two more good ones

I have having some thoughts this morning about starting a new blog, or changing this one, into one devoted to taking fellow Americans into my exploration of Indian film.  Here's the problem: I'd have to use "Bollywood" in the title, and it's not a word I like to use.  It carries the implication that India is trying to copy the US, that Indian films are only a knockoff of US ones.  But that's what Americans tend to call the Indian film industry, and that's how they would find this blog.  (And yes, I do use "Bollywood" as a keyword in my posts for that reason.) 

The only way I could make it work would be to call the blog "Bollywood for Americans" and as the subtitle, something like:  "The first rule of Bollywood for Americans:  don't ever use the word Bollywood!"

Having said that Indian film is not trying to copy American film...here's video from Sharaabi, a remake of the American film Arthur.  The song is really lovely, as is the dancing of Jayapradha.  I haven't finished watching the film, which was made in 1984, but apparently it's the one where Big B hurt his hand.  It wasn't nearly as bad an injury as I'd once thought.

The second one for today is from Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, which is often referred to as K3G.  I watched it in chunks over the past week or so...and I think I may have seen it before.  When I first saw KANK a few years ago, I watched a few other Shah Rukh Khan movies, and I think this is one of the ones I watched.  It started to seem familiar when Kareena Kapoor showed up as "Poo."  But I don't remember anything else from that viewing -- not Abitabh, not Kajol, and not Hrithik.  This song is Shah Rukh and Kajol, just a lovely melody.

pag ghungroo bandh Meera naachi thi

Which means, more or less, "Meera danced all night with her anklets tinkling."  This seems to be something of a traditional song, which got a peppy arrangement (not to mention being sung by the great Kishore Kumar) for the 1982 Amitabh Bachchan vehicle, Namak Halaal. 

I've watched the beginning of this movie.  AB is something of a country bumpkin whose grandfather sends him to the city to get a job, meet a nice girl, etc.  A cousin, or friend of a friend or such, takes him under his wing, and one night, brings him to a nightclub.  Bumpkin AB is oohing and aahing over the place, but looks like something of a joke:  he's wearing his country Sunday best, which is a traditional outfit topped with a pink turban.  Most of the city guys are wearing Western suits.  The nightclub singer is too drunk to sing, so AB steps up.

This song was performed on Indian Idol (yes, really), by a front-runner named Swaroop.  Although Swaroop wore a turban on the several segments I watched, this pink one is most likely a tribute to AB in the film.  He has a lovely voice and did quite well:

But where I first noticed this song was in a greatest-hits medley in the most recent AB film, Bbuddah Hoga Tera Baap.  The title translates somewhere along the lines of "Your Father's an Old Man!". in the sense that the speaker has been called an old man and feels he is too young to be called that.  Which is a running joke in the movie:  various people in the movie call Vijuu "Bhuddah" (kind of equal to "old-timer"), which always pisses him off.

Vijuu is a retired hit man, living in Paris, who is called back to India to do one last job.  About 20 minutes into the movie, he goes into his old bar and takes a seat.  The current crop of gangsters takes exception to this, and Vijuu explains, rather poetically (the Hindi seems to rhyme), that he and Mumbai grew up together, they laughed, they sang, and now all of the youngsters are trying to copy his style."  He asks the gangsters, "Wanna see?" and they say, yes.  Vijuu whistles for the beautiful girls to be sent in, and launches into a dance and medley of AB's greatest hits -- this time, sung by AB and JrB (Abishek, who does the rap parts).  "Pag ghungroo" is one of them.

I had to do a little digging here, since I was aware that these were some of AB's old songs; I had to figure out/look up the song names first, and then try to find the earlier versions.  The ones I like best are "Pag Ghungroo" and "Kaike Paan Banaraswala."  The latter is from the 1978 version of Don (which was remade in 2004, I think, with Shah Rukh Khan in the lead role.)  As far as I can make out/remember (I saw the newer version of Don maybe a year ago, and am waiting for a subtitled copy of the original), AB plays two role:  Don, the gangster, and yet another bumpkin who is an exact double for Don.  As best I can figure it, the bumpkin gets drunk, someone offers him some betel leaf, the betel leaf peps him right up, and he sings a song about it:

So here's the medley from Bbuddah Hoga Tera Baap.  This movie opened this past July, so AB was maybe 68 when he filmed it, and you can see he doesn't have quite what he had five years earlier as far as dancing.  The clothing is awful, of course, and he looks a little heavier around the middle.  But the medley is really fabulous, and he's doing his own singing.  "Kaike Paan Banaraswala" is the first song, and "Pag Ghungroo" is maybe halfway through.

I guess I have learned quite a bit about Indian film in these past 3-4 weeks.  Of course, I started with Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, and then branched out with the actors from that film (mostly AB and Shah Rukh Khan).  I've also become familiar with some of the women stars:  Preity Zinta, Rani Mukarjee, Kareena Kapoor, and Kajol.  I love watching Kajol dance because she has a lovely smile and is the best I've seen so far when it comes to the traditional hand/neck/shoulder moves.  I've also been impressed by a couple of the other popular male stars, like Salman Khan (no relation) and Sonu Sood.  I watch a lot of clips on YouTube, although many of them, unfortunately, don't have English subtitles.  I've been searching out Indian movies with English subtitles, which is a little harder with the older movies.  Had to order the old Don and Yaarana from eBay. 

Netflix has Yaarana, and I started watching it, but the subtitles were about three lines after the line they translated, which made it fairly confusing and impossible.  Which really bothered me, since it was clear that the plot was crazily convoluted and that AB actually plays a guy who becomes a popular singer, so there's lots of singing and dancing.  The movie's from 1981, so it's young handsome AB rather than old handsome AB.  Handsome forever, that guy.

I did finally figure out where that photo came from, the one of older AB dressed like Carlos Santana, with long hair and a hat and all kinds of southwestern (US) jewelry.  It's a special appearance he did as a singer and dancer under the opening titles of Abishek's film Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, which doesn't seem to have done well and I can't say I love the song.  But here it is:

I realize I've already posted the "Go Meera Go" remix from Bhudda Hoga Tera Baap, but it's worth rewatching, especially after seeing some of the source material.  AB still does throw off some sparks.

next earworm, I predict

This song and video come from a brand-new Bollywood movie called Ra.One, which opened at something like $34 million world-wide on October 26.  As well it should:  it's about videogames and has a lot of special effects and action sequences, flying the star around on a wire...plus, the star is Shah Rukh Khan.  Bingo.  I thought the movie was a little stupid, and the blue contact lenses on SRK absolutely criminal, but this song is totally awesome:

"Chammak challo" translates into something in the neighborhood of "sexy babe," as far as I can tell.

Today's lesson in Bollywood films:  Bollywood actors rarely do their own singing.  This is not a secret in any way.  The actual singers, called "playback singers," get prominent billing in the film, and are stars in their own right.  Needless to say, most playback singers are Indian.  But I'm proud to say that "Chammak Challo" is sung by an American:

I have a feeling that Akon's had this song out for a while, but I only first heard it in the movie.  Mad respect for Akon.  He's great on this.

Needless to say, I seem to be getting more and more hooked on Indian films, and I am particularly fascinated by Amitabh Bachchan.  I found out a few days ago that he writes a really amazing blog.  And I believe I can finally pronounce his name properly, after a week or so of feeling like an ugly Westerner:  it's Ah-MEE-tahb Ba-SHAN.  But most Indians just refer to him as Amitabh, or Amitji, and call it a day.

I rewatched Slumdog Millionaire tonight.  I'd seen it a couple of days ago, but hadn't remembered until a friend reminded me yesterday that Amitabh had been the movie star whose autograph Jamal sought as a small boy. 

Don't you just love YouTube?  I just went there, right in the middle of writing this, and found a trailer that had the entire Amitabh scene.   


Life imitates film:  recently, on KBC (the actual Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?), a guy who earns around $120 a month won the top prize of 5 crore ("crore" is ten million rupees, if I've got that right, and I suppose 5 crore is somewhere around a million dollars).  And the current host of KBC is -- you guessed it, Amitji.  So I hunted it down on YouTube.  Call me crazy, but I watched the whole thing, almost 15 minutes (this was the time of the last question), which was about 85% in Hindi (or do we say Punjab?), and was riveted.  You can basically follow what's going on.  And if you're with me on this, Amitji's charisma just pops off the screen, as does a really warm personality.  I have no doubt that he really is that nice.  If you wanna be a hardcore Amitabh Bachchan fan, here's that clip:

I took a peek at my blog traffic before, and apparently one person from India came to visit.  Hi!

Doubt I'll ever actually learn the language, but I'm starting to learn some things about the culture and the history of India.  Watching Slumdog Millionaire again, I picked up on some things that I hadn't noticed before I started watching Indian films; for instance, I was very much aware of which characters were Hindi, which were Muslim, and noticed some Sikhs on a train.  Another thing about Bollywood films:  there are a lot of trains in them.  A lot of train station scenes.  Even in Kabhi Alveda Naa Kehna, which is set in New York, there are no subways or busses, but plenty of railroad scenes.  (They kind of vaguely indicate that the characters work or spend time in Manhattan, but live in Connecticut, so folks keep turning up in Grand Central Station.)  And I like it -- there's something romantic about trains.

I'm going to pretend I'm going to sleep now, but I may actually watch a couple more videos.