In the past few months, I met a few Indians transplanted to Australia at a couple of drinks and dinner occasions. In the mixed crowd, discussion turned to things Indian, largely Mumbai blasts and the like. And then to lighten the mood, Bollywood. I confessed to rarely watching the films. The firangs having a love affair with the genre, of which these days there seem to be a fair number, were mildly discomfited. The transplanted Indians accused me of being a traitor. Though the mood was light-hearted, I was a bit surprised that not watching a Bollywood flick was suddenly on par with say, supporting Pakistan in a cricket match. Surely it wasn't always like this. After all in the not too distant past, friends had made the pilgrimage to Huma-Heena & Ambar-Oscar but did not insist on dragging me along on the grounds of patriotism.
I don't think I thought much about Bollywood till I moved to Australia. It is not a genre I am particularly fond of, perhaps this was because of a two year period in Kanpur when my mother, severely depressed, would dress us up and take us to see a movie every week at the Armapore theatre. My brother and I were then 9 and 11, respectively. Not one of these, from lurid movies with Sulakashana Pandit to Manmohan Desai crowd pleasers held any charm for us. More often than not we were piled onto our parents scooter with the bribe of a masala dosai to follow. Happily this movie going did not last but the prospect of spending three hours in the company of Bollywood is not one I look forward to even today.
When I moved to Australia, the reinvention of Bollywood from a guilty pleasure to a pop form in search of cultural studies was just beginning. "Bollywood on Bondi" was held, Lagaan had had good press, Bride and Prejudice was in the offing and so on. Kind people struggling to sustain a conversation would often turn to Bollywood. It was perhaps in all innocence, the way one may assume the popularity of a Friends or a Sex in the City in Sydney, but it did get a bit tiresome. It is a feeling not different from what an Australian may feel when questioned closely on crocodile wrangling. Indians I met would suggest getting together in the weekend to watch the "latest Bollywood film" - which set off memories of Kanpur sans masala dosai. If it played a minimal part in my Indian life, it seemed a wee bit omnipotent in my Australian life.
Partly, this is because the genre is now so emblematic of India. The movies of the 70s and 80s do not stand for anything except a general silliness and geniality, a means to kill three hours of existence with a stew of family values, songs and villiany writ large. More often than not it was also a social activity, few were the occasions when movie going did not entail a minimum crowd of ten. The morality of the times also meant that your elders disapproved, the suspicion that cinema was a corrupting influence lingered. Ergo, you watched fewer movies. These days that sentiment is old fashioned. Bollywood itself has changed to a self conscious form, a bizarre cocktail of moth eaten values admixed with money, raunch and music though the inexplicable plots remain intact. It is also India Resurgent, one can fashionably out oneself as addicted to the phillums and deconstruct their campness. Bollywood has been Warholised.
But we are also now beyond Warhol. Not too long back, SBS ran a series on Modern India. The episode, Manufacturing Dreams, dealt with the influence of the genre on Indian culture and its elevation from a disreputable form to one that had infiltrated daily lives. Even the middle class has been co-opted. The episode followed a wedding planner who relied heavily on Bollywood for inspiration, dance studios teaching Bollywood naach, middle aged women (and their mothers) demonstrating their jhatkas on national telly and the like. India came across as a reality show based on Bollywood in which everyone is an extra doing their bit. The soothing voice in the background remained neutral but the proceedings were a little cringe inducing. I am in no hurry to get myself into a theatre to do my bit for Mera Bharat Mahaan.
I don't think I thought much about Bollywood till I moved to Australia. It is not a genre I am particularly fond of, perhaps this was because of a two year period in Kanpur when my mother, severely depressed, would dress us up and take us to see a movie every week at the Armapore theatre. My brother and I were then 9 and 11, respectively. Not one of these, from lurid movies with Sulakashana Pandit to Manmohan Desai crowd pleasers held any charm for us. More often than not we were piled onto our parents scooter with the bribe of a masala dosai to follow. Happily this movie going did not last but the prospect of spending three hours in the company of Bollywood is not one I look forward to even today.
When I moved to Australia, the reinvention of Bollywood from a guilty pleasure to a pop form in search of cultural studies was just beginning. "Bollywood on Bondi" was held, Lagaan had had good press, Bride and Prejudice was in the offing and so on. Kind people struggling to sustain a conversation would often turn to Bollywood. It was perhaps in all innocence, the way one may assume the popularity of a Friends or a Sex in the City in Sydney, but it did get a bit tiresome. It is a feeling not different from what an Australian may feel when questioned closely on crocodile wrangling. Indians I met would suggest getting together in the weekend to watch the "latest Bollywood film" - which set off memories of Kanpur sans masala dosai. If it played a minimal part in my Indian life, it seemed a wee bit omnipotent in my Australian life.
Partly, this is because the genre is now so emblematic of India. The movies of the 70s and 80s do not stand for anything except a general silliness and geniality, a means to kill three hours of existence with a stew of family values, songs and villiany writ large. More often than not it was also a social activity, few were the occasions when movie going did not entail a minimum crowd of ten. The morality of the times also meant that your elders disapproved, the suspicion that cinema was a corrupting influence lingered. Ergo, you watched fewer movies. These days that sentiment is old fashioned. Bollywood itself has changed to a self conscious form, a bizarre cocktail of moth eaten values admixed with money, raunch and music though the inexplicable plots remain intact. It is also India Resurgent, one can fashionably out oneself as addicted to the phillums and deconstruct their campness. Bollywood has been Warholised.
But we are also now beyond Warhol. Not too long back, SBS ran a series on Modern India. The episode, Manufacturing Dreams, dealt with the influence of the genre on Indian culture and its elevation from a disreputable form to one that had infiltrated daily lives. Even the middle class has been co-opted. The episode followed a wedding planner who relied heavily on Bollywood for inspiration, dance studios teaching Bollywood naach, middle aged women (and their mothers) demonstrating their jhatkas on national telly and the like. India came across as a reality show based on Bollywood in which everyone is an extra doing their bit. The soothing voice in the background remained neutral but the proceedings were a little cringe inducing. I am in no hurry to get myself into a theatre to do my bit for Mera Bharat Mahaan.
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