Bollywood

Whilst staying in Jaipur, I had the opportunity to partake in one of the most well loved Indian leisure activities: an afternoon at the cinema.  And when I say 'an afternoon ' I mean just that: we were there for a good three hours, including an intermission for the purpose of snack purchase and socialising.  The cinema itself was impressively huge, and the purchasing experience an interesting sociological metaphor.  As with every thing else in India (it seems) the cinema experience is hierarchically divided, with different prices for different classes of seats.  And weirdly the seats actually look like old-fashioned train seats.. or barber shop chairs.  Recycle, reduce, reuse?  So for a couple of rupees we purchased our 'average class' seats and settled down to watch Kites.  Kites is the latest summer blockbuster.  It's an epic tale of star-crossed lovers, which in true Bollywood style also contains elements of action (just about every type of transport was utilised/blown up.. including a hot air balloon..), thriller (quite a few unnecessary deaths including the shooting in the head (at close range) of an unsuspecting train station employee and other random passers by), gratuitous dance choreographies (involving unlawful white denim and matching waistcoat by the main male protagonist.. very Clockhouse circa 1990..), and some fairly 'comic' moments (it seems active audience participation is encouraged, as we discovered when five minutes into the film the crowd started whooping and cheering at the 'punch lines'.. the punch lines which defied acceptable societal norms of cheesiness). Yes, there's something in there for everyone, folks!  Oh, I forgot to mention that the film was mostly in Hindi, but since the storyline featured a Mexican woman as one of the main characters who didn’t speak Hindi, there were also bits in Spanish.  And it seems to be quite fashionable for the middle class hiptsers to throw in a few English words or phrases into the mix.  e.g.  "Hudu hudurrr, puddur pudud, just cool it man, okay?"  All these exciting linguistic elements and the fairly minimal amount of dialogue meant we could quite easily follow the entire film.  So we spent a very enjoyable three hours, with music, laughter, action, romance... all culminating in a double suicide.  Family fun!  I hope I didn’t ruin that for anyone who’s planning on renting out Kites?  As we left the cinema, lots of people stared at us curiously and called out at us “Linda! Linda!  Linda!”  Yes, it's true that I do bare a striking resemblance to a Mexican woman.  It must be that long dark hair and those green eyes…  Or perhaps it was the Versace-esque gaudy wardrobe?