countries.

The last time Turkey actually did well at the Olympics, was when the gates of Bulgaria opened and a drove of superbly-trained athletes of Turkic ethnicity poured into Turkey and won a windfall of medals in 1988 for a country they had never ever lived in.

Azerbaijan. Ah, now that’s a different story. The Azeri tally was a very impressive 10 medals. Their government is obviously investing in programs that would change the image of their small country around the world. Olympic gold medals show a degree of interest on behalf of a government towards the training and grooming of young talents who will go on to achieve success in the international arena, and garner respect for their country.

Which is exactly what the government of Armenia did not do in 2012. Armenia left the London Olympics with mere 3 medals. Armenia’s government was absent from the selection and training of champions, because the Olympic program is not in the hands of the health, education or sports ministries. It is, rather, the private domain of one individual only, Gagik Tsarukyan (aka Dody Gago.) As oligarch-turned-president (and de facto owner) of the National Olympic Committee of Armenia, he set 1 million dollars of his own money as prize for the winner of a gold medal in London. None was won. Tsarukyan’s staff should have told him that actually no athlete had a chance to win a gold medal. Not when facilities are shoddy, and the culture of training and winning is lost without a team of experts that can oversee all details of the preparation of a top competitor including food and diet, medical care, training, rest and injury recovery; good wages for good coaches, travel expenses, psychological support, and the contagion of patriotism for the men and women in the colors of the nation.  How is an athlete to concentrate if the toilets at the training center stink, and there’s never enough income to provide for the spouse, kids, or mom and dad?

And finally, the United States.

104 medals. That’s impressive. Numero uno. The US Olympic Committee had its tentacles in the upward mobility of each and every of its Olympic athletes. In a country known for privatizing everything and anything, the US Olympic Team is the vested interest of the US government, because it is well understood that it reflects America’s stature in the world, and its success silences all critics of American values and way of living.

But, having said that, the US medals at the 2012 Olympics revealed a weakness in the current system, and calls for a correction. 59 of America’s 104 medals were won by women. No problem, you may say. Fine! But not when it is as a result of a government interference that was meant to rectify a disparity, but has created a new disparity in the opposite direction instead. Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972 mandated huge portions of the nation’s financial resources to women’s programs and activities. Title IX is no longer faithful to its anti-discrimination goals, and instead discriminates against men and contributes to the reduction of programs for male athletes.

The outcome is in the medals table of the 2012 London Olympic Games. The numbers don’t lie.

Stories from Armenia, Part Three

When the Saints Go Marching In

The Soviets were known for their mastery of very commanding, expressive and monumental statues of steel and bronze dedicated to workers, farmers and, of course, soldiers. Thousands dot the Russian landscape to this day. Some are small (a meter high, as in the Moscow metro stations) others very colossal, as “Motherland Calls” atop Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd (former Stalingrad, the site of the bloodiest battle in world history). At 85 meters it is twice the height of the Statue of Liberty.

Many of these monuments are still standing in the former republics of the Soviet Union, including “Mayr Hayasdan” in Armenia. But my story is about an unlikely small statue, no more than 6 meters high, outside of Yerevan.

During a drive through the villages of the Araradian plains I noticed a statue of a soldier-in-arms at a distance. It had all the markings of a Soviet edifice - helmet, cape over the shoulder, an automatic rifle lifted into the air in a pose of conquest and victory. I was in the village of Masis, or was it Shahumian?

It was a matter of minutes before I reached the foot of a statue that turned out to be well preserved. Though not very impressive by Soviet standards, it was graphic enough to make its presence felt. Behind it were remnants of what was once a spacious park, now in shambles, surrounded by abandoned and dilapidated buildings.

Frankly, I was surprised that the local boss had not yet dismantled it to sell it off as scrap metal to any bidder. Why? I wondered! The answer was to be found on the panels on each side of the 2-meter pedestal on which the statue rested. There, I found engraved the names of 42 men of that village who were killed during the Great Patriotic War (WWII). The statue was a dedication to honor their untimely death, and preserved perhaps for its sentimental value to their descendants who live in the village to this day.

But what I actually couldn’t see from the distance were the two small identical elements installed a few meters away on each side of the statue. As a matter of fact they looked like they were added at a later date, and I was curious to find out why. It turned out they were water fountains, one damaged but still running, and the other completely wrecked and abandoned.

Upon closer look, I could see a metal placard set over the running faucet with the following inscription on it: A gift by the Latter Day Saints. Armenia 2004.

Umm. I looked up, looked around, and tried to make sense:

Of all people, the Church of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, have bothered to come here, to gift a dinky little water fountain to a run-down desolate village in Armenia, next to a monument dedicated to the memory of the beloved sons of the village who fought the Nazis under the red banner of the USSR on the diabolical Eastern Front, during World War II. Whew!

Does this make sense? It does if you note that in Armenia today, poverty and hopelessness are ready fodder for new religions. Some as distant to Armenian culture as the Mormon Church, which was founded in the 1820’s by an American for Americans, based on the premise that Christ returned to America after his resurrection, guided by a trumpet-playing angel called Moroni (pronounced, moronai). Try to fit that into the narrative of a nation that has built its entire identity, over the last one thousand and eight hundred years, on Christian faith inspired by the Bible. Try to prioritize a new religion to a nation of Christians stuck in an everlasting existential struggle with the pseudo-secular Muslim Turkey on one side, and the theocratic-militant  Muslim Iran on the other.

Neither the Mormons nor, for that matter, any other proselytizing religion that has landed in Armenia lately really care much for Armenia. They are on a mission to recruit converts from amongst the poor. Today, Salt Lake City is home to a nifty community of hayastantzis who have given up on their identity by the terms of their conversion, which was also their ticket to a job, food and a decent living.

In the new order of things in present-day Armenia, even national icons as the saints Sahag, Mesrob, and Nerses et al can gradually lose their place in the heart and soul of the people.  And in their support, I’m tempted to end my story humming that catchy (ha-ha, American) spiritual song that goes like this:

Oh, when the saints
Oh, when the saints
Oh, when the saints go marching in.
Oh Lord, how I want to be in that number.
When the saints go marching in.