A Beloved Bollywood Extra Draws Indians

[hari....@indero.com]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/world/europe/12swiss.html?ref=world

ENGELBERG, Switzerland -- Vishal and Jagruti Purohit had traveled
here
from Mumbai, India, on their honeymoon, but they had a greater
mission: to find the small village church that provided the backdrop
for a scene in their favorite movie, a 1995 Bollywood blockbuster
called "The Brave Heart Will Take the Bride."

A church in Montbovon was featured in a Bollywood film.

In the scene, two young Indians, played by Mr. Purohit's favorite
actor and actress, see their love seeming to come to an end. She
kneels and prays, while he cavorts in the dark, neo-Gothic church. In
the end, she breaks off an engagement and he wins her hand.

The young couple knew that the scene had been shot on location in a
church in the small town of Montbovon, a couple of hours drive from
this Alpine village of winding streets, low chalets and abundant
geraniums. But which church?

The first church Mr. Purohit, 24, spied had the sharply pointed
steeple that he and his wife recognized from the film, but the
interior was not right. The altars were different, the vaulting not
rounded but sharp. Disappointed, they left the church and returned to
their tour bus, where a tour guide helped solve the puzzle.

The exterior scenes in the film had been shot around this church with
the sharply pointed steeple, he told them. For the interior shots,
though, the director had chosen the church of St. Grat, a short
distance away. Delighted, Mr. Purohit and his wife bounded over to
the
second church with its familiar interior and struck poses for
honeymoon photographs, aping the Bollywood stars they so admired.

For years, Bollywood's producers and directors have favored the
pristine backdrop of Switzerland for their films. The greatest of the
Bollywood filmmakers, Yash Chopra, is a self-professed romantic who
has made a point of including in virtually all his films scenes shot
on location in this country's high Alpine meadows, around its serene
lakes, and in its charming towns and cities to convey an ideal of
sunshine, happiness and tranquillity.

In the process, they have created an enormous curiosity about things
Swiss in generations of middle-class Indians, who are now earning
enough to travel here in search of their dreams.