POSTCARD FROM BANGALORE, INDIA: Let the Dancing Begin

BANGALORE, India—“Vasant. Say it isn’t so.”

“It is. Sad, but true.”

“Unbelievable. You are such a loser.”

That was a recent phone conversation with my brother. You see, the unthinkable has happened. I have become addicted to a Hindi movie song.

Don’t be alarmed. This should only be temporary and is simply the result of my present circumstances as an intern for General Electric in Bangalore, India. At least the worst is over—last week, I kept the headphones on at work, listening to an MP3 of “Denewala,” a hit from the year-old movie Hera Pheri. At the guest house where I stay, I continually watched MTV India for the music video version of the song. For nearly seven days I had “Denewala” stuck on “repeat” in my head. I even memorized the words, and I don’t even understand Hindi.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. For my first month in India, I had avoided any contact or reference to “Bollywood,” the Indian entertainment industry based out of Bombay. At first mention you might think, “Bollywood. Very cute. A cheap imitation of Hollywood.” That is, until you realized that Bollywood churns out hundreds more movies, songs, and music videos per year than its American counterpart and runs circles around Tinseltown in terms of gross revenues. Hindi movies constantly sell out theatres, and their soundtracks are the chart-toppers at music stores around the country. The differences between the fortunes of of the two entertainment industries are especially acute during a summer in which the American box office tries to squeeze profits from such gems as The Mummy Returns and The Animal. (Rob Schneider, your game’s up. Either you have long realized that your movies just plain suck, or you actually do have animal parts where human organs should be.)

And yet Hindi movies are the very embodiment of cheese, with rambling storylines, one-dimensional characters, and melodramatic monologues that stretch into oblivion. Each new Hindi movie is simply a variation of a previous Hindi movie, with a few modifications. (For example, villain with mustache becomes villain without mustache.) The repetition is so blatant that there is a popular email circulating at work concerning the “rules” that all Hindi movies must abide by. Some of the more entertaining ones are:

#2. There are only two classes in society: very rich and very poor. There is no middle class.

#6. If a family has two brothers, they have been separated at birth, one growing up to be a “hero” and the other, an “anti-hero.” By the end of the movie, the anti-hero either reforms or dies saving his brother—but not before they perform a dance together (accompanied by their blind mother).

#5. Village girls who live among cows and sheep have perfect skin and teeth.

#8. Any and all fight scenes take place in the vicinity of a stack of pots, pans, bottles, barrels, window panes or all of the above.

Hindi movies are most notable, however, for their songs and dancing, so much so that an actor is often valued not for his looks or even—heaven forbid—his acting skills, but rather his dance moves. (Rule #11: If you decide to start dancing in a field, everyone you bump into will know all the steps, and will be wearing coordinated outfits.) The songs are lip-synched, but that doesn’t stop everybody from singing them (including my uncle, who does a particularly bad job). I once asked if any Hindi movies did not have songs and dancing. The room fell silent. I got several “What planet are you from?” looks.

Throw in the fact that most of the blockbuster Hindi movies are financed by the Bombay underworld, and you had, from my point of view, a bizarre and uniquely Indian silliness.

On our previous visits to India, my brother and I had savaged anything that remotely resembled a Hindi movie. And there was no question that during my first month here, anytime I was laughing during a Hindi movie it was at the movie, not with it. (This made me something of a pariah in the guest house television room.)

This changed one evening last week, when I was flipping channels and came across a music video of three men doing a dance which somewhat resembled the Bangles in “Walk Like an Egyptian.” I was laughing really hard, until I realized that the actors in this video were actually making fun of themselves. The video included all sorts of events that would take place in a run-of-the-mill Hindi film romance song—and then proceeded to wreck them. The three actors were excellent, and the video was good fun on its own merits. I knew I was in trouble when I woke up the next morning with “Denewala” stuck in my head. And the rest is history.

So has Bollywood matured, or have I become more tolerant of Indian pop culture? The answer is probably a little of both. The vast majority of Hindi movies continue to be overly sentimental mush-fests involving Hindu-Muslim tensions, corrupt politicians, forbidden loves or a combination of all three. But my movie tastes back home, as any of my friends can tell you, were never exactly high-brow (even if you excuse Dude, Where’s My Car? as a temporary fit of insanity). And the several Indian friends I have made in Bangalore have taken it upon themselves to explain the intricacies of Hindi films to me, the ignorant American. All I know is that I have been given passes to a showing of Hera Pheri next week, and I plan on going. Several very credible sources have told me that the movie, like the video “Denewala,” is completely different from the usual Bollywood fare.

So what can I say? Let the dancing begin.

Vasant M. Kamath ’02, a Crimson editor, is a government concentrator in Winthrop House.