Bollywood & the “Global” Indian
Dubai, the venue for the 2006 IIFA awards. Everything from Glitz to Glamour and nothing in between was on display. Rolls Royce entourages, Camels and BigB’s imprints on clay; that should sum up Bollywood for the International Indian. IIFA is a great way to gauge the creative interest and intellect of Indians world-wide. There is an easy association to be made between an Indian ( country of residence; irrespective ) & Bollywood. We all like rolling in talcum powdery snow, playing hide-n-seek on a plain with just 1 tree in sight & the average Indian household has 50 litres of glycerin for easy access to pensive emotions in order to achieve an instant cloud burst of tears in times of need. Ok so, let’s compile all of it systematically, in points.
1. We always break into a dance with our significant other. The alpha couple is usually accompanied by an army of dancers ( Sha’i'mak Davar’s troupe of m*nkeys ) dancing in sync but wearing less flashy clothing and conveniently staying in the deep end of the camera’s depth of field. We like jump-zooms edited rhythmically to the beats of the soundtrack. There are sudden surreal urges where the dancers appear to dance on water, play with silk fabrics & swiftly move from one position to the other ( effect enhanced by flash edits and additive transitions ).
2. We often like to talk about relationships. Since the sex ratio in the country is so bad, these talks usually turn into epic battles of love & sacrifice, where two male friends have a thing for one female. I really don’t need to tell you about the twists and turns building up to the final destination, but in order to save your time, one of the dudes dies of Cancer or some other really virulent disease, or in extreme cases of brave film-making; bullet wounds. The remaining characters immediately start preparing for their big Indian Wedding which almost always looks like a Punjabi wedding no matter what the background of the characters in question. Indians appear to wear turbans as well.
3. We like to wear gaudy clothes with really bad colour combinations. Purple, Red, Yellow… bring it on, as long as light reflects some colour off of it. It is fun to see people going out shopping for the exact same clothes, where instead of cultivating one’s own sense of style, we prefer to look like ten thousand other people who have watched the same movie and bought the same set of clothes. Communists would love to use Hindi movies to promote their propaganda on superficial equality. Same goes for jewelery and ornaments. We aren’t obese, but we like the feeling of being a tad over-weight once in a while. Watch out for Indian women traveling back from Dubai. I wonder how the flight makes it across the Arabian Sea with all that extra weight in wearable gold.
4. We like anything which is even slightly related to Sufiyana. Where ignorance meets bliss, people like Himesh Reshamiya reside. We relish stock tunes and synthesized pop beats. We also like the concept of playback where the actors don’t sing, they lip-sync, where some one who is less presentable aesthetically sings for them. I’d really like to see Kumar Sanu rolling down the Swiss Alps ( highly unlikely that’ll ever happen, but I’ll close this blog the day I see a ton of snow scraped off of a Swiss mountain side exposing it’s earthy core ).
5. We are an emotional lot. We laugh at the silliest of jokes and cry at the most trivial of situations….. but, we get up no matter what, and fight our battles ( most likely against a dear childhood friend, and over a girl they both met a month back - I am NOT making this up… almost every friend I know who goes to a science college { esp. engineers.. where there are 4 gals to 29 guys } has this problem )
6. We occasionally enjoy “item” numbers. This is an interesting topic, I could go on scoffing it for hours on end, but I’ll keep it short and possibly sweet. Now what exactly is an item number? in absolute layman’s terms, an ‘item’ would be something which is in great demand. It’s in our culture for some female dancer to dance like there is no tomorrow in order to seduce an average of atleast 100K males per dance session. So much for natural selection; Darwin should have watched a few Bollywood movies instead of sailing all the way to the Galapagos. Way to go Billo Chamanbahar!
7. We adore Slavic & Baltic models who can/could perform item numbers. It’s like getting to know how it all started in the Caucasus mountains. It’s a deep rooted fantasy of the Indian audience to watch these models perform silly dance numbers… add some snow to the equation and we’ve got ourselves a winner. ( note : an item number featuring a Slavic model on a snow covered peak is bound to work… presuming this hasn’t already been done in Hindi Cinema.. I now own the rights to this idea ).
8. We like Switzerland, not because of the chocolates, big cows with huge udders or it’s anonymous banking system, but for it’s milky white snow for our actors to roll on. There is nothing more divine than to roll on soft consistent Swiss snow in slow-motion. If our actors keep rolling on those peaks, we are bound to find more snow covered artifacts from the bygone era.
9. We like Jyotish, Numerology and other such stuff which makes us change our names from time to time. Ahh! so Jupiter moved out from it’s place? ( scientifically, planets usually are on the move ), not to worry, add an R to Rrutam so that it pleases the numerologist.
Feel free to drop and add vowels to your name/co’s name or your mobile manufacturer’s name. Add in an “O” to your new Moto and feel free to call it the MOOTOROLA, that’ll give you fame, fortune and the power to fight filthy cellphone-marketeers. Hard-work, calculated risks & even that iota of good luck stand no chance when you’ve got numerology on your side, or perhaps it’s ssiiede not side. Call your numero! make him rich!
10. Lastly, no matter what the requirement of the film, YOU NEED TO HAVE THIS SCENE SOMEWHERE IN SOME SONG OF THE MOVIE! ( This scene is mandatory when it comes to compiling a movie trailor )
{ SRK with his hands apart, his body slightly out of balance… tilted like the leaning tower of PISA… and an expression which is a combination of sage like wisdom & complete exaltation ( with a bit of machismo somewhere in there ). Is there such a feeling in this world which can beat the soft caress of wind under one’s armpits? I think not.
So I’ll be adding more “Indians like to” articles ( feels nice to have my drivel categorized as articles ) to my blog. Actually feel free to let me know what you’d like to know about India or Indians and I’ll try my level best to come up with funny, hurtful & relevant answers. Imagine this to be my version of Chappelle’s “Ask a _____ dude”
