Saturday, September 10, 2011

#8 - Bollywood

(#8 is Bollywood… because my name is Sheila, Sheila Ki Jawani, and I’m way too sexy for you… haha.)

I had zero knowledge and appreciation of Bollywood before coming to Bangladesh, and even then, it took me a little while to get into it.  My American attention span is basically non-existent and I can barely stand sitting through movies to begin with, but Bollywood did something to me.  I credit two specific songs:

1) Sheila Ki Jawani – For any of my friends who have never heard this song, please, watch the clip below.  Then imagine hearing that song just about every damn day your entire stay in a foreign country, and at all times during the day: at sunrise blared by a car outside on the street, on the CD in the van on the way to school, from someone’s computer in the office, in a student’s room, in the local supermarket, the little girl singing it while walking down the street…

And it was just a little bizarre, hearing this song constantly in the conservative Muslim environment of Bangladesh.  The song is not exactly pure and innocent.  I’m not 100% sure about what the Hindi lyrics say, but I sure do understand the rest of it!  And yet, everyone knew it, everyone loved it.


2) Anjaana Anjaani – My personal favorite, both the song and the movie.  I don’t remember where I heard it for the first time, but I quickly fell in love with it.  The movie is about a young man and woman in New York City who want to commit suicide for different reasons.  The full two and a half hours of film take you through their attempts and the bond they create to fix things before finally taking their lives.  The reviews had nothing good to say, but the positive message of living your life to its fullest and taking responsibility for the things you’ve done really resonated with me.

I still don’t know all the lyrics, but I did learn the chorus.  I was humming it under my breath one day and Bikash picked up on it, and he taught me the lyrics while we walked around Pokhara, Nepal.  And well, you can certainly still find me humming it – and singing some of it now, too!


The colors, drama, comedy, songs, dance, acting, everything that is present in Bollywood is positively entrancing.  I am so happy I got indoctrinated into this all-encompassing genre.  I am also happy to see some exposure of it in American culture (i.e., Bollywood dance numbers are starting to crop up on the TV show “So You Think You Can Dance”).  The market is massive, and I bet a lot of people could come to appreciate and enjoy these films and songs, just as I have.  It’s just a shame I can’t find the DVDs over here for a dollar!

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