Dear friends,

It is now already end of April. The temperatures here in Mumbai are getting hotter and hotter. It might sound nice but at night, once you got rid of bedclothes and pyjamas, what do you do if the temperature is still too warm … Well, we won’t complain. Monsoon time will come and then we might regret the old nice time. Meanwhile, we found two ways to cope with this problem, either to go on nice beaches for a swim (see some pictures here) or to hide in a freezing theatre and watch a Bollywood movie.

AFTER CRICKET, BOLLYWOOD FILM INDUSTRY IS THE SECOND INDIAN ENTERTAINMENT

• Bombay film industry (Bollywood) produces more film per year than their counterpart in the US
  Bollywood is a gigantesque production machine bringing ca. 200 films a year on theatre screens. Unfortunately quantity prevails often on quality and many of the newly launched films do not survive a third week in the theatres. However, some of them do and promote then their stars to an icon status, much more than we experience it in Europe. You will see these stars everywhere, in advertisement campaigns, attending charity events, cricket matches, all these activities being reported in details in the daily newspapers.

• Masala movies with a lot of dances, music and moralising plots is the basic recipe for success
  All large productions are based on the same concept of masala movie (masala means “mix of spices” in Hindi). Theses marathon melodrama comedies (lasting typically 3 hours) consist always of the same ingredients: shrill Hindi film music mouthed to the voice of playback artistes, hip-jerking dancing in beautiful and colourful clothes, a pretty straight moralising plot where a son tries to resist again his father’s will and finally marries the woman he loves.
  
• Every Indian knows Switzerland thanks to Bollywood
  Movies are typically full of romantic scenes shot in beautiful scenic landscapes like Goa beaches, the Egyptian Pyramids and last but not least the Swiss mountains. The Swiss Embassy even issued a special brochure to that purpose, facilitating directors to obtain visas for the whole staff, i.e. several hundreds of people including the umbrella-walla (carrying the umbrella of the top stars), the Indian cooks etc. Apparently, it even comes cheaper for a director to send the whole team to Switzerland rather than going to the Himalayas, as there everyone would have relatives to visit and won’t be available on time for the shooting, leading to considerable delays.
  As a nice example, the latest blockbuster, called “The Hero”, has been shot at the summit of the Jungfraujoch although the story is supposed to happen in Canada. It is quite funny to see the Jungfraubahn with a cheap sticker with a red maple leaf hiding the German inscription and the main actor riding beside on a snow bike with “occasion, 079 373 45 56” written on its windscreen.
  
  
• Kissing on the screen is strictly forbidden
  Despite all this romance, kissing and love scenes on the screen are definitely taboo. Although many dancing scenes are very suggestive, the scenes will typically be cut in the juiciest moment or the camera will move towards a flowerpot suggesting that more is to happen. Recently however, a film called “Jism”, the body in Hindi (and with some other signification in English…), broke the rules and showed real tongue kisses and nimbus. Many curious Indians (as well as the authors for pure research purposeJ ) went and see this film but were pretty disappointed by the story…
  
  
• Actually, as much happen in the theatre as on the screen
  A significant part of the Bollywood experience happens actually before the movie starts. First, there will be the advertisements. Many of them are simple handwritten slides claiming the merits of some local boutiques. Other advertisements are shown twice in a row to make sure that people captures the message.
  Then, every body without exception stands up and shuts up to listen to the national anthem as the Indian flag is shown on the screen. That is probably the only moment when everybody is really quiet. Otherwise, mobile phones keep ringing during the movie and people DO answer it. But for us, nobody seems to be annoyed. Finally, shortly before the story reaches its end after almost three hours, time suddenly seems to matter and the spectators will rush out of the theatre, just to be sure they are the first out…
  
  

Still, we enjoy going and watching these masala movies, full of dreams and basic emotions.

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Last updated: 5/4/2003 4:01 PM More about Mumbai Back home