In Bunty Aur Babli, Amitabh Bachchan pulls off a bit of Haiku in Hindi, in the long and glorious handheld shot when Rani and Abhishek are leaving the hotel with him after the Kajrare number. Suitably sozzled, which is what I was when my dear friend from Long Island, Ninad Desai, pointed this out to me over a spirited evening many moons ago. I had to come back to India to catch that one.
And now, in Om Shanti Om (OSO), there are left-and-right handed tributes to Indian cinema and art forms galore, as well as to Western cinema. But it took the same Ninad Desai to point out a Kurosawa element. Since I had not seen OSO, I could not get the context. Which was surprising. The fact that we had not seen OSO, I mean. Some weeks ago, that?s almost all there was in the news in India: OSO was fated to go into the black, and that other movie, the one by the guy who made Black, was sinking in blue. After which my wife and I travelled to points abroad as diverse as Singapore, London, New York, Dallas, Washington DC, San Francisco and Vancouver BC.
Sure we met desis. But others too. Not just neighbours and Indophiles. But a taxi-driver from Ghana in DC who could identify which actor came in at which point during the party song. A Danish banker in London who talked OSO and played Omkara on his car stereo, sub-woofers and all. And my Iranian shippie buddy in SFO, who asked for and got the music video played in a Burmese restaurant in Richmond. It seemed that we were the only people who had not seen OSO yet.
This crowd is taking the dissection research table over. To confirm that the days of Hindi cinema being infra dig for the globalised set are long gone, meet my buddies.
In Singapore, I am at dinner with a friend who rides high in ship-broking and knew no Hindi until the other day. We talk about the blue terrycot type trouser and shirt-jacket ensemble from the ?70s which I apparently owned, big floppy collars ?n? all, like Shah Rukh Khan?s (SRK?s). Unni watching Hindi movies? Cue: choke on Indonesian rice-chicken curry with sambal bajak. Unni is wearing a red-brown OSO shirt.
Scotts Valley is home to Seagate, the Hippie Trail on Highway 17 and Gurcharan, with whom we?re doing Thanksgiving. At a loud party thrown by a dude from Moga to celebrate the arrival of European invaders, the topic over turkey is how to protest the depiction of the bad guy as a ponytailed wannabe Mike from LA. Ponytailed NRI successes take this very personally.
At the London School of Economics, some serious search is going on?over YouTube. After being invited for the premiere, which they bunked, these young bankers and e-highway robbers paid double to see the movie, and are now trying to put it to-gether through bits and scraps from the Internet.
At a Dallas party where we have PhDs, MPhils and other academics as pillars to lean on, we are provided with a massive blow-up on the projection screen. Of SRK?s terrible teeth in OSO. And a lecture on dental care.
And then, in Vancouver, we have a heated argument. About movies making fun of south Indians. Why did Shah Rukh have to do the Rajnikant bit to woo his lady love?
At an Afghan joint in Silicon Valley, we?re digging into kebabs and naan. On the wall is SRK in OSO, next to the late Ahmad Shah Masood. At Rose, an Iranian supermarket in Sunnyvale, we?re digging into kebabs and naan. On the wall is SRK in OSO, next to the late Bani-Sadr. At Lucky Dhaba off El Camino, we?re digging into kebabs and naan. On the wall is SRK in OSO, next to the owner?s ancestors. At Shalimar in Santa Clara, we?re digging into kebabs and naan. On the wall is SRK in OSO, next to a photo of a Lahore street scene with an amazing electricity pole with no power-theft wires. At a Tex-Mex-Leb-Med restaurant in Murphy Square, we?re digging into kebabs and naan. On the wall is SRK in OSO… actually not. Thankfully. So we eat here twice?and then the waiter asks us if we?ve seen OSO.
In DC, I look forward to meeting people who will not discuss SRK and OSO. But these are people from Mysore and Bangalore, and though the South Indian food is authentic, everybody discusses Deepika Padukone. Sorry SRK, but I miss kebabs and naan, and am rescued by a Chandigarh brought-up guy who sneaks me off to his car for a swig of vodka with Coca-Cola, with OSO playing on his car stereo.
Back in India, we finally go to see the film. We go to a mall in Gurgaon for OSO, and the show is packed, so we sit with our noses almost touching the screen. I am just too close to detect Korosawa angles. But hey, it?s a movie I shall see again. The couple next to us has already seen it four times it seems.
The author is a travel professional. These are his personal views
