Bollywood

One thing I haven't mentioned here on my blog yet is that I have a passion for Bollywood films and their music. I discovered Bollywood/Hindi films due to "Slumdog Millionaire," which is NOT a Bollywood film. I was listening to the Director's Commentary on the DVD, and he said that he wanted the song and dance number, "Jai Ho," to play during the credits because he was worried that if it played during the film, people watching it would just say, "Oh, this was just another Bollywood movie, I don't need to take this seriously." I really hadn't even heard of Bollywood at the time, so I filed that information in the "to Google" section of my brain and then forgot about it.

Here's a great mix of that song with clips from the movie.

A few months after that, the local newspaper did a feature on a local (now defunct) Bollywood dance studio. I was intrigued by the written description, so I went to the website of the dance studio, and they had 3 Bollywood movie/music clips. I watched them all and loved what I saw. I don't remember exactly what the other two clips were, but I do remember that this was one of them (this movie is now one of my favorite films in any language). This is the song "Maahi Ve" from the film "Kal Ho Na Ho," which stars Preity Zinta, Shahrukh Khan, and Saif Ali Khan. It's basically a love song at an engagement party.

After seeing the clips on that website, I promptly went to Netflix and looked for Bollywood movies. The very first Bollywood movie I saw was "Saawariya" with Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor (no relation). Ranbir is such an adorable puppy of a man in this film; I promptly fell in love with him and the entire genre. Here's the title track. He's just met this beautiful woman, and he's trying to get her to go on a date with him.

I think I read somewhere that the Hindi film industry produces three times as many films each year as Hollywood does. So how do you go about deciding which films to watch? I wound up finding actors and actresses I really liked and watching ALL of their films (well, all the ones available on Netflix anyway).

The second clip I posted, from "Kal Ho Na Ho," has several of my favorite actors in it. Saif Ali Khan and Preity Zinta are in several other films together, including another one of my favorites, "Salaam Namaste." Here's the title track from that. The theme of this song is basically you only get to live life once, so go for it!

Another way I decided which movies to watch was from the previews on the DVDs I would watch. One preview in particular caught my interest. It was for the film "Kyun! Ho Gaya Na..." and included part of this song (without subtitles). I was so intrigued, wondering what they were singing about, and how those girls fit in, and why it resembled the bar seen in "Fiddler On the Roof." I will be nice and clue you in: the boys are singing about why you should never fall in love and the girls are singing that you should never spurn love.

I LOVE that movie. It also made me fall in love with Vivek Oberoi, which led me to the movie "Prince." I didn't care much for the movie itself, but I loved the songs and his look. Here's my favorite song from that movie, "Tere Liye." By the way, "Tere Liye" mean "for you," and he's singing about everything he would do for her.

I could go on and on, but if you haven't stopped reading and/or watching the clips, you will soon, so I will stop for now.

Well, almost.

Let me conclude by explaining that most Bollywood films have love stories as a central theme. Not all films, and it isn't always THE central theme, but love and music figure prominently in this film industry. Add in the amazing color of the films (and Indian culture as a whole), and that is a recipe for stealing my heart.