How I fell in love with Bollywood movies … via a little movie called Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham

It’s a question I have to answer on an almost monthly and sometimes weekly basis: How did you fall in love with Bollywood movies?

Since this week is the 16th anniversary of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, which was my first Bollywood movie, it seemed time to finally write a blog post about it. The story has a little flair of the dramatic -- as it probably should when it relates to Bollywood and especially a Karan Johar movie -- but at its heart is really quite simple.
In college, I had a roommate who loved all things Asian, and I had the apartment’s only Netflix subscription back when they mostly did DVDs. She guilt tripped me into ordering her favorite Indian movie, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, which I kept pushing down my queue because I didn’t want to read subtitles and hell I couldn’t even pronounce the title. But finally the time came to sit down for a three and a half hour (!!!!) marathon.

Spoiler alert: I laughed, I cried, I maybe even fell in love.

Post No. 100: The Subtitleless Revelation/Revolution

I have always thought of myself as good with words. No, I’m not verbally eloquent by any means — in fact I’m probably one of the worst public speakers ever — but I’m a writer, a grammarian, a spelling bee winner, a polyglot. Learning language — English and beyond — has always come easy to me. I leapt ahead in Spanish classes as a child even when I started later than everyone else.

By pure exposure to Hindi films, I was able to pick up basic phrases fairly rapidly. As was my sister, who is more talented than me when it comes to languages (she’s on No. 5 or 6 now). After less than six months with Bollywood, Paagal Papaya and I were lobbing basic Hindi sentences back and forth in our usual mix of Spanish and our family’s own language (“Donkey Latin”).

Since then, I’ve formally studied Hindi on and off in bouts, bulking up particularly before I went to India earlier this year. I’ve used Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur, Living Language, Mango — just about everything. But all in short bursts. The bulk of my Hindi “study” has still been films and songs, particularly when subtitles lapse.

My comprehension level is high enough that I can watch a Hindi film without subtitles and understand most of what is going on. I saw Aashiqui 2 in India without subtitles (and Bodyguard in the U.S. without subtitles), and I was surprised at my own comprehension level.

When I was traveling in India, I also spoke basic Hindi with the tour bus driver and tour assistant. That’s far more bravery than I’ve ever had with Spanish, although I know much more Spanish and definitely can speak more. (Once, the assistant started talking way beyond my comprehension level, and when I finally guessed that he was asking how I knew Hindi, I had to tell him, “Main sirf thoda thoda bol sakti hoon. Bollywood se.”)

Since coming back, then, and being asked several times if I speak Hindi and how much, and answering only once in (albeit “perfectly accented”) Hindi that “main kuch Hindi bolti hoon,” I have wondered why I’ve settled for this level after nearly three years with Hindi film. Why am I not more fluent? Why haven’t I learned more? Why don’t I speak it?

And why, if I have the ability, don’t I watch movies without subtitles?

Yes, it’s true that it’s easier to watch movies with subtitles. Reading English is easier than working to hear and understand Hindi.

But if I just depend on subtitles, how am I ever going to learn?

And what am I missing by reading subtitles?

About two years ago, not long after we started Bollywood Queens, Paagal Papaya was compiling a post (that never quite got finished) on Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani. She watched the film, loved it and started a post. But for the post, she needed screencaps. So she watched the movie again, without subtitles, for screencaps. “It’s completely different when you watch it without the subtitles,” she told me. “You see so much more of the acting.”

Is that what I’ve been missing out on in the past three years? The true value of the acting? (Even when it’s overacting.)

Certainly I’ve missed out on the poetics of dialogues, whether I could have understood them without the subtitles or not. I’ve long been able to understand when the subtitles are off. And that includes understanding that the subtitles rarely if ever do the language justice. (This is particularly frustrating with Urdu classics, but that’s another story.)

Curious, I tested this resolution by going back to a film I’ve seen a hundred times with subtitles — DDLJ. What did I miss so many times by watching DDLJ with subtitles? That SRK speaks absolute gibberish in the scene with the police in Switzerland. That everyone in the film talks really fast, unless they’re speaking of love or delivering a particularly poignant dialogue. (That does mean there is a lot that is too fast for me to understand, too.) That there is a pretty big change in Simran’s tones and behavior from one half to the next.

None of that is earth-shattering by any means.

But it does make me wonder what else I’ve missed.

And so, after nearly three years of Hindi films, comes my new resolution: Whenever possible, I am going to go subtitleless.

I don’t expect it to be easy — especially since Netflix will keep enabling me with subtitles that I can’t turn off. I don’t expect the resolution to be perfect. I don’t expect to get by unfrustrated. I definitely don’t expect to understand everything. (Especially, to my chagrin, jokes. A multilingual professor of mine once said true mastery of a language is achieved when you can understand a language’s jokes because of the plays on words involved. I’m still nowhere near that level with Hindi yet.)

But I do expect to grow in understanding. And that’s the real goal here.

Expect updates on the progress of this resolution as it goes on.

Part 1: Traveling in India not as someone who loves India, but as a tourist

Garlanded on the bus.

I haven’t had time until now to update the blog, and even now, it must be brief because I have to be up in less than eight hours for a sunrise tour of the Taj Mahal.

Yes, that means I have moved on from Delhi to Agra.

Though I love being in India more than I can put into words, I’m slowly coming to hate the tour experience. We are shepherded around the city like sheep, going nonstop at monuments until we’re returned to the hotel exhausted just before dusk. Or today, when our “oh, only six-hour!” drive from Delhi to Agra took from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. There is no time to shop, no time to walk around, no time to even seek out a restaurant other than the hotel’s before the sun goes down.

And in both Delhi and Agra, as two young, foreign female travelers, venturing outside in itself is a feat, and venturing out around dusk or dark is downright terrifying. The way many of the men in Delhi leer openly even during the day is enough to make one’s skin crawl.

So the tour’s stranglehold on our daylight hours has all but choked the life from my trip so far.

It means I haven’t seen a film. It means I haven’t entered any stores. It means our hotel was a 20-minute walk from Connaught Place but we never made it there.

A view of India from a tour bus.

It means I haven’t even had authentic Indian food in India. (Unless you count some godawful deserted Rajasthani-themed tourist trap restaurant the tour guide took us to in the middle of Haryana. Where the butter chicken I shared with my sister was like half-assed tandoori chicken dumped in pizza sauce.)

Yes, the hotel restaurants have Indian food — and yes, I’ve had fresh mangoes and idli and dosas at complimentary breakfast — but when you’re looking at a Rs. 1500 meal (yes, really), it seems easier to take the cheaper items on the menu.

In case you haven’t caught on, yes, the hotels are incredibly upscale. The Delhi hotel is probably the swankiest one I’ve ever stayed at — anywhere, period — and even with the favorable exchange rate, I’d never be able to afford staying there on my own. How a Groupon-bought tour package includes it astounds me.

Even from the swanky hotels, there are the little things to remind me that I am somewhere foreign. Going through bomb checks and metal detectors every time we get to the hotel is strange. The power flicked off at least a half dozen times a day in that swanky Delhi hotel. The waiters and I had several frustrating miscommunications the first night at the hotel restaurant. Each toilet I encounter flushes a different way.

Those things are frustrating at times, yes, but they are nothing compared to the frustrations I have felt in being made to be an entirely dumb American tourist in a country that I have long loved from afar.

Why this American girl needs her Indian movies — especially Bollywood

After recent hubbub over a blog post saying Americans enjoy Bollywood only as the film world’s “blond bimbo,” I found myself evaluating again why I’m so drawn to Bollywood — it’s certainly not because I think of Bollywood as a bimbo (or blond; I don’t think a single blonde exists in Bollywood!). I’ve mentioned before that I’ve had a hard time in the past deciphering or putting into words what attracts me to Bollywood or why I feel so strongly about it. But after more than a year of contemplating this, I have perhaps found some answers, though I doubt this post is capable of being comprehensive.

Perhaps on the most basic level, it has to do with believing in something. Because mainstream Indian cinema is what scholars describe as “pre-cynical.” That means, as Suketu Mehta writes in Maximum City, audiences in India, the Middle East, Russia and Central Asia “still believe in motherhood, patriotism, and true love; Hollywood and the West have moved on.”

Perhaps the greatest appeal for me in fiction, both on film and in literature, is not just a suspension of disbelief but also a suspension of cynicism. It is true that while I’m hardly the most cynical person you’ll ever meet, I admit I’m fairly skeptical. It’s probably fair to say I don’t believe in true love. And I don’t want to be a mother, though family for me is a very strong value. Because I’ve studied nationalism, I’ve also developed a degree of skepticism about “the story a nation tells of itself” — not a skepticism of patriotism, per se, but of national identity politics.

But because I am so cynical about the real world, I genuinely enjoy suspending my cynicism to watch or read an emotional story of love. Because we all do wish that life worked like that. It’s perhaps the same reason that we feel drawn to superhero films, science fiction and fantasy: Imagining and experiencing through fiction a world different from and better than our own is far more appealing than, say, reveling in the actual darkness of our world, no matter how accurate the picture is. (I say this with full conviction in my faith, but the same concept is basically true of religion: We believe in a world or existence better than the one we’re now in and then work to obtain it.)

I’ve heard Bollywood described by detractors as ridiculous — but why must emotionality be written off ridiculous? Emotion is always dramatized in film because it’s rarely visible. Simply because Bollywood chooses to treat it without a dose of cynicism does not mean it’s any more ridiculous.

But of course an American’s love for Bollywood cannot be explained by only that lack of cynicism. Because if that were true, why would I be so particularly drawn to Indian movies rather than just noncynical Hollywood movies? Because the fact is, jokes about the real nationality of my dil aside, I am not Indian. I’m American, particularly a very proud daughter of the American South and its cultural traditions.

But Indian culture and my Southern culture share many values: Family is crucial. Patriotism runs very, very deep (the South started a war over that once). Religion and respect (for elders especially) hold society together. Food is a must. When you party, you party hard (Punjabis especially!), but you always work twice or three times as hard as you party. If you can’t laugh at yourself and your culture, everyone else is going to do it for you, so you never take yourself too seriously (for the South, this is Jeff Foxworthy jokes; for India, it’s filmi-ness). Even the wild Indian love for cricket has a counterpart in the fervent Southern love for college football (especially SEC football).

Because of all of these things, I feel a sort of affinity with Indian culture. In many ways, we share values that many other cultures no longer respect. I believe that even most of American culture doesn’t value family, patriotism, religion, respect for elders and hard work anymore, and Hollywood certainly doesn’t.

That is often why and where Hollywood and I part ways. Simply because we’re from the same country does not mean we’re the same culture. Hollywood in no way represents or understands my culture. But Bollywood? Bollywood does.

Bollywood understands that I don’t watch a movie to see tons of sex that’s somehow meant to imply a relationship. Bollywood understands that family is a concept with weight and meaning. Bollywood understands that music conveys emotion. Bollywood understands that there are generational issues that can be resolved without shunning one’s parents or tradition.

And because Bollywood understands values — and I understand its values — and because it allows me to suspend cynicism, I love Bollywood. And I need it.

More photos from Holi

Not Bollywood-related, but I thought I'd add some more fun photos from the Holi celebrations I attended. Also, if you're interested, I've been blogging about Americans and cricket, chai cupcakes (recipe) and reasons I love the IPL at one of my other blogs.

Me and my friend Miggy from the second celebration.

Me after celebration No. 2.

A white girl's first Holi

My sister (Papaya), myself (Mango) and my brother.

So I know Holi has already passed, but a belated Happy Holi to everyone. :) For reasons I can't even begin to guess at, Holi celebrations here in the U.S. are always delayed. Holi was Thursday, but yesterday (Sunday) was the local Tampa celebration, which — you guessed it — I attended! :) (And interestingly, Holi celebrations in other parts of Florida are next weekend and the biggest celebration in the U.S., which is in Utah, is in two weeks.)

Now getting to celebrate Holi was bahut, bahut exciting for me. I've wanted to celebrate Holi since even before I got into Bollywood; it's actually one of the few things I knew about India prior to the Bollywood obsession and studying India. The only problem is the area where I'm from is very desi-sparse, and to the best of my knowledge they haven't celebrated it in my college town.

I didn't have any friends in the area who could go with me (I really only have a handful of friends in the area, none close), but my sister and one of my brothers have always wanted to do Holi too, so they came for a visit and we made a family outing of it.

We went in with the expectation that it was going to be somewhat awkward — outings into the desi world usually are for us. Not only do we not know anyone (a situation none of us are particularly good with), but we're also very clearly out of place to say the least, haha. And sometimes…large groups of desi people are sadly not very welcoming.

Things were somewhat awkward on the approach. We didn't quite know how to get into the fray of water-slinging that we came upon. Because, yes, it wasn't just colored powder; this is Florida: There were buckets and hoses and water guns involved.

Luckily on our approach, a group of guys with bags of color came up, asked if we wanted to join and smudged our faces up and said "Happy Holi!" I hope just saying Happy Holi back without returning the color is appropriate because that's all we could do (we didn't realize color wasn't provided).

And eventually we just got caught up in the water and color slinging. We got doused in powder, soaked in water and doused in powder again.

It was mostly kids (like I'd say 12 and under) and some of their fathers/30-something guys. There were a few groups of guys who seemed in their 20s too, but they were more selective…and flirty, I suppose. ;) It took me a while to realize that they were being so selective and flirty. I'd forgotten Holi is seen as a rather uninhibited chance to flirt (though thinking back to my freshman year of college, I remember reading a short story about a Holi celebration among university students that included rather inappropriate touching).

But anyway, I got some leftover color and a nice lady offered me a bag, anddd it went from there. It was still kind of awkward because we didn't know anyone and who it was appropriate to sling with color, especially if it'd be considered forward of me. I ended up just throwing it on whoever hit me with water.

And there was a little boy about 4 or 5 whose dad kept telling him to go put powder on a little girl's face, but the little boy was shy. So I walked up and smeared his face. The look on his face was so cute. And he smeared my face right back. So cute.

I almost embarrassed myself by dancing when music from Om Shanti Om played over the speakers, but I kept it to a minimum and just a lot of lip synching. :)

And about 24 hours later, parts of my skin are still dyed as is my hair (see: my back this morning), and some of my clothes (partially by design) are hopeless. I wore a white shirt with the expectation that it'd have the best effect (and that it's somewhat the thing to do; that's what they do in films!). And I didn't bother bleaching it. It's now a beautiful mishmash of colors that are not white. Haha. But note to self, do not wear a white bra next year! Wear a swimsuit! (If it wasn't so inappropriate, I'd show you a picture of my bra that was once white and then multicolored and still was even two bleaches later.) Even my right contact lens didn't escape Holi; it's now permanently dyed red and no longer usable.

All in all, Holi was, despite the awkwardness, every bit as fun as I hoped. There's always something liberating about slinging water and dyes like a kid. And something that just feels fabulous about celebrating color, especially as winter turns to spring. I hope I get to celebrate again with more people I know (or at least more people my age!) so I have a better idea of whom I can hit. :)

Happy Holi, everyone! May your life be filled with color.

Indian Film Fest Tampa Bay 2012 thoughts

So, my experience at the film festival was very mixed. I didn’t make any new friends (sad face), I decided to be gori (no Hindi, no salwar), I liked the films I expected not to and I didn’t like (at points hated) the films I expected to like.

Here’s what I thought of the films, briefly:

Paulwaat (The Pathway) - Marathi (with Hindi; see below). This film was OK in snatches, but it was really long and unnecessarily drawn out. It was also kind of all over the place and barely cohesive at moments. It was like the narrative flow (a singer searching for success in Mumbai, which gets old after about his fourth up-and-down success-then-disappointment) kept getting interrupted for platitudes over and over again. There were some unresolved issues at the end (such as the love story) as well as poor explanation of some relationships in the film (such as who the love interest was/where she came from!) that drove me crazy. The film dipped into Hindi and Urdu a lot, especially with particular characters, which I found interesting (and refreshing). (Side note: as someone struggling to pick up Hindi as a third language, I have a very deep respect for the many Indians who speak and understand three or more languages.)

Patang (The Kite) - Gujarati (?). Well, first off, let me say I’m now confused about the language of this film because it was billed as Gujarati and it’s set in Ahmedabad, but I could understand most of the film, so unless Gujarati and Hindi have a large overlap (I know zip about Gujarati) or it’s a Hindi-Gujarati blend, the film is actually in Hindi. Anyway, this film is about a family during the kite festival Uttarayan. The description bored me, and it doesn’t do the film justice. The film is really about the complex relationships in one family — middle-aged businessman Jayesh, who has moved from Ahmedabad to Delhi; his teenage daughter Priya; his aging mother; his older brother’s widow Sudha (Seema Biswas, the only actor I recognized); and his nephew Chakku — who come together, butting heads and reconnecting, during a visit for the festival. Chakku hates Jayesh and blames him for his father’s drinking death. Jayesh buys his mother and sister-in-law a condo in the newer city to get them out of the slums, but they refuse. Delhite Priya sneaks away and falls in love with local storeowner’s son Bobby. All of this is contained in the festivities of the kite festival, which are portrayed in detail and with great care and love. The film’s camerawork is very loose and artistic, something that drove Papaya (who was with me) crazy, but I liked it. So, yes, Patang is a winner in my book.

Love, Lies and Seeta - English. This is the film that I had such high hopes for as it was made by an NRI in New York. But it turned out...practically incoherent. It was filmed in the space of 25 days. And it shows. The story is about three guy friends and roommates who all think they’re in love with Seeta, an Indian-American girl adopted by white parents whom all three men met at a different point in childhood. But the problem is Seeta doesn’t believe in love. So she agrees to date all three men — who increasingly fight over her — at the same time, much to the chagrin of her two closest female friends, who are each in love with one of the men (the third man is just...there). Add in Seeta’s zany brother (her parents’ child by birth) for comic relief.

So, first, the film was really not Indian at all. Seeta is only Indian in looks and the fact that she randomly wears a sari in one scene. Two of the men are Indian, as is Seeta’s friend Ramia. The guys have Bollywood posters and one speaks very intermittent Hindi with Ramia (who botches her Hindi). And the other one has a fantasy about being Lord Rama (I think).

Most of the supporting actors were good, but Seeta, though amazingly gorgeous, is kind of painfully bad. Her brother is nuts and not really like a brother at all (I treat my acquaintances with more affection). Her dad is creepy.

Add all of that on top of the fact that the plot becomes too convoluted — juggling three love stories, Seeta’s disbelief, each of the seven main characters’ life complications, Seeta’s mom dying, flashbacks to childhood — and it just becomes too much for me.

I will say I liked the premise and where it started and also its portrayal of New York.


And to end it, two shorts that I liked of the very few I actually got to see:

Satee Shaves Her Head
Uncoupled

India International Film Festival Tampa Bay: What should I expect from a film fest?

After months spent in seething jealousy at others' film festival goings, I finally get my own film festival to enjoy: the India International Film Festival Tampa Bay. I've lived in the Tampa Bay area for a month today, and one of the exciting things about the area for me were its ethnically diverse offerings that I couldn't get where I'm from. (A few include an Indian theater, Indian events and Indian clothing stores, though of course other ethnicities' presence are a plus too!)

And Tampa has welcomed me with an Indian film festival. I'm excited for Sunday.

But I'm nervous also. Part of it is the standard gori-among-desis fare that I generally face going to Bollywood films and Indian grocery stores — do I wear a salwar kameez so I blend in or does that make me seem weird? Do I do the little things, like calling people bhai sahib or aunty/uncle? And are a quick shukriya or dhanyavaad appropriate or do I stick with "thanks"?

Part of it is the fact that I've never been to any  real film festival before. Before Bollywood, film was never that big of a deal for me. My sole experience with a "film festival" was in September when a local Latina Women's League held screenings of Latino-relevant films across the weekends of a month and I attended one screening.

What does one expect from a film festival? Just the experience of watching a film multiplied by several films? I know actors (no one I know) and directors will be around for the festival, but in my usual shyness plus the aforementioned gori awkwardness, I'm unlikely to ask any questions. I'm also not typically fond of Q-and-A sessions because, let's face it, most of the time, they're just boring; people ask boring questions and those being asked go on long, mostly irrelevant spiels.

At least I get to be excited about the variety of the lineup, although I wish I could attend both full days of the festival instead of one (I'm working the opening half-day and first full day of the festival; I only get to attend the final full day). I'm missing a Tamil film, a Punjabi film, a Hinglish rom-com called "Love You To Death" that looks like fun, and a documentary on Indian weddings. But I will catch a Marathi film and a Gujarati film (hooray!) as well as an English one, plus Hindi, English and Bengali shorts.

The lineup of main features is as follows:

The Myth of Buddha's Birthplace - Documentary, English. An ancient stone inscription, discovered in 1928, states that the Buddha was born in a village in eastern India. This claim runs counter to all established theories, so two anthropologists investigate. (Probably skipping, actually.)
Paulwaat (The Pathway) - Marathi. A relation based story of a youngster who wants to become a playback singer and an old landlady with whom he is living as a paying guest.
Patang (The Kite) - Gujarati. A poetic journey to the old city of Ahmedabad, Patang weaves together the stories of six people transformed by the energy of India's largest kite festival.
Love, Lies and Seeta - English. A romantic comedy about "falling for a girl who doesn't believe love exists", interweaving friendships that cross traditional borders of ethnicity and how they feel about love.

Anything you guys have to say about film festivals would be much appreciated!

EDIT: Here's a link to my thoughts on what I saw at the film festival.

Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham revisited: a Bollywood anniversary

Well, the time around Thanksgiving was not just a holiday for me. It also marked my one-year anniversary with Bollywood. Sometime around Thanksgiving (or a little after) last year, I watched my first Bollywood film, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, with my then-roommate.

I was reluctant to watch it, actually, because of the subtitles. But little did I know what would result! I fell in love with K3G almost immediately (almost meaning after that confusing opening scene that I still don't love) and that was the launching pad to my Bollywood obsession.

Well, on the occasion of my Bollywood anniversary, I wanted to do a list of the 120+ films I've seen in the year since then, but I lost my list somewhere and most of my viewing history was wiped out when I canceled my Netflix account a few months ago. So instead I only get to do the other thing I wanted to: an assessment of how far I've come in that year. Aka watching K3G again and thinking back to the first time I watched it (or even the first three times I watched it within a two-week span because I was introducing it to other people).

I realize now that watching Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham — whose title I couldn't even remember or pronounce — there were so many things I straight-up didn’t understand. Some of them you think I would with my literary background that has a definite lean toward India and colonialism. But, nope, I was clueless.

Bodyguard (2011): ...????

OK! I would love to be discussing BODYGUARD with you guys right now, but there's just one slight problem with that.

I went to see it at the AMC in Jacksonville, where I've seen several Hindi films with their appropriate subtitles (including the first one I saw on the big screen: Tees Maar Khan). This time, however, AMC decided it felt like screwing us non-Indian Bollywood watchers and cut out the subtitles.

OK, to be totally fair to the folks at AMC, the problem was that they didn't have things proportioned correctly on the screen (forgetting to correct for the different proportions of Indian films from American ones). The tops of heads were often cut off, and subtitles across the bottom paid the price of a smaller screen as well.

Still, I was unexpectedly confronted with my first subtitles-less Hindi film. I've only been exposed to Hindi for about nine months, and it's been sporadic during that time. I know my Hindi isn't the best, but it's been improving pretty quickly, so I hoped I'd be OK -- how much of the dialogue do you have to directly understand in a masala film anyway? -- and stayed in my seat. I was OK up until intermission.

After intermission, I either got tired, things got more confusing or they started talking faster because I reached the limits of my comprehension. By the ending, I had no idea what was happening. I'm both proud of myself for sitting through it and angry at myself for not being at the level of Hindi comprehension where I'm no longer quite so dependent on subtitles.

Let's just say I'm definitely going to have to watch Bodyguard once a subtitles-equipped DVD is available. I felt left out as jokes whizzed over my head. (A multilingual professor of mine once said true comprehension and mastery of a language is achieved when you can understand a language's jokes because of the plays on words involved. I'm obviously nowhere near that level with Hindi yet.)

But these things I can say:

I'm convinced that Sallu is the master of masala. Y'all may have noticed (or maybe not) that I have a seriously swinging love-hate relationship with this particular Khan. Mostly, it's his badfanny, show-offy attitude. If he gives it up and just has fun, I love Sallu. This had lots of him kicking butt and taking names, but I don't think I ever had that moment where he came off as so arrogant I wanted to punch him in the face.

Kareena Kapoor, as you may also have noticed, also has the tendency to get on my nerves sometimes. But then other times, when you give her some depth and some spunk, she amazes me (see 3 Idiots, Jab We Met, maybe even 36 China Town). This was one of those times. I also wanted to steal her wardrobe for about 90 percent of the film.

Divya didn't do much studying for her college.

I couldn't understand most of Tsunami Singh's jokes due to the whole language barrier, but his shirts were hilarious.

The music was not great, but the dance numbers were. I think I've mentioned before that I hate when Sallu does his bump-on-a-log "I'm barely going to move and call it dancing" thing, but he actually moved, so I was happy.

So basically, Sallu, if you want to come be my bodyguard, I'd be OK with that. :)

NEW: Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara: An adventure in Spain and in life

Ahhhh! I’m back! Finally! Due to extreme busyness (if you follow me on Twitter, you know about what), I haven’t had time to consume Bollywood in almost two weeks (apart from Murder 2). I was going through some serious withdrawals and yesterday ended my busyness... So! Once again, I completed the now-ritual weekly trip to the theater for a dose of Bollywood.

Yesterday, it was FINALLY one of the ones I’ve been waiting for, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. And when I say waiting for... I use that somewhat loosely. I’ve been anticipating it for a couple of months, but nothing near my fangirlish anticipation of Ra.One, Mausam and Don 2.

Speaking of which, I saw the trailers today for those last two and OMG SO EXCITED. (I’m glad I didn’t see a Ra.One promo though; it would have sent me over the edge!)

Also interesting note, I saw this film in an AMC theater, which is closer than the Big Cinemas theaters but where the audience is usually different and much smaller (and sometimes bizarre, like when I saw Murder 2). This was the first time I’ve seen a Hindi film in an AMC theater and been part of an actually decent crowd. One of the old white men from before was there again and was kinda obnoxious (in fact, he bought his ticket ahead of me and TOTALLY botched pronouncing Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara), but the crowd was mostly desi. :)

Synopsis: As Kabir (Abhay Deol) prepares to get married, he and friends Arjun (Hrithik Roshan) and Imran (Farhan Akhtar) set off for a “bachelor trip” across Spain. But Kabir is struggling relationship stres, financial trader Arjun is obsessed with money and never stops to enjoy life, and Imran is hoping to meet a man he only recently found out was his biological father. The three longtime friends set out to capture life and bond anew over adventures that also run them into Laila (Katrina Kaif), a half-white half-Indian free-spirited girl who travels at her whim.

First, let’s get the obligatory out of the way: Abhay Deol is FREAKING ADORABLE. Hrithik Roshan is a mighty fine-looking man, especially with his curls kicked into high gear by the salt water and a little bit of tan. (Although, random side-note, Abhay’s character struck me as randomly metrosexual at times and Hrithik kept wearing cuffed pants that showed off his ankles, which is SO annoying to me.)

Now if you read my Kites post, you know that besides Indian culture, I am all about Hispanic culture too (especially Mexico). Although I admit I don’t quite include Spain on the same level as my Latin American loves (and admittedly Spain Spanish is almost obnoxious to me; I blame it on spending too much time around Mexicans), the traditions of Spain have a certain special place in my heart too. So, you should know this film was almost destined to be a hit with me right off the bat just by blending Hindi and Spanish. And it certainly does that in a pretty fabulous way. (Also, random side note, but Hrithik speaks no less than four languages in this film: Hindi, English, Spanish and Japanese.)

And in truth, this song Señorita was one of my favorite scenes in the film (and is already on my iPod) partially because of the Hindi-Spanish blend. It also has the added amazingness of the three leads having actually sung the song (Abhay’s voice is, in the words of Papaya, “almost silly” but I LOVE it) and this awesome fun dance number.

(Video is promo with partial song.)

I joked to my Papaya that ZNMD is the bromance that Delhi Belly wishes it had. The camaraderie in this film is gorgeous; the men struggle, help one another through fear and emotional turmoil, laugh, cry, joke, talk women and cars, and do everything together. Farhan Akhtar’s Imran reminds me of that somewhat douchey but thoroughly hilarious friend that everyone has.

This film is about three men who thought they knew who they were, what made them happy and what they wanted from life... Finding out they didn’t really know at all. So they go on all sorts of adventures in Spain that force them to confront their fears and their confusion. It’s about living and letting go of things you don’t want to let go of. It’s of course too idealistic in that way that all films are, but that’s OK because all films are like that. In truth, some scenes drag out for a long time like they’re supposed to be super meaningful but they take it too far, but for the most part, I thought the message of this film connected. It was a nice emotional ride.

The movie was also funny -- at some point, at least everyone in the theater from young to old laughed. It’s got an element of that gene that all men have where they never quite seem to grow up or grow out of silly pranks. And there are enough jokes about enough different things that it keeps you entertained and smiling.

There’s also kissing and sex, but it’s surprisingly well done and not awkward like most of the other stuff I’ve seen lately.

 And while on the subject of physical love, the love story in this film was pretty nice too. Laila (Katrina Kaif) basically teaches Arjun how to live in the moment and experience life, and he falls in love with her in the process. Now, often to me Katrina Kaif is annoying, maybe because she’s so often given preppy, kind of dumb-blond roles. But in this, the girl she plays is amazing and I love it. Laila is someone who lives life on her own terms and doesn’t stop to think about what other people think. She’s also a deep-sea-diving, motorcycle-riding kind of girl who’s not afraid to get dirty. I love this empowering view of women in a movie that’s basically about bachelorhood.

I just wish they hadn’t played out female stereotypes in the character of Natasha, Kabir’s fiancée. Natasha is basically, pardon my language, a bitch who takes over everything and only thinks about herself. And she’s the stereotypical rich bitchy woman who also can’t drive (because we all know that women can’t drive *eyeroll*).

Overall, though, I don’t see why anyone shouldn’t enjoy this movie (except for maybe little kids), although from reviews, it appears that a lot of people didn’t.

I honestly don’t understand why others didn’t like it, but maybe I enjoy it more because in a lot of ways, I have a “man’s” taste. I can appreciate the epicness of skydiving and running with the bulls and a roadtrip in an awesome car (I think but can’t confirm it’s a late-40s convertible Buick Eight). But whatever the reasons, I certainly enjoyed it and would definitely recommend seeing it. :)

NEW: Murder 2 (2011): What a THRILLING Ride!

In continuing my sometimes blind quest to enjoy the availability of Hindi films in NYC theaters, I traipsed down to the local AMC by myself today to catch a matinee of Murder 2. Mostly driven by the fact that it was cheap and in Hindi, I went into it not knowing much other than the brief movie summary on the theater’s website, that Jaqueline Fernandez (whose name I cannot get over) was in it, and that it was a sequel. Bright of me, I know.

Well, I was surprised to find out that it’s not the rollicking or ridiculous film I may have been expecting (the name is Murder 2, which sounds super tacky; and the description of the first film sounds utterly ridiculous), but instead a legitimately creepy, terrifying and exhilarating thriller about a psycho serial killer. Don't let the posters fool you into thinking this is just a sexy story between Jaqueline Fernandez's character and Emraan Hashmi's (although there is plenty of sex) — this one's definitely taken over by the killer.

Synopsis (doing my best to give a gist without giving anything away): Ex-cop Arjun Bhaagwat (Emraan Hashmi) is living a confused, drifting life on the edge of Goa’s underbelly, doing jobs for pimps and gangsters while struggling with some sense of morality (he donates to the church though he’s an atheist). He’s also unable to commit in his tempestuous three-year relationship with model Priya (Jaqueline Fernandez). Pimp Sameer offers Arjun a fat sum to figure out why his prostitutes have been going missing, while at the same time cops are searching to find tourist women who have gone missing. Threads lead back to Dhiraj (Dheeraj?) Pandey (Prashant Narayanan), a crazy man who in a burst at the police station admits to killing the missing women while later rescinding that statement. With nothing to hold Dhiraj on, it’s up to Arjun to prove he’s a serial killer and find missing 16-year-old prostitute Reshma (Sulagna Panigrahi), before the night is up.

Before I get into the film, I want to talk briefly about my theater experience watching Murder 2. Now as I’m sure many of you readers also know, being a non-Indian (read: gori) fan of Indian film is sometimes a very interesting experience. I’m usually the only non-Indian in the theater anytime I go see a film (unless, of course, Kiwi and Papaya are with me), even when the theater is nearly vacant. Today was actually different — there were three separate old white men and an older black woman in the theater for this film. And ZERO Indians. THAT was interesting and I still haven’t quite figured it out.

But anyway, onto the film!

I usually LOATHE thriller/scary killer movies (Red Eye is the only one I’ve ever liked) and avoid them like the plague (I don’t see the point in scaring oneself), but this one was actually pretty fantastic. It was smartly done with the killer and the storyline, and the suspense and spine-tingling was quite real.

There’s also a pretty fair amount of gore that amazed me with how well it was done — I mean, come on, let’s be honest, Bollywood can’t even do fistfights well, so how is it supposed to do brutal murder scenes? The answer is I DON’T KNOW BUT IT HAPPENED.

Dhiraj kills several people on-screen and it’s eye-averting-ly (yes, I wimped and looked away a couple of times) realistic and gruesome. After torturing and then brutally murdering women in a room of his house, he then hacks up the bodies and dumps them (some in garbage bags, some not) into a well behind the house. So yes, there is a well behind the house full of DEAD BODY PARTS. EEK! (One of the most gruesome scenes in the movie for me was when Reshma, beaten presumably to death by Dhiraj and then dumped whole by him into the well in a haste, wakes up amid the dead body parts!)

And while we’re on the subject, Prashant Narayanan is ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC as Dhiraj. Make no bones about it, he is the wicked, demonic villain AND the absolute star of this film (and I am not one of those villain-loving film-watchers either). I thought almost everyone’s performances were pretty top-notch, but Prashant’s is head and shoulders above the rest. He was terrifying and PSYCHOTIC and somehow that I don’t understand HOT at the same time (and yes, I am well aware that this makes ME psycho). As much as this film wanted to be about the cop’s pursuit of details to take down the killer, Prashant’s performance ensures the film is about the killer.

In fact, there’s a section somewhere in the beginning-middle of the film after Dhiraj is thrown in jail and when Arjun begins his quest for details that focuses heavily on Arjun and for a good 20 to 30 minutes or so, the film loses drive and coherency. It was melodramatic and what Arjun was searching for/doing was completely unclear and you lost the grounding, authentic horror-fascination of Dhiraj.

Although that’s not to say that Emraan Hashmi doesn’t mostly hold his own as embattled Arjun. The layers of his character are numerous and deep and fascinating, and they’re wrapped up in a multi-level sort of performance. For example, there’s a fascinating sort of substory about Arjun’s personal battle with lost faith in God that Emraan played out nicely, and I also enjoyed the Arjun-centric part of the film before Prashant Narayanan even stepped on screen (though he certainly raised the caliber of the film once he did).

And Emraan’s not too bad to look at either, although he gets monkey face while making out and HIS HAIR WAS ATROCIOUS. Seriously, this is one of the WORST mullets I’ve seen in a LONG time, and I come from the Deep South, land of the mullet.

While on pure aesthetics, let’s switch to the female “lead” (if you can call her that; she's not around very much), Jaqueline Fernandez. The woman is pretty gorgeous, I’ll give her that, but sometimes she turns her head a certain way and does this mouth thing and, I’m sorry but (and Katrina Kaif can have this problem too) SHE LOOKS LIKE A TRANSVESTITE. It’s kind of annoying because the same expression that produces that transvestite look also gives her this kind of blah DUH face that makes everything feel empty.

If there’s one lagging character in this film, it’s that of Priya. Much of the time, Priya is just as embattled as Arjun, although her primary predicament isn’t religion or morality like his but instead her confused relationship with Arjun. And in that, she’s great. She has a wonderful distraught scene where she, drunk and hurt because he left after promising to stay, confronts Arjun about his inability to commit to her even after she says she loves him. A really fantastic scene. But then sometimes Jaqueline feels like she’s just there for the sex appeal.

For example! Her introduction scene basically has Arjun showing up, seeing her face on a magazine cover and flashing it at her, then her running away only to be pursued by him, pinned... And then we flash to a sex scene (which is about as explicit as you can get without showing any certain body parts) between the two.

Now as a general rule I abhor sex scenes because they’re SO AWKWARD and SO unnecessary and I just don’t want to see that, thank you. I especially abhorred this one because it was long and drawn out and it was a HORRIBLE way to introduce a character. At first, I thought Priya was just someone Arjun picked up at the party after seeing that she was a magazine model; only after the “after” scene did I realize they were an on-again-off-again couple of three years. The scenes with them also sometimes felt oddly placed in the film and maybe too sexed and intimate for a Priya who’s supposedly so deeply conflicted about the whole relationship.

And another thing, on the subject of the “girls who can’t fight”/helpless woman trope I was tweeting about the other day, this film had one of those infuriating scenes too. In the climax scene, Dhiraj has gotten Priya into his house so he can torture, murder and dismember her in front of Arjun. Despite the fact that Dhiraj has tied her hands and feet, Priya is still CLEARLY in a position to kick him, but she just lies there, whimpering and pleading, as he prepares to beat her to death.

However, in a film that hinges on one man’s rampantly despicable view of women (Dhiraj tortures and kills because “women tempt men”), the film actually had some great potential for being pro-woman. There are some fantastic strong women that unfortunately may have not been played to their best. Like my favorite scene of the entire film was probably where a female psychologist is brought in by the police to lock Dhiraj in a battle of the wits that draws out a confession. I wish I knew who the actress is because she holds her own against Prashant amazingly well. Unfortunately, though, she only shows up in this one scene.

Another potentially powerful (young) woman is Reshma, the prostitute “victim” of Dhiraj who survives (due to his slip-up?) and escapes through sheer will despite her terror. Unfortunately, though (spoiler alert), she escapes only to run into Dhiraj, newly released from jail, again, and, well, this time he succeeds. Her death is somewhat necessary to send Arjun over the edge, but I really wish she would have been the survivor.

Also, completely randomly, I really like this song (video is just song, no vid):

Sum total, despite some of its shortcomings and the fact that this type of film is SO not my genre, I really liked Murder 2. It certainly gave me more thrill than I was expecting to experience today.

Madame Tussaud's, where we met Shahrukh and Amitabh

So this is really just a small random post for the heck of it, but last week Pagaal Papaya and I took advantage of another of the upsides of being in New York and visited the Bollywood exhibit at Madame Tussaud's New York wax museum. Unfortunately the wax figures of Aishwarya Rai and Salman Khan are in London only, but the New York exhibit has Shahrukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan.

I have to say going through several floors of wax figures and taking pictures was much cooler than I expected, and the lifelikeness of some of them was really disconcerting.

And yes, SRK and Big B are in their own separate room as a "interactive Bollywood exhibit." Papaya and I were the only non-Indians who stopped in this room, and we got SO MANY funny looks from the Indians who were waiting to take pictures. Kind of like the "What do these goris know about Indian cinema?" looks that we get sometimes when walking into Indian bazaars for DVDs (and the best thing in the world is when I started talking Shahrukh vs. Aamir with the bhai behind the counter one time and he realized "HEY maybe they do know something!").

Anyway. Pictures.

Papaya with Amitabh, who was too dark. He looks like he stole some of Jr. B's pigmentation.

Me looking like a dork with Big B.

Shahrukh likes me better than Papaya.

 

Souvenir photo. I like ours better.

Oh, this isn't Bollywood related, but Gandhiji was there too. :)