CULTURE
Bollywood Nights
By Elizabeth Station
In recent years, crossover hits like Monsoon Wedding, Bend it Like Beckham, and Bride and Prejudice have introduced film fans around the world to Indian culture, and given us a peek at that remarkable genre known as the Bollywood movie. Anyone who likes Kingfisher beer with their samosas knows that the Indian film industry, based in Mumbai, surpasses Hollywood in output and ticket sales.
And thanks to Netflix, anyone who loves Indian films can have them delivered to their doorstep on demand, which is what my 12-year-old daughter Annie and I have been doing for much of the last year. Call us deewane (that’s Hindi for crazy), but we are seriously deewane for Bollywood.
Oddly, most of my Indian friends in America would rather be caught dead than watching a Bollywood movie. My old pal Vijaya, a Harvard-educated economist, hooted with laughter when I asked her if she’d seen Dil Chahta Hai (The Heart Knows, 2001) which mesmerized Annie and me. “You do realize there are 9 MILLION other films exactly like this one!” Vijaya replied. “I have not seen this excellent film you mention, nor any others in two decades.”
My friend Shobha, who has lived in the U.S. for about the same two decades, scowled with disapproval when I confessed my delight for the cinema of her homeland -- as well as my serious crush on Aamir Khan, star of the megahit Lagaan (Land Tax, 2001).
“In
India, people only go to these three-hour movies to escape from their horrible
reality,” she said. By watching them in America, I was clearly wasting
valuable time.
In India, critics attack Bollywood cinema from both the left and the right. Progressives chafe at its traditional portrayal of women and censorship of sex and violence. But conservatives decry the films because they’re getting too racy. Last year, lawyers brought obscenity charges against the stars of Dhoom 2 (2006) because the actors kissed onscreen.
Maybe these people are just too close to it all. I say if you’re watching Indian films from Indiana, what’s not to like about Bollywood?
There’s the music—show-stopping dance tunes that fuse techno and traditional; road anthems that are usually sung (OK, lip-synched) from atop moving buses; and duets that let the love-stricken male and female leads croon away in the midst of flowery meadows.
There’s the dancing—most of which is done at gigantic wedding parties and involves scores of extras, intricate hand and arm movements, and sometimes, a gyrating hero in powder blue leather pants.
There are the costumes and the jewelry—which are colorful, sumptuous and changed often. In Kandukondein Kandukondein (I Have Found It, 2000), we counted 12 different saris on the lovely Aishwarya Rai, and that was in just one song.
All this explains the appeal of Bollywood to tween girls like Annie and her friend, Meg, who practically wore holes in our rented copy of Kal Ho Naa Ho (Tomorrow May Never Come, 2003), featuring heartthrob Shah Rukh Kahn.
I knew something was going on when I saw them spring up in front of the TV during Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) to duplicate his dance moves. Soon after, they were singing along in the car—in Hindi—to soundtracks we’d downloaded from iTunes.
Once the girls discovered that clips of their favorite movie scenes were available on YouTube, it was hard to tear them away from the computer during sleepovers. They now squeal when they see Shah Rukh’s name in the opening credits of a film, a behavior that unites them with millions of girls and women around the globe.
One of the nicest afternoons I’ve spent with Annie recently was on a trip to the shops on Devon Avenue, where we tried on bangles and thumbed through stacks of pirated DVDs. Seeing her react to that environment as familiar rather than foreign, I realized that Bollywood has increased her cultural literacy. That’s a good thing when you consider India is home to over a billion of the world’s people (and some 100,000 Indians are in the Chicago area).
Of course my friend Shobha is right. Bollywood films present an artificial version of India’s reality—all the women are impossibly beautiful, the men boyishly handsome, the scenery stunning and poverty non-existent. Yet Annie and I have learned much by watching them.
Thanks
to Kal Ho Naa Ho, we know the difference between a Punjabi and a
Gujarati. In Swades (We the People, 2004) we saw how crucial electricity
is to rural villages and the toll that India’s brain drain has taken
on development. Veer-Zaara (2006) made us aware of attitudes fueling
the India-Pakistan conflict. Even Pervez Musharaf has seen this stunner, which
was a hit on both sides of the border.
The traditional family relationships portrayed in the films, so annoying to educated Indians, seem comforting to Annie and me. Parents and grandparents are usually absent in American movies. But they are pivotal characters in Bollywood plotlines -- because it is elders that decide who can marry. In Dil Chahta Hai, a young man forsakes a divorcée whom his parents find inappropriate. In Lagaan, the hero declares his love for a village girl by confessing, “My mother likes you!”
The fact that the films contain no sex (not even kissing) and no profanity (except for the occasional “Shit!” delivered in a torrent of Hindi) is a plus, in my book.
I can’t remember the last time my kids and I saw a G or PG-rated Hollywood film that was as wholesomely entertaining as an Indian movie. Sassing one’s elders and drinking are frowned upon. Violence is also minimal, at least in the musicals, with the exception of last year’s powerful Rang de Basanti (Paint it Yellow, 2006).
Bollywood films aren’t perfect. Most of the plots are ridiculously similar (boy meets girl, finds out she is promised in marriage to someone else, busts up the wedding, and gets his parents’ blessing to marry the girl himself). The acting can be appalling, especially in the older films.
We got a kick out of Maine Pyar Kiya (1989), a sort of Hindi version of Saturday Night Fever that may be the only movie to ever give a pigeon billing in the credits. But the movies made since 2000 are more accessible to American audiences.
That said, the subtitles can be painful. Take the English translation of these Hindi lyrics (please) from a rollicking dance number in Kal Ho Naa Ho:
Bodies gyrate to the pulsating beat
Hearts being carried away in the storm
That’s our state, we’re drowned in merriment
Lose yourself, be merry
Say to the one who provokes you:
It’s the time to disco!
Maybe
the biggest drawback of Bollywood films is their length. Most clock in at
well over three hours, so anyone who wants to get serious about the genre
has some serious time to commit. A couple months ago—somewhere between
Devdas (2002) and Paheli (2005)—I noticed Annie’s
grades were slipping. Dishes were piling up in the sink, and my work colleagues
caught me yawning at morning meetings.
We’ve got the addiction under control now. We only watch
Indian movies on weekends, snow days, Christmas vacation, summer break, holidays,
and weeknights when there isn’t any homework. That leaves plenty of
time for the films and everything else. And even if it didn’t, who cares?
Tomorrow may never come.
