We learned on our first orientation day that Bollywood makes more movies per year than Hollywood does–crazy!–and we were given money to watch a Bollywood movie as part of our orientation week. So yesterday we fit 15 of us into (and onto) a large tuk tuk– yes, there really are such things! –and rode to Crown Interior, the mall where the cinema is located. The mall was much less crowded than any of the street markets and bazaars we had been to– it was almost eery.
Upon reaching the cinema and buying our tickets, we went through probably the most thorough bag search I’ve had since arriving– and that’s because you get searched wherever you go. The security woman opened the small zippered pocket inside my bag to retrieve my camera, which, along with many of my friends’, was returned after the film. We watched Bol Bachchan, a very funny, very Bollywood movie. There was a lot of singing and dancing, and a few English lines that made almost no sense: “A brother in need is a sister indeed,” “Home is where the tuba is,” and silly things like that. But if you were to ask me what the movie was about, I couldn’t really tell you; the movie was in Hindi, with no English subtitles. Still, it was an enjoyable experience.
My favorite parts were of course the dance and music numbers– I love Indian dance moves! And the music in general. I think one of the greatest things was the women who were cast as dancers in the film. They weren’t the stick-thick, undernourished image of beauty that is propagated in American culture and cinema. The outfits they wore exposed full bellies that, I’m sure, when sitting down, bared the rolls and folds of skin that are so “unbeautiful” in America. And those women really were beautiful–big brown eyes, full lips, and long luscious hair. And they were real. I felt like I could run into these girls in the street. As an impressionable 20-year-old American girl, I really appreciated that.
-EHR
From India, With Love 