KANK revisited

I just watched this video again (for the zillionth time), and it got me to thinking about the impression Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna made the first time I watched it.

It was the first Indian movie I ever saw. I particularly enjoyed this song, because it was exactly the kind of thing Americans identify as "Bollywood." I knew nothing about the actors at all: no idea I was watching father and son. Clueless about the beautiful woman in pink who was in no other part of the movie. Hadn't the vaguest notion of how well-known or popular any of the actors were...though I remember thinking that "the older guy" was probably very famous. There was just a certain ease and charisma about him that suggested a great deal of experience. I was very taken with Shah Rukh Khan, although I found his movie character shockingly obnoxious. I thought it was kind of cool the way this song mixed some English in with the Hindi. I thought the older woman was splendid, and loved her chemistry with the older guy. I couldn't believe how long the movie was. I'm not sure if I noticed that no one kissed on the lips. Since the movie didn't have American-style credits identifying the characters and the actors who played them, I'm not even sure how I learned Shah Rukh's name, although I believe his was the first actor's name I learned. I thought he was quite cute, and made a point of watching a few of his movies in the month or so after. Then I didn't watch another Indian movie for about two years.

Two years later, I remembered how novel KANK had seemed to me, and I watched it again. I  believe that was October 2011. I don't really remember how I went about researching and finding out who these actors were and what Indian films were all about. (I get so wrapped up in new passions so quickly and deeply that I often can't remember where they began; they fast seem to be things I've always done and known. I can't remember for the life of me how I started making jewelry, for instance.)

What happened the second time I watched the movie was that I was fascinated by Amitabh Bachchan. I had been right the first time I watched the movie: he was the real deal. I expect I learned his name through my film bible, the Internet Movie Database, and I simply began to follow him; I started watching his movies almost exclusively, and branched out from there. It took me about two weeks of tooling around on YouTube before I learned how to pronounce his name; I also had his name written on a piece of paper by my computer to aid my searches, since it took a while for me to get the spelling down.

My second start with Indian movies was the real one. I knew there was a lot in the movies I didn't get, and did exhaustive internet research to learn some of the social context. I started to some some of the major actors I enjoyed: Shah Rukh, of course, Abhishek Bachchan, Kajol, and so on. I started to learn about playback singers and item girls and some of the top producers and composers and directors; I found out that no one ever kisses on the lips. I discovered Amitabh's blog, and started to make some internet friends in India. (Most particularly Shiva, who kindly pointed people to my blog via Twitter, and translated an interesting Twitter conversation for me between Amitabh and Ram Gopal Varma; also Pankaj, who recommended Aamir Khan's films. Another friend dear to my heart is Moses, an Israeli who learned Hindi from watching 3,000 Indian movies, and proclaims daily, "I love Amitabh Bachchan!")

I have one friend of Facebook who always calls me "Aunty," which I hate, but I love him anyway.

And of course I met Rochelle, an Amitabh mega-fan - a Jewish woman one year my senior who lives two neighborhoods away. Never imagined that Indian movies would bring me a new in-person friend who shares a lot of my tastes and background.

Barry noted that I have had far less depressive moods since I began watching Indian films. I am deeply appreciative of being led to so much fascinating study. I probably know about 40 or 50 words in Hindi. I have discovered some amazing Indian musicians, film musicians or non. (And I am including Adnan Sami in that group, although he's not Indian - if I have it right, he is of Pakistani descent, born in Canada, raised in England, and now living and working in Mumbai.) I taught Shiva some Yiddish via email, and recommended American films to Pankaj.

It's been a pretty fruitful nine months.

I've also become active on Twitter during this time; I joined a year or more ago, but never really cared for it. I found the 160-character limit stifling. Now I adore it, way more than Facebook. Neat little jokes and messages and information fly through the ether, and I can reach out to people I would never have encountered before. And of course it's always thrilling to get a reply or retweet from someone I admire from afar. I've had replies from Amitabh himself (only one, but that's plenty), from Raghu Dixit, and often more than once a day from Adnan Sami (brilliant man with a great sense of humor). Some nice replies and retweets from one of my heroes, Dick Zigun, "the unofficial mayor of Coney Island." (I used my blog name as my handle, @northofconey, so I'm followed by a lot of Brooklyn-based people and organizations.) I've said hello to Dick here and there over the years when I've seen him around Coney, but last Friday night, when I introduced myself at the Mermaid Parade volunteers meeting, he knew exactly who I was. I've had some nice replies from the actor John Ortiz and former jockey/actor Gary Stevens. I've also had some Twitter exchanges with a couple of the "Deadliest Catch" captains. In fact, on that week's "After the Catch" (kind of the postgame show for "Deadliest Catch"), they put my live-tweet on the air! (Not having a smartphone or laptop, I had to run to my computer to live-tweet during the commercials, but it was well worth the fuss. It was a pretty major moment, seeing my tweet on TV.)

Whiplash change of topic: it is now apparently considered old-fashioned, when writing, to put two spaces after a period or colon) instead of one. It feels weird. Makes me feel a little old (though not quite like being called "Aunty").

Yes, I had my first volunteer experience at the Mermaid Parade, and sad to say, it didn't go well. I was assigned to sell merchandise, went to the meeting the night before (Rochelle was there, too), signed in on Saturday morning, got my free tee shirt and a bottle of water, and was told to go to 21st Street. Met up there with two of the people who were also supposed to sell merch (we were told there would be three tents with four people each), but there was no one to tell us where to go or what to do. The three of us sat under a tent, where there was a cooler with bottled water and a porta-potty, and waited for an hour and a half. We kept asking staff people what was going on, and some of them radioed in, but we never got any information. A couple of times, one or the other said, "I think you're supposed to go to 22nd Street," or some other location, but no one at those locations knew anything, either. (I very much enjoyed meeting one of my co-merch-volunteers, a woman in her late eighties, who had sold merch in 2011 and had some very interesting stories to tell about her life.) We didn't get the lunch that was supposed to be provided. It was an extremely hot day. After and hour and a half, one of the staff said something about a problem with the merch set-up, and I walked the ten blocks back to the volunteer station. The woman there said that there wasn't going to be merch, apologized and gave me lunch and another bottle of water. (I have to say, they were very on top of having plenty of water.) She said I could carry a banner, but I knew that was beyond my stamina limit at that time. Barry and I found each other, but it was already a half-hour before the start of the parade and impossible to get a decent place to watched. We tried to watch a little, then went home.

I emailed the volunteer coordinators about my experience. The next day, they sent a group email to all of the volunteers, and apologized sincerely for any glitches. A day later, I got a very lovely personal email from one of the coordinators, apologizing again. So I kind of got to be part of the event; tried my best. At least I got the tee shirt. I think I'll give it another shot next year.

more jewelry news, for one thing

Robin and I went out Wednesday night for Indian food (something we've been doing for many years, way before my Indian film/music mania).  Good food, and there are a man playing a sarangi, which was quite wonderful.

But before dinner, she took me to see a little accessories store that had hats she liked, called The Village Scandal.  It did indeed have a lot of nice hats and other accessories, kind of faux vintage.  We ended up at the counter looking at jewelry and chatting with the owner.  Robin mentioned that I had made the earrings she was wearing, and I showed off the necklace I was wearing, and the woman said, "I could sell something like that in choker length.  Do you ever sell your jewelry?"  So it looks like, without trying, I'll be doing some consignments there.  I wasn't even trying.  Very cool; made me feel great.  So even though nothing of mine is there yet, please do visit The Village Scandal, at 19th East 7th Street (I believe it's between Second and Third Avenue), New York City.  Or tell your friends in New York.

I actually made my first-ever consignment deal some years back on another night that Robin and I were in the east village to eat Indian food, at a store called Back from Guatemala, a south American craftsy store that also had nice jewelry.  On a trial basis, they took a Y-necklace with oval ocean jasper...funny that I remember the exact necklace.  I was going to do more business with them, but the manager got sick, and then the store closed.  Robin seems to bring me luck as far as jewelry sales. 

Robin has of course always been a huge supporter of my jewelry, but she's always worn very simple, petite pieces, so that most of what I make didn't suit her.  At one point, I made maybe half-a-dozen pair of earrings for her with a simple, one-small-bead drop.  But she's decided to get more adventurous, and I gave her a couple of necklaces for her birthday and she's wearing them a lot.  One has amethyst up one side, citrine up the other, and a kyanite drop in the middle.  The other has tiny fluorite beads with a big Thai silver orchid pendant.  I actually have a reasonable photo of the former at home and will post it here.

The other thing I did on Wednesday was buy bangles.  I swear I'm not an Indian wannabe, but I've been looking at women in Indian movies wearing piles of bangles, and it's a great look.  I never used to be too crazy about bangles because I was afraid I'd squeeze into one and not be able to get it off...which didn't stop me from eyeballing jade bangles down in Chinatown.  (I still wouldn't mind having one of those.)  But between an accessories store near work, and a Tibetan store in the east village, I ended up buying about 30 bangles in silvertone, goldtone, and some blues and greens.  They don't hurt my wrist when I use a mouse (which some bracelets do).  They are super-wearable and comfortable, they look great, and they jingle when I move around.  I LOVE them.  Now, of course, I need red ones, and some other colors.  (What I really need is more storage for my jewelry.  The big jewelry box I've had for many years is stuffed, several other little boxes are stuffed...I probably need an entire shelving system to keep it all.

My past and near-past office intern, Sarah E., just said goodbye, and it's truly heartbreaking.  She interned for me last summer, and called a couple of months ago to say she'd be in town in January, and did I need some help?  She was here for a few weeks, and not only helped a lot, but was wonderful company.  Very sweet, very smart, very sane.  I'll miss her a bunch.  She'll be back from Smith for spring break in March, and said she'd be in touch.

It's supposed to snow tonight, and I'm looking forward to a nice weekend indoors, making jewelry and watching a movie or two.

Since the friend who's fallen in love with Amitabh is waiting for her copy of KANK, I decided to rewatch a little of it last night.  It's actually kind of cheesy and silly.  Interesting to see my own reaction compared to the first time I saw it (around three years ago) and the second time I saw it (about two and a half months ago).  I'm starting to think I may have overestimated Abhishek...although I did like him in Delhi 6.  I don't think I can bear to watch Dostana, which apparently involves a couple of guys pretending to be gay to get girls or something -- I mean, ew.  I'd like to see him try his hand at remaking one of his father's films (he might have to tie up SRK and Hrithik to get the roles), and then we can see if he's got the goods.

Ram Gopal Varma has been posting some very sexist and negative tweets of late.  My friend Shiva said something about RGV being or seeming drunk...and that must be it.  He thinks like a drunk.  On the other end of the spectrum, I've been following Anupam Kher, and he seems like a wonderful man.  As soon as I can scrape up $30, I'm buying his new book.

SOPA/PIPA:  Bad.  Indian government not protecting Sir Salman Rushdie:  Bad.  Italian cruise ship captain ordering food after the crash:  Bad.  Johnny Otis and Etta James dying:  Sad.  Sorry to short-change you on news and politics, but it's not really my forte.

last day of the year

Nice party at Robin's last night.  Re-met some of her friends, and a couple of new ones.  She served some nibbles and then some more substantial food; I could live forever on tostones with a dab of dill sour cream and a piece of nova (lox) on top.  (Non-Americans:  tostones are plantains, a banana-like fruit but less sweet -- the slices are fried, smashed to discs and then fried again.  Lox is smoked salmon.

I enjoyed the folks there, although there was one woman who seemed a touch obsessed with her ex-dog -- that is, the dog her ex-boyfriend got when they still lived together.  I love my cats, but I don't think I ever talk more than a few minutes about them.  I swear I heard  20 minutes+ about Buford the French bulldog.

I love where they're living now, in Crown Heights.  It's a typical changing neighborhood these days, bodegas and organic health food stores.  It's another one of those Brooklyn neighborhoods that's cycled around: a Jewish neighborhood where my mother and Robin's were both born; an uneasy mix of Orthodox Jews and and African-Americans (occasionally causing riots and big crime stories when one group came into conflict with the other); and now, gentrifying.  Any neighborhood with beautiful old building stock will eventually be reclaimed; if the neighborhood has become run-down, it will be cleaned up, and soon enough...unaffordable.

At home, I couldn't figure out what movie I wanted to watch, so I watched snips of a few.  Saw a bit of Don 2.  Shah Rukh Khan seems to be encroaching on Tom Cruise/Jean-Claude Van Damme territory, and I predict we will end up being Bruce Willis.  I don't feel bad about making these American comparisons because someone is trying to internationalize him and turn him into a worldwide action star.  Ra.One didn't quite manage it.

Then I moved on to what I hope is the worst movie Amitabh ever made:  Shahenshah.  It's an unbelievably cheesy masked-avenger sort of movie, a superhero without powers.  He does have a lock of silver hair and a leather jacket with a bulletproof metal arm.  His daytime identity is as a goofy, corrupt cop (these sort of characters are often identified by their chewing paan, a mild stimulant made of betel leaf and a few other substances.  This was Amit-ji's return to films after his 1984-87 political career, and he looks a little puffy, and the movie is very old-fashioned for 1984,  Behold, Shahenshah:

Then I abandoned this movie and rewatched some of Buddah Hoga Tera Baap.  It put Go Meera Go into a little more perspective, as the character of Vijuu is supposed to be something of a dandy.  Hence, the clothes.  This time, he seemed to me to look a little better in the video, as it sat within the movie.  I want to rewatch the rest and see Hema Malini again.  She's probably my favorite of his leading ladies.

In 2012:  kinder to myself and my body (diet and exercise).  Less quick to judge people, especially negative judgment.  Kinder to others.  Learn and grow.  Happy new year to all of you.

I know how you got here!/the last word, maybe, on Go Meera Go

I'm a newbie at Twitter, and didn't really know how to check my "mentions," so I didn't know until today that @astroshiva very nicely recommended my blog, saying that I knew quite a bit about Bollywood and such.  (And again, thank you so much!)

And speaking of Twitter. I got a tweet response from Amitabh this morning, so I am (as Mike Myers used to say, as "Dieter") as happy as a little girl.

I hope this is a good version of the video, since as I've mentioned, I can't access my YouTube favorites from Blogger.  I've talked about this video before: how I saw it, realized that it was some sort of greatest hits medley, and researched around for a while for the information to help me understand exactly what it was.  I've learned another couple of pieces, so I think I may have the whole thing researched and deconstructed.

These are indeed four songs from Amitabh Bachchan's hit movies of the 70s and 80s, remixed and sewn together with the "Go Meera Go" hip-hop portion.  The number is sung by Amitabh himself and son Abhishek (Abhi did the rapping).

The first song is "Kaike Paan Banaraswala" from Don (1978).  Don was remade in 2004 or 2006 (too lazy to look it up) with Shah Rukh Khan; SRK's sequel Don 2 just opened this past weekend.  I'm not sure how that's going to work, since (at least in the original), Don is killed around halfway through the movie; the police replace him with a lookalike (who I'm pretty sure was called "Vijay") to infiltrate Don's underworld gang.  I saw the SKR Don some time back; is it possible that Don didn't die in that one?  or was Don somehow not really dead?  these mysteries may be cleared up once I see Don 2.

The second song is "Pag Ghungroo Bandh Meera Nachi Thi" from Namak Halaal (1982?).  I believe this song may predate the movie and may be a traditional song; the idea in the movie is that a naive country boy goes to the city and gets up and sings at a nightclub, and I think this is supposed to be perceived as an old-fashioned song (although it's all discoed up).

The third song is "Rang Barse" from Silsilla (also around 1982).  Amitabh and his poet-father wrote it.

Fourth song:  "Saara Zamana" from Yaarana (maybe 1981).  This was still a missing piece the last time I wrote about Go Meera Go.  In Yaarana, Amitabh wears a suit studded with lights, an idea he got from the Robert Redford movie "The Electric Horseman."

All of these songs were originally sung by the great Kishore Kumar, except for "Rang Barse," which Amitabh sang himself.

The last (maybe) missing piece:  almost all of the dance moves are quoted from earlier films.  I've watched Go Meera Go a bunch of times, and as I watch more and more of Amitabh's films, I keep seeing bits of the Go Meera Go dance turning up.  I found this to be extremely cool.  I was led to this realization, a bit, from a little "making-of" clip on YouTube.  Unfortunately, every time a bit of information I needed was about to be explained, whoever was speaking went from English to Hindi.  But the choreographer said something to the effect of, "There are no new dances.  This is pure Amitabh Bachchan dance."  I didn't follow this at first, maybe because I hadn't yet realized that Amitabh pretty much has his own dance style.  But the choreographer (Remo) was explaining just what I said above.

The other comment I must make about Meera is that for the most part, I don't care for the way Big B is dressed, lit, or photographed.  It isn't all that flattering.  I know that he actually likes that style of clothing, the white pants-and-colorful shirt-and-scarf thing, but it's not to my liking.  He looks a lot better, IMHO, in a white kurta or a dark suit -- or, as at the very end of Meera, tight jeans.  But for the most part, this video failed to make him look tall and slim; he may not be as slim now as he once was, but see the Jhoom video, from just four years earlier, to see how he can be photographed to look tall and slim.  Additionally, it's unfortunate that he's so rarely photographed anymore without dark or clear glasses.  He has such great eyes.  (Again, see Jhoom.)

I swear, I hope these are good video versions.

how can this be?

I cannot believe I am at work today.  It is simply dead as a doornail.  I don't even know if there are any therapists in the treatment rooms.  The subway was dead quiet and the streets were dead quiet and even my coffee cart guy (who is Muslim) wasn't out this morning.  I keep thinking maybe I'm here by mistake, that I was really meant not to come in today and misunderstood Lucie.  I had asked to use comp time to take the 23 and 26th, and the 30th and 2nd, and she questioned whether I felt behind in my work.  I had been out sick twice over two weeks, not very usual and very much stress-related, and had felt a little behind at one point.  Now the coming week seems yawningly empty, though there will probably be therapists around for the rest of the week.  Judy should be back in tomorrow, and Lucie will likely be working from home (she only comes in here Mondays and Fridays).

I'm pleased to report that I managed to pull myself out of that dreadful self-consciousness about the perceived snub/competitiveness of that woman in the online community; the community involves Bollywood, and my "problem" with this woman was tainting the whole thing for me.  A piece of this was also that I had recently seen part of a film dealing with caste and "reservations" (basically the Indian version of affirmative action for persons from lower castes, who had been disadvantaged as far as education and employment).  I had then read a piece in the New York Times about the caste issue, and had asked something about it in this online community.  I had included my email address, in case someone felt they wanted to reply private, but I had absolutely no response, privately or online.  I started to think that perhaps it had been a rude or offensive, a topic One Didn't Discuss, and somehow this got tied in with the difficult woman.  Maybe I expected that as a fellow American, she might have been kind enough to respond to this very American question (even if only to tell me that it was bad taste to bring it up).  So I ended up posting an apology for having asked the question, in case it had offended anyone.  I had no response to that either, which was kind of a relief.

I should explain that this community is basically a cast of around 300 characters who read an comment on the blog of a particular Bollywood personality (connect those dots, if you would).  The blogger clearly reads some of the comments and occasionally replies, but the commenters seem to also communicate with each other and even build bonds and friendships.  I guess I was expecting to feel more welcomed, but maybe I'm just too new.  I suppose this was also some of the issue with this woman: we had discovered some things in common and it seemed as if she reached out to me, and then when I responded, she was silent.  This is probably a snub, or her feeling somehow threatened; one of the things that I found annoying was that she seemed to be trumpeting a very close personal relationship with the blogger.  I somehow read this, in addition to her maybe-snub, as a message that she was the "American girl/best friend," and that there was no room for me.  She did a lot of sharing (the rather uninteresting) details of her life as if he would hang on her every word, both on the blog and on Twitter.  (I did notice that he does follow her on Twitter, but this may owe to her being an old-guard fan, who knows?  Not my business.) 

However, no one else posts things like that.  Some people have been lucky enough to meet him, and there have been some posts saying things like, "It was nice to meet you, thank you for spending a little time with me," and some very gushy I-love-you posts; but no one else is acting like she is having an actual love affair with him.  I realize that she is probably bugging the shit out of a lot of people, not just me.  Additionally, if indeed they were having such a close relationship, it wouldn't be playing out so publicly; they would simply email privately.

I had a situation in the past where I belonged to a fan community which was not a blog, but simply a fan group/listserv, and it happened that I was a close personal friend of the person of whom we were fans.  But apart from passing along some news (prior to the time when he became computer-literate enough to participate himself), I didn't go on and on about how we spoke on the phone every day or what I got him for his birthday or a joke he told me or a trip we went on together.  He was a musician, so mostly I reported on things connected to that.  I made no secret of the fact that we were personal friends, and it was understood that I had special access; I did mention when I had attended a rehearsal, or a private party he played, or when he played a new song for me in his living room.  But it was never, "I'm the only one he invited!" or "No one else has heard that song yet except his wife!" or "I sat in the front row at the gig and he smiled at me the whole time!"  I mean, yuk.  My posts were more along the lines of, "Victor played a song for me that will be on his next album, a bouncy Cajun thing with anti-Bush lyrics, very funny.  The producer has been stalling, but the album should be released in June."

Anyway, I just decided that this woman was a big asshole and everyone knows it, if they bother to think about her at all.  And since I had no response at all from anyone about my caste questions, I stopped letting any of it get in the way of my participation as a commenter or my enjoyment of all things Bollywood.

I did want to say something more about Twitter.  I had joined some time back, but found the word limit very frustrating, and couldn't figure out how to get followed anyway.  I followed a handful of people, mostly comedians, who did know what to go with 140 characters.  But I probably hadn't logged on for a year until recently, again following my Bollywood curiosity.  So I'm following about 4-6 people/media outlets connected to Bollywood, and have added on more comedians and writers.  I'm still only followed by about 10 people, but have started participating in some hashtagged jokes, where I have to say I'm holding my own decently well.  There were two particularly good ones over the weekend; one was tagged something like "Scorsese Xmas," which was basically lines from Goodfellas with Christmas things stuck in (e.g., "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be an elf.  For me, being an elf was better than being president.").  The other was something like "If the movie was Jewish," which was film titles with Jewish things incorporated/substituted (e.g., "The Jewish American Princess Bride").  I contributed about the to the latter; I am most proud of "A Gefilte Fish Called Wanda," which got retweeted!

Which brings us to a third topic: movies.  My Bollywood fervor does not seem unusual to me because I am a lifelong film buff; I didn't simply become mesmerized by the pretty colors or by Amitabh Bachchan.  I come from a family of people crazy about film and theater (and in my brother's case, opera too).  I have a reasonably encyclopedic knowledge of American film, which includes actors and directors, and to some extent, screenwriters, cinematographers, producers, studios, composers, and so on.  It occurred to me over the weekend that maybe this was not a universal interest; it was during the Jewish-film thread on Twitter.  I was about to post "Our Daily Matzoh," and stopped to wonder if the other posters would be familiar with King Vidor's 1934 "Our Daily Bread."  (I didn't post it; still not sure.) 

So the Bollywood thing is just another hunk of film stuff, although it is my first deep interest in the cinema of one particular foreign country.  As a teenager, I watched my share of classic "foreign films" from a host of different countries: Japan (Kurosawa, Mifune), France (Jean Renoir and the New Wave), Spain (Bunuel), and of course all kinds of movies from England.  I'll never know about Indian film what I know about American film; there's an awful lot to take in.  Plus in Indian film, in addition to knowing actors and directors, there are also composers and singers and choreographers. 

In American films, I know actors and directors best; see Andrew Sarris on "director-as-auteur": he posits that the director is the person who is most responsible for creating each film.  It's a very American point of view, and for me, one I subscribe to as far as American film.  Different story for me with Indian film.  Except for someone like Satyajit Ray (who is more in the category of art-film director than Bollywood director), I haven't seen anything too distinctive in Indian directing -- with the notable exception of Ram Gopal Varma.  I have a feeling I like Varma a lot because he's clearly very much influenced by American film, and a lot of his movies are in American-type genres like gangster films (he directed the wonderful Godfather-inspired Sarkar and Sarkar Raj). 

I'm getting familiar with a fair number of Indian actors, of course, and already know the names of 20 or 30 lead actors and a handful of character actors.  I'm less familiar with the singers, although you can't go wrong with Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar, who are of an older generation.  I can't name a single songwriter except for two contemporary ones, Vishal and Shenar, and can't name any composers.  Of course, I struggle with Hindi names and Hindi song titles and Hindi movie titles, because they are all entirely foreign.  I've studied French and Spanish, and can make some sense of Italian, Portuguese, and even German; but in Hindi, I can't figure anything out and have to memorize words and names exactly, and watch all kinds of videos, interviews and clips to learn how to pronounce any of it properly.  (I swear it took me two weeks to learn how to say "Amitabh Bachchan" correctly, after having spent a few days memorizing the spelling.)

Understanding Hindi words is even more difficult, since song and movie titles are rarely translated into English.  I only seem to learn any meanings from a combination of hearing certain words repeatedly and reading subtitles; not knowing Hindi syntax or sentence structure, it's often hard to detect the meaning of a single word from hearing a sentence and reading its translation.  I can say with some authority that "dil" means "heart," since it turns up as much in Hindi songs as "corazon" does in Spanish ones.  There are also some cute doubled words in Hindi, like "kuch kuch," which (I'm fairly sure) means "something."  I've also figured out which words mean "father," "mother," "brother" and so on, plus certain pronouns.  I might know 20 or so words.

The idioms are beyond me, and sometimes one has to watch or listen very carefully to understand what's going on.  For instance, I watched Maya Memsahib over the weekend, and there was one playful scene between a man and a woman where the translated dialogue made no sense at all; but from listening, I realized that each person was saying something that rhymed with what had been said before, so they were kind of improvising silly verse.  Between trying to really understand the social and cultural context, struggling with the language, and simply the length of time required to consume so many very long movies, it's a pretty exhausting pursuit.

Maya Memsahib, by the way, was of some interest to me because I had read that it was a little sexier than most Indian movies, plus it was based on Madame Bovary.  I enjoyed it, although I found the ending kind of weird and confusing.  I do find I can understand the Indian point of view a little better when I see films that are based on/inspired by/remakes of American films, or a familiar piece of literature like Madame Bovary.  The familiar material helps me see what is different and unfamiliar.  (I recently bought a DVD on eBay that I can't wait to see:  Ram Gopal Varma's take on the deliciously trashy American film Poison Ivy, with Amitabh in the role originally played by Tom Skerrit.)

I also started watching Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham (which I think means something like "In Joy and in Grief"), which is the same kind of masala (mix) film as Kabhi Alveda Naa Kehna.  It's full of family drama and comedy and romance and dancing, with a host of very familiar faces:  our old friend Amitabh; his wife, Jaya Bhaduri Bachchan; Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukarjee, Kajol, and Hrithik Roshan.  It's from 2001, and everyone looks fantastic, although it's not the best hair I've seen on AB. 

I'm fairly certain that he's worn a hairpiece since the mid or late 80s -- that is, that it's a hairpiece and not a weave or transplant -- and it's sometimes very close to natural and sometimes very close to awful.  He also had his jawline tightened up at some point, subtle but very good work.  I mostly hate fake hair and hate the idea that men have to display a full head of hair to be considered attractive, but I cut AB some slack here.  For one thing, he was known from the old days for having an absolutely splendid head of hair; and even at nearly 70, he's still more of a leading man (albeit an older one) than he is a character actor.

On the topic of hair...Shah Rukh Khan is also known for having a simply gorgeous head of hair, and I found this really funny video on YouTube, nearly three minutes of clips showing nothing but Shah Rukh touching his own hair.  It's silly and yet kind of fascinating, because he really is stunning in it.  Let's see if I can dig it up...

It's a little weird getting YouTube videos onto Blogger, since for some reason, there isn't a mechanism to simply go to "My Favorites" on YouTube and select something for posting there.  The Blogger link to post videos requires you to search YouTube, so you have to look up or remember the exact title of the video.  However, a sear for "Shah Rukh hair" found this one right away.  Enjoy.