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.
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.
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