in spite of me, a tribute to Shahrukh Khan

I mentioned that I watched Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham the first time because my sister wanted me to pick up a long, fun film which would take her mind off everything. I also mentioned that after I watched the film I was in love. I was in love with the music, the costumes, the lights, the decorations, the locations, the smooth transition between supposed Delhi and supposed London, the sense of romance, the tribute to 'love', the respect shown to the family and the winning self confidence of the leading stars.

When I picked up that DVD I had no idea the film in my hand was about to open a whole new world for me. I didn't know that one film could make you sit in front of the internet for hours reading about stars and directors; that a film can make you try desparately to figure out if the cultural events portrayed are accurate representations of what one would really experience in India or not. I didn't know that because of this film and many other films I subsequently watched, I would cease enjoying Hollywood and Western films the way I used to (at least for the time being that is the result!) It didn't occur to me for a moment that a single film could pave the path to the desire to travel to a country, learn a language, learn about a country's sense of the self and the wish to be immersed in something that for 30 years had hardly anything to do with me at all.

I remember walking home from work one day composing a letter to Shahrukh Khan in my head. It was a letter of thanks. I was thanking him for helping me get through my sister's illness. I felt it was to a large extent because of this film and several other Shahrukh films (for Shahrukh films were all that were available in Karstadt when I first started to explore Hindi films) that I was inspired to giggle and laugh and tell stupid stories as my sister slowly slipped away.

Over the past 2 years I have watched many films- and most of them do not contain Shahrukh Khan. I have discovered that millions of girls and women love Shahrukh; dream Shahrukh; rush to the cinema on opening day to watch a new Shahrukh film and rattle on for hours to a news camera about how much they appreciated blah blah blah blah about Shahrukh or the other stars around him. I myself have made it to the opening day of 2 Shahrukh films - first in Mumbai and then in Delhi and I need to remind any reader that I have spent just about 2 months in total in India. I have convinced myself that I have outgrown Shahrukh films; I have discovered stars with greater originality, better acting skills, better looks (not that hard?), better dancing; I have decided he's too arrogent, too pretentious, too popular, too... too... too etc etc. I have even spent a time avowing undying 'screen' love to Aamir Khan.

But at the end of the day, much as I would love to be original and different from most, I can't really start a blog about Hindi films and me, without my little tribute to Shahrukh Khan.

As I have stated above, Shahrukh Khan is more than a star symbol for me. His energy, charisma, smile and noisy annoying self helped me through a really tough time. Films like K3G, DDLJ, Kal Ho Naa Ho or Veer Zaara, the first films I watched, have become more than kitch big budget films with Shahrukh at the center.

I hope Shahrukh himself never sees this piece, but I thank him and the cast and crew and directors and producers of big budget Hindi films for keeping the smile on my face.

Hindi films are often known by their acronyms

I challenge my dear reader to open google and type in DDLJ.

If your computer is the same as mine, and your internet is the same as mine, then every single entry starting with the wikepedia entry is about DDLJ.

Definitions

One minute of exploration on the internet easily informs all that there are 9 regional 'film industries' in India:

The Bhojpuri (Purvanchal) film industry
The Bengali (Bangla) film industry
The Hindi film industry, also known as Bollywood
The Kannada film industry
The Kashmiri film industry
The Malayalam film industry
The Marathi film industry
The Tamil film industry (Kollywood)
The Telugu film industry
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_India)

So it is important to be specific. My blog, for example, is principally about the largest of the regional industries, Hindi films. I have very limited experience with the other regional industries.
Also, I am against the word 'Bollywood'. I like the Hindi film industry too much to see it as the little brother of 'Hollywood'. While many Hindi films may be inspired by Hollywood films or Hollywood storylines, they are very much a genre in themselves and the industry doesn't really need to look up to its competition with a nickname invoking the others identity.

Asides from these regional film industries there is a robust independent film industry. Films by Mira Nair and Deepa Mehta, such as Water which was nominated for a foreign film Oscar in 2007 fall into this 'independent' category. The reason for this is simple. Such films are in English rather than a regional language and often the storyline is considered to be more realistic. In other words, they are closer to analytic Western films, with heavier stories, trying to teach something coherent about social, political or cultural life in India or about Indians to the foreign English speaking world.

I am inclined to also add a small but growing local language based independent film sector. Like independent sectors in other countries, these films tend to show case acting talents of unknown or rising stars or contain more thought provoking or unusual storylines/imagery.
These films are frequently produced by individuals who repeatedly work together.

As stated, I am inclined to nominate a local language independent film industry. I am sure that many Indians would not agree or would have a more appropriate name for the types of films I have in mind.

Independent film producers, by the simple fact that their films are in English, target their films to international viewership. However, regional film industries typically target Indians. Of course, criteria and conditions have been changing, especially with the ever growing Non-resident Indian (NRI) population living in UK, USA or any other country. Migration has resulted in ever greater international exposure of regional Indian films, particularly the big budget, multi-star Hindi films and growing international popularity.

Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (Sometimes Happiness Sometimes Sorrow)

http://www.planetbollywood.com/Film/KabhiKhushiKabhieGham/

When I meet Iranians or Turks in my general age group and I mention Hindi films, they inevitably tell me that they watched tear jerking, melodramatic Indian films with funny song and dance sequences, usually involving dancing around a tree, followed by some violence as a child.

I don’t recall any specific Indian film or film sequence from my childhood. I assume I watched them because my neighbor and best friend, Gole Maryam was half Pakistani and I remember us watching a lot of films in her house. But were any of the films Indian?

I vaguely remember Mira Nair’s Salam Bombay (1988). We were in Australia then and the film was shown at a big screen cinema in the city and I was extremely reluctant to go. I have mental images of my mother half dragging me to the cinema, uttering words like ‘you need to be open to other cultures… India is a fascinating place… the film got brilliant reviews’.

Around the same time my mother taped Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata on video. She would watch entranced… that is until I accidentally taped a different film on half of the video. I bought a DVD of The Mahabharata last year but I still haven’t managed to watch it. The only thing I remember from my occasional slanderous comments to my mother about the fragments of Mahabarata that I watched was that the elephant god Ganesha looked cool, but over all, it was all very stupid.

During the final years of high school I was consumed by French film and anything French. During my undergrad years Japanalia started to spin out of proportion.

Then in 1996 I stumbled across Mira Nair’s Kama Sutra and in 2001 I watched her Monsoon Wedding. Monsoon Wedding was a revelation. I loved almost every minute of the film. But by this stage I was living in Turkey and Turkey is not exactly a bubbling hot pot of Indian culture.

So it was not until the winter of 2006 when my sister told me to buy a DVD which would be long, fun, entertaining and capable of taking her mind off everything that I discovered the charm of Hindi films. The Karstadt ‘recommendation’ section contained a film I had never seen or heard of before. The cover of the film was bright and flashy. The characters wore shiny clothes and a family was hugging and laughing their heads off. (See the picture above). The little bit of German I understood told me the film was highly recommended and best of all the back cover stated that the film lasted a whopping 3 hours and 40 minutes. Although the back cover also mentioned that the audio options were either German or Hindi, I couldn’t resist.

The name of the film was Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (Sometimes Happiness Sometimes Sorrow).

While my sister hated the film and winged and complained that I have no taste and I was banned from buying any more films without her previous approval, I was in love.

Why Hindi films?

I have asked myself and been asked this question many times since I became besoted with Hindi films in 2006. Based on my mood and the situation I have produced absurd, logical, intellectual, cultural, linguistic and even an academic analysis of reasons.

I don't actually know why I am drawn to these films. I don't have a reason. Maybe it's because I find them fun. Or because I find it incredibly easy to lose myself in a world where lead characters usually endorse good family values, fall in love with beautiful heros or heroins, sing and dance perfectly.

Something about the culture and the storyline on show reaches out to me the way Sound of Music and Thoroughly Modern Milly did when I was 9 years old: just the right blend, at the right place, at the right moment in my life.