All My Relations, Part the Second (and Bollywood Reviews!)

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Dears, I'm sorry it's been a while since I've updated this. And that I haven't answered email. It's been a crazy week -- Diwali festivities continued in Gulbarga till we left that city behind on the 14th. I spent the next two days in Bangalore, acquainting my insides with India's infamous smog and pollution. It was not a happy meeting: my insides grumbled and protested. Thankfully, Bangalore has been left behind and I'm now back in Mysore and will not be going anywhere till the 22nd (more about that later). For now, I've also dispatched the parental unit -- the Father leaves the country tomorrow morning, after spending a hectic week here. I should add that his hectic week has meant that I've also been learning about how India works (and doesn't work). We spent the last two days running around trying to sort out boring financial matters -- I now have a nodding acquaintance with lots of nerdly and oily Indian men -- bank managers, a notary public, a stamp vendor (no, not that kind of stamp -- the kind that you need to buy from the govt in order to submit legal documents) and so on. The most lasting contribution the British have left behind in India is truly its legendary redtape. Trust me, you can't imagine it and I can't even begin to explain it. Bah.

Anyway, I think I promised y'all some Bollywood movies reviews so here goes: when I was in Gulbarga, we went to see the two blockbusters that came out over the Diwali weekend (apparently, that's a coveted movie release date): Saawariya and Om Shanti Om. They're both notable for different reasons: Saawariya is the first Bollywood film to be a Hollywood coproduction and Om Shanti Om is a Shah Rukh Khan vehicle. So we went to see Saawariya first and I liked it (well, I liked it as much as I like any Bollywood flick). There's not much of a storyline to it -- boy meets girls, boy falls in love with girl, girl tells boy the sad story of her own love life, boy struggles to make her fall in love with him, he fails and girl marries her own true love who magically reappears at the crucial moment. The charm of the film is in the heavily symbolic atmosphere in which it is filmed. The entire film seems to be set in darkling maze: shadowy streets turn into shadowy alleyways which turn into shadowy corridors in shadowy homes. The twist to this tale is that the boy (Ranbir Kapoor -- mmm hot!)) and girl (Sonam Kapoor) are both new to Bollywood (if you're interested, they're both the children of famous older actors but they're not related I don't think) but the anti hero who the heroine chooses in the end is one of other Khans -- Salman, to be precise. And what I found most interesting about the film was that when he appeared halfway through the film, the audience went crazy! I went to see it with all the women in the family and there are a lot of us; we occupied half the top row and the rest of the pricey seats were filled with respectable matrons escorting young women but the front three-quarters of the theatre was full of screaming, hooting, whistling boys! They spent the intermission leering up at the young women in the back of the house and tried to outdo each other in noisemaking whenever Salman Khan appeared on the screen or the heroine revealed some skin. Speaking of skin, did I mention the much-talked about towel song? Early on the film, newest hotboy Ranbir Kapoor dances around clad only in a little white towel, singing about his newfound love; the climax of the song coincides with the towel's fall. Apparently a towel-dropping scene was filmed but was cut by the censor board of India so we don't get to see that.... (do read this scathing review!). It was quite the experience. You know, that just confirms my old theory that Hindi film caters to the voyeur in women as well as men! It's kinda interesting because I can't think of many other forms of pop culture in India where men's bodies are displayed for the viewing pleasure of women in quite such a way! I asked my aunts and cousins about this, just to get a sense of how "decent" (their word, not mine) women would react to this assertion -- and they more or less giggled and turned away. Judge for yourself: here's a bit from the song on YouTube.

Ma Mere had wanted to see Saawariya but the rest of the family wanted to see Om Shanti Om, given that there is an emerging consensus that OSO is winning the head-to-head Diwali battle between the two blockbusters. So we went back a couple of days later to see OSO -- it is clearly the made-to-please movie -- a much more complicated storyline involving conspiracies and murder and rebirth and revenge and romance. All involving Bollywood's most bankable hero of the moment: Shah Rukh Khan (who, incidentally, is on TV airing his views on "Cricket in India" -- I'm watching the last of the One Day International matches between India and Pakistan as I write this and apparently SRK is there watching the match and couldn't resist the urge to stick his face in front of a camera). Ahem. Anyway, I found this flick a bit too Bollywood, though the villain of the piece, Arjun Rampal was brilliant (and he's hot!). Ma Mere enjoyed OSO only because the first half of the movie (which culminates in the murders of SRK and the heroine which are avenged in the second half of the film by the reborn SRK) is set in the 1970s! having grown up in India in the 70s, she recognized lots of things that the film mocked that went way over my head. But I will admit to being amused by the wild 70s clothing and cars and hoardings; and the film has its funny moments too -- there were all kinds of allusions to inside jokes about the evolution of the Bollywood film industry. Also, also, I think one of the reasons why the film is so popular in India is a loooong song sequence which features almost every actor of yesteryear making a cameo; again, Ma Mere positively thrilled at being able to point out people like Jitendra and Rekha and Dharmendra and lots of others I didn't know. If you'd grown up following the industry, the in-jokes and allusions would have added a whole another layer of enjoyment to the movie, I imagine. And lastly, back to my theory about these films baring male skin for the viewing pleasure of women: SRK appears half-clad in a number of song sequences in Om Shanti Om, including one in which he's (half)dressed as a fireman.... I'm sure you know what that suggests!

Cheers, m'dears. The cricket is becoming exciting. More soon now that things are a little more normal around here.