Dipping a toe into the marvel that is Bollywood
So, because I want to record this:
Approximately a year ago, I was buying a beverage at the sadly poorly-stocked gas station near work. As I was waiting for the customer ahead of me to finish up, I actually noticed the music. Clearly Hindi. But, I thought, this is pretty cool. Sounds like techno.
Some time later, I was trolling Amazon's free sampler list, as you do, and came across some Bollywood samplers. I grabbed some:
Dhan Te Nan Aaja Aaja, orig. and remix.
Raat Ke Dhai Baja, orig. and remix.
Love Mera Hit Hit (from Billu)
Move Your Body (from Johnny Gaddaar)
Marjaani Marjaani (from Billu)
Tumse Milke Dil Ka (from Main Hoon Na)
I added them to my regular rotation, mixed in with Lily Allen, misc pop crap, Parry Gripp, and assorted other techno.
Somehow, I kept them in the rotation, no matter how I variously restructured the playlists.
Then, back towards the beginning of this month, a friend posted a mashup of Crazy, a song from a movie called Dhoom 2, and an Iron Maiden song. It was also good.
I visited the YouTube to enjoy the song a couple more times. Then, being aimless as the YouTube encourages you to, I started pulling up videos for some of the songs I've been listening to.
Move your Body - which I dubbed Booty Video meets Bollywood. (Feb 5)
In Tumse Milke Dil Ka, I first saw him.
Shah Rukh Khan. SRK. King Khan. This guy.
[thoughts while watching - wow, check out the 80's movie! Shit, is that Corey Haim?]
Oh, no, I thought to myself. Look at that smile. I'm gonna have a huge crush on him before this damn video is over. And, yep, I did.
Those Dimples! Gotta love a man that can dance with a scarf.
It took mere hours to well and truly fixate (I love the digital age). A quick hop to IMDB revealed that he is Muslim, raised by Hindus, born in 1965, married (she's GORGEOUS, too), no, he doesn't really sing, and there were FIVE PAGES of performances. He's been acting since the 80's. Bliss. I must have more. Over to Netflix. Tag, tag, tag, oooh, look at all the instant watch bounty! I feel no guilt, the Hubby put every Lone Wolf and Cub movie on our queue.
Roughly at this time, Hubby also hooked up our new Netflix-enabled DVD player, that also gets YouTube. Whee!
Feb 8, video for Love Mera Hit Hit. FB post: Okay, A: Erosentertainment.com. and, B: Oh HOLY FUCK would I love to be in that sandwich!
Feb 9, I came across this:
Uh, bu....wha....I don't even....eeep! I hid behind my hands and peeked out from between my fingers. In a frenzy of a delighted kind of horror, I posted the video on a friends FB wall. Then watched it again. And again. It has Aqua-Bukakke! And a bonus shout-out to San Francisco! My friend validated my belief that it is, indeed, the gayest thing ever. And the bizarre ending "urg, fire bad!" What the goddess loving fuck?!?!?!? I MUST SEE THIS MOVIE!!!!! (And a miner's helmet!)
Feb. 10, still so blown away by this video I discovered my phone has YouTube and showed it around at work. Opinion confirmed.
Feb. 10, first SRK movie!!!! Aaaaaand it's a sports movie. No singing, no dancing, no bimboness. Still pretty good. First intro to SRK's #1 skill - cry like a little bitch. Quite like the gray beard, though. FB - "You SEE the extent of my devotion?! I HATE sports movies."
Meanwhile, a couple of friends are flooding me with recommendations on FB, all of which I have already tagged in Netflix.
More research on Bollywood learns me about various cultural stuffs, like what a huge phenomenon the Dhoom movies are/were. I watch more YouTube. I see one video that guest stars lots of "now and then" Bollywood stars. Then I watch another, from an awards show, and see this same woman in both. I still am not sure who she is, but I REALLY want to see what she looked like when she was younger.
"The Legendary Rekha" it says. Not particularly useful for an IMDB search.
Friday, Feb. 11 - Unable to wait for the DVD's, I choose another from the Instant Queue. Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Another totally not a hottie vehicle for SRK. Nerd woos a lady via an outrageous flirt alter ego. When I was over, I say, "I so confuse. They don't kiss?" They don't.
Totally in love with this movie. Love the music, love the way the music threads through and does foreshadowing and echoing. Love this movie. He's so awesome.
More internet scrounging pulls up the tidbit, one of his movies had a sex scene that brought him a lot of grief, so the no kissing no hugging no touching hard rule is his. [grain of salt goes here]
I watched it again the next night.
Saturday day, we had a crew of friends over. My mind was STILL so blown that I forced them all to watch the Om Shanti Om video with me, again. And we discovered that the title, Dard de Disco, meant Pain of Disco. WTF faxtor to 20!!!!
Now, keep in mind, please, that I can't watch these when the kids are up, because the dominate the TV, and complain loudly, and are too distracting. So I watch them after they are in bed, around 9:30. And none of these flicks are less than 2 and half hours long. So I've worked up a serious sleep dep by this point.
By Feb 15 I have stopped fucking around an started downloading more mp3's, for more total immersion.
Feb 16, Om Shanti Om and Billu Barber waiting when I get home from work. (Thursday) Need sleep. It'll wait.
Feb. 17, watching Om Shanti Om. FB post: OH MY GOD!!!! This is the movie where the guy shoots people with a gun down his pants!!!!! He shoots people with his dick!!!!!EVELENTYONE!!!!!!
Feb. 18, I learn, watching Billu Barber with captions on, as I had not done with the video of Marjaani Marjaani, that the song I have been enjoying and singing along with has a chorus that basically means, "if they don't like it, fuck 'em." Well, glad to know I'm consistent.
Saturday the 19th, I watched Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Early movie. real 80's. WOW! Kajol's got some serious Brooke Shields eyebrows! Totally not plucked in the middle! (I've never claimed that my first impressions were anything but shallow.) OH MY GOD he's a trickster archetype badboy with a heart of gold, who still knows how to keep to the traditional ways and values honor over all! Love it.
Even if I did have to get past this guy:
Damn. Cracks me up, every time.
So, there's how it started.
And now, for the explanation I promised (ie - WHAAAT THE FUCK is really the deal with the om shanti om aqua bukakke video?)
Firstly, You Gotta See The Movie. But, basically, at the point in the movie that the song happens, his character is a vacuous bimbo movie star type, who, when the director of his current flick wants to do this heart-wrenching romantic "oh, my beloved is leaving me," kind of dream sequence, comes up with this instead. And the ending "urg, fire bad." is because he is afraid of fire. Pathologically. Because he and his beloved burned to death in a past life. Simple, right?
Approximately a year ago, I was buying a beverage at the sadly poorly-stocked gas station near work. As I was waiting for the customer ahead of me to finish up, I actually noticed the music. Clearly Hindi. But, I thought, this is pretty cool. Sounds like techno.
Some time later, I was trolling Amazon's free sampler list, as you do, and came across some Bollywood samplers. I grabbed some:
Dhan Te Nan Aaja Aaja, orig. and remix.
Raat Ke Dhai Baja, orig. and remix.
Love Mera Hit Hit (from Billu)
Move Your Body (from Johnny Gaddaar)
Marjaani Marjaani (from Billu)
Tumse Milke Dil Ka (from Main Hoon Na)
I added them to my regular rotation, mixed in with Lily Allen, misc pop crap, Parry Gripp, and assorted other techno.
Somehow, I kept them in the rotation, no matter how I variously restructured the playlists.
Then, back towards the beginning of this month, a friend posted a mashup of Crazy, a song from a movie called Dhoom 2, and an Iron Maiden song. It was also good.
I visited the YouTube to enjoy the song a couple more times. Then, being aimless as the YouTube encourages you to, I started pulling up videos for some of the songs I've been listening to.
Move your Body - which I dubbed Booty Video meets Bollywood. (Feb 5)
In Tumse Milke Dil Ka, I first saw him.
Shah Rukh Khan. SRK. King Khan. This guy.
Click to view[thoughts while watching - wow, check out the 80's movie! Shit, is that Corey Haim?]
Oh, no, I thought to myself. Look at that smile. I'm gonna have a huge crush on him before this damn video is over. And, yep, I did.
Those Dimples! Gotta love a man that can dance with a scarf.
It took mere hours to well and truly fixate (I love the digital age). A quick hop to IMDB revealed that he is Muslim, raised by Hindus, born in 1965, married (she's GORGEOUS, too), no, he doesn't really sing, and there were FIVE PAGES of performances. He's been acting since the 80's. Bliss. I must have more. Over to Netflix. Tag, tag, tag, oooh, look at all the instant watch bounty! I feel no guilt, the Hubby put every Lone Wolf and Cub movie on our queue.
Roughly at this time, Hubby also hooked up our new Netflix-enabled DVD player, that also gets YouTube. Whee!
Feb 8, video for Love Mera Hit Hit. FB post: Okay, A: Erosentertainment.com. and, B: Oh HOLY FUCK would I love to be in that sandwich!
Feb 9, I came across this:
Uh, bu....wha....I don't even....eeep! I hid behind my hands and peeked out from between my fingers. In a frenzy of a delighted kind of horror, I posted the video on a friends FB wall. Then watched it again. And again. It has Aqua-Bukakke! And a bonus shout-out to San Francisco! My friend validated my belief that it is, indeed, the gayest thing ever. And the bizarre ending "urg, fire bad!" What the goddess loving fuck?!?!?!? I MUST SEE THIS MOVIE!!!!! (And a miner's helmet!)
Feb. 10, still so blown away by this video I discovered my phone has YouTube and showed it around at work. Opinion confirmed.
Feb. 10, first SRK movie!!!! Aaaaaand it's a sports movie. No singing, no dancing, no bimboness. Still pretty good. First intro to SRK's #1 skill - cry like a little bitch. Quite like the gray beard, though. FB - "You SEE the extent of my devotion?! I HATE sports movies."
Meanwhile, a couple of friends are flooding me with recommendations on FB, all of which I have already tagged in Netflix.
More research on Bollywood learns me about various cultural stuffs, like what a huge phenomenon the Dhoom movies are/were. I watch more YouTube. I see one video that guest stars lots of "now and then" Bollywood stars. Then I watch another, from an awards show, and see this same woman in both. I still am not sure who she is, but I REALLY want to see what she looked like when she was younger.
"The Legendary Rekha" it says. Not particularly useful for an IMDB search.
Friday, Feb. 11 - Unable to wait for the DVD's, I choose another from the Instant Queue. Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Another totally not a hottie vehicle for SRK. Nerd woos a lady via an outrageous flirt alter ego. When I was over, I say, "I so confuse. They don't kiss?" They don't.
Totally in love with this movie. Love the music, love the way the music threads through and does foreshadowing and echoing. Love this movie. He's so awesome.
More internet scrounging pulls up the tidbit, one of his movies had a sex scene that brought him a lot of grief, so the no kissing no hugging no touching hard rule is his. [grain of salt goes here]
I watched it again the next night.
Saturday day, we had a crew of friends over. My mind was STILL so blown that I forced them all to watch the Om Shanti Om video with me, again. And we discovered that the title, Dard de Disco, meant Pain of Disco. WTF faxtor to 20!!!!
Now, keep in mind, please, that I can't watch these when the kids are up, because the dominate the TV, and complain loudly, and are too distracting. So I watch them after they are in bed, around 9:30. And none of these flicks are less than 2 and half hours long. So I've worked up a serious sleep dep by this point.
By Feb 15 I have stopped fucking around an started downloading more mp3's, for more total immersion.
Feb 16, Om Shanti Om and Billu Barber waiting when I get home from work. (Thursday) Need sleep. It'll wait.
Feb. 17, watching Om Shanti Om. FB post: OH MY GOD!!!! This is the movie where the guy shoots people with a gun down his pants!!!!! He shoots people with his dick!!!!!EVELENTYONE!!!!!!
Feb. 18, I learn, watching Billu Barber with captions on, as I had not done with the video of Marjaani Marjaani, that the song I have been enjoying and singing along with has a chorus that basically means, "if they don't like it, fuck 'em." Well, glad to know I'm consistent.
Saturday the 19th, I watched Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Early movie. real 80's. WOW! Kajol's got some serious Brooke Shields eyebrows! Totally not plucked in the middle! (I've never claimed that my first impressions were anything but shallow.) OH MY GOD he's a trickster archetype badboy with a heart of gold, who still knows how to keep to the traditional ways and values honor over all! Love it.
Even if I did have to get past this guy:
Damn. Cracks me up, every time.
So, there's how it started.
And now, for the explanation I promised (ie - WHAAAT THE FUCK is really the deal with the om shanti om aqua bukakke video?)
Firstly, You Gotta See The Movie. But, basically, at the point in the movie that the song happens, his character is a vacuous bimbo movie star type, who, when the director of his current flick wants to do this heart-wrenching romantic "oh, my beloved is leaving me," kind of dream sequence, comes up with this instead. And the ending "urg, fire bad." is because he is afraid of fire. Pathologically. Because he and his beloved burned to death in a past life. Simple, right?