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