Bollywood becoming popular in the west
Habshi
Its the song and dance formula , worked with Sound of Music
SUNDAY DECEMBER 23 2001
Cultural worlds collide and planet Bollywood is born
Shyama Perera explains how a fusion of Asian and English culture is
the new kind of cool
Which film star has over a billion fans? Whose latest film, released
last week, has gone straight into the cinema charts at No 3, pipped to
the post only by Harry Potter and Samuel L Jackson’s 51st State? Tom
Cruise? Nope. Arnold Schwarzenegger? Wrong again. In fact it is the
59-year-old veteran of Bollywood spectaculars, Amitabh Bachchan.
It is not surprising that this swarthy pin-up graces the walls of many
dwellings on the Indian subcontinent. What is surprising is that he
may be about to find similar fame over here. For Bollywood movies are
catching on.
Bachchan’s latest blockbuster, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham . . . (or K3G
as it has been dubbed for ease of reference), follows hot on the heels
of Asoka — another runaway success that last week completed its
national run. That’s right, films starring Indians speaking in their
mother tongue and breaking into song and dance every five minutes have
suddenly become culturally acceptable.
It is a development we couldn’t have imagined 30 years ago when I
first arrived in this country. Back then in my north London ghetto,
Asian culture had begun to assert itself but it was nowhere near the
mainstream. Local cinemas would squeeze in Hindi movies on a Sunday
morning before the main programme. Old Datsuns would drive past with
high-pitched wailing blasting from the stereo. But that was it.
So who would think that, aged 43, I would now receive instruction from
my British-born, half-English daughters — both under 10 — on the
differences between the great religions of the world? Even without
seeing it, my children think K3G is cool. The soundtrack features Lata
Mangeshkar, India’s greatest playback singer. I’d never heard of her,
but they and their friends have. And they know her sister, Asha Bhosle
— deified in the band Cornershop’s recent club hit and chart-topper,
Brimful of Asha.
It’s everywhere, you see, the influence. The west and the east have,
after all, enjoyed a love affair for centuries — in terms of oppressor
and oppressed. But neither side wanted to sever those ties, merely to
create an equivalence. It arrived in the 1970s and was called
multiculturalism.
Nowadays it is more popularly thought of as political correctness and
has become a subject for derision among people of my generation. But
the young have absorbed it. Which is why my children, when I told them
I was rewriting the story of Rama and Sita, nodded sagely and gave me
the salient points. “How can you possibly know that?” I asked. It
turned out to be part of the national curriculum in Year 2.
And now, in the arts, we have a consolidation of those changes; the
two sides have finally caught up with each other at a populist level.
Bollywood has taken the best from both worlds, spanning literature,
music, film and theatre, and is spawning something exciting and new —
this was the year that the golden lion award in Venice went to Mira
Nair’s Monsoon Wedding.
From those days in the 1960s we have moved from the paternalistic
veneration of all things eastern — viz, George Harrison — through the
Love Thy Neighbour and Mind Your Language awkwardness of the 1970s,
past the vigour and sheer joy of My Beautiful Launderette in the 1980s
— all western-led — to a new understanding where the east has its own
authority.
Great literature is now not only Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth who
left over there for over here, but also Arundhati Roy and Vikram
Chandra who remain over there. Great films are not just art-house
Satyajit Ray but also big-budget Bollywood — Asoka and K3G.
America has witnessed a similar change with the burgeoning Latin
movement: Hollywood and the music industry suddenly noticed the
influences that had been there all the time; they just needed
synthesising with the mainstream. Now J-Lo and Antonio Banderas are
showbusiness icons, Benicio Del Toro won an oscar for his role in
Traffic, and Ricky Martin and the whole Latin sound have set the
charts ablaze. Everybody salsas now.
For it is not just a matter of culture, but of bums on seats —
America’s Latino craze and Britain’s growing love for Bollywood are
making people money. Synthesis is big bucks. K3G is not being given
the full marketing treatment as an act of benevolence: it will mint
some serious money.
But more importantly, if we in Britain are already, under the umbrella
of Bollywood, turning out films and literature and plays that feed off
mixed influences, it excites me to think how they might be refashioned
yet again by the writers of tomorrow. Everybody wins.
A generation of British cross- cultural writers and performers are
creating a new consciousness: the consciousness of the diaspora. I
foresaw it when, as a child, my white friends suddenly wanted bell
chains from India Craft and tie-dye T-shirts from the souk, curry
houses popped up on every corner and Sneh Gupta was on the telly.
Writers who have their roots in the east and their hearts in the west
are exploring their experiences in the mainstream: Hanif Kureishi,
Shyam Selvadurai, Romesh Gunesekera, Meera Syal, Bidisha, Jhumpa
Lahiri, the list goes on.
Today, Talvin Singh and Nitin Sawhney sell out across the country. We
watch Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No 42. We’ve had Bhaji on
the Beach, East is East, and soon we’ll have Anita and Me, and Bend it
Like Beckham. Next year, there’s even a Lloyd Webber-produced musical,
Bombay Dreams. In the arts, the equivalent of flock wallpaper is
giving way to the Indian brasserie.
Last month, my daughters and I sat down over dinner. It was the week
of Diwali. “Did you write the festival into your book, Mummy?” my
youngest asked. I shook my head: “No, why should I?” My eldest was
astounded: “Because it’s the celebration of Rama and Sita returning
from exile after 14 years. How could you not know that?” How could I
not know that? Having spent my childhood doing the Lambeth walk and
bullying my mum into learning how to make shepherd’s pie and jam
roly-poly, here I was with children who boast an international
repertoire that puts me to shame.
I realised that, in Southall parlance, I was a coconut — brown on the
outside and white inside — whereas my children are truly integrated,
with open minds that give them a rounded understanding of the fusion
they represent. They are Bollywood girls.
Do the Right Thing by Shyama Perera will be published by Hodder &
Stoughton on January 17, £10.99
maria
primitive and banal to suit Western ears.
"Habshi" <hab...@anony.com> wrote in message
news:3c25d1aa...@news.clara.net...
> http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/article/0,,9005-2001593219,00.html
>
> Its the song and dance formula , worked with Sound of Music
>
> SUNDAY DECEMBER 23 2001
>
> Cultural worlds collide and planet Bollywood is born
>
> Shyama Perera explains how a fusion of Asian and English culture is
> the new kind of cool
>
> Which film star has over a billion fans? Whose latest film, released
> last week, has gone straight into the cinema charts at No 3, pipped to
> the post only by Harry Potter and Samuel L Jackson's 51st State? Tom
> Cruise? Nope. Arnold Schwarzenegger? Wrong again. In fact it is the
> 59-year-old veteran of Bollywood spectaculars, Amitabh Bachchan.
> It is not surprising that this swarthy pin-up graces the walls of many
> dwellings on the Indian subcontinent. What is surprising is that he
> may be about to find similar fame over here. For Bollywood movies are
> catching on.
>
> Bachchan's latest blockbuster, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham . . . (or K3G
> as it has been dubbed for ease of reference), follows hot on the heels
> national run. That's right, films starring Indians speaking in their
> mother tongue and breaking into song and dance every five minutes have
> suddenly become culturally acceptable.
>
> It is a development we couldn't have imagined 30 years ago when I
> first arrived in this country. Back then in my north London ghetto,
> Asian culture had begun to assert itself but it was nowhere near the
> mainstream. Local cinemas would squeeze in Hindi movies on a Sunday
> morning before the main programme. Old Datsuns would drive past with
> high-pitched wailing blasting from the stereo. But that was it.
>
> So who would think that, aged 43, I would now receive instruction from
> differences between the great religions of the world? Even without
> seeing it, my children think K3G is cool. The soundtrack features Lata
> Mangeshkar, India's greatest playback singer. I'd never heard of her,
> but they and their friends have. And they know her sister, Asha Bhosle
> Brimful of Asha.
>
> It's everywhere, you see, the influence. The west and the east have,
> and oppressed. But neither side wanted to sever those ties, merely to
> create an equivalence. It arrived in the 1970s and was called
> multiculturalism.
>
> Nowadays it is more popularly thought of as political correctness and
> has become a subject for derision among people of my generation. But
> the young have absorbed it. Which is why my children, when I told them
> I was rewriting the story of Rama and Sita, nodded sagely and gave me
> the salient points. "How can you possibly know that?" I asked. It
> turned out to be part of the national curriculum in Year 2.
>
> And now, in the arts, we have a consolidation of those changes; the
> two sides have finally caught up with each other at a populist level.
> Bollywood has taken the best from both worlds, spanning literature,
> this was the year that the golden lion award in Venice went to Mira
> Nair's Monsoon Wedding.
>
> From those days in the 1960s we have moved from the paternalistic
> Love Thy Neighbour and Mind Your Language awkwardness of the 1970s,
> past the vigour and sheer joy of My Beautiful Launderette in the 1980s
> authority.
>
> Great literature is now not only Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth who
> left over there for over here, but also Arundhati Roy and Vikram
> Chandra who remain over there. Great films are not just art-house
>
> America has witnessed a similar change with the burgeoning Latin
> movement: Hollywood and the music industry suddenly noticed the
> influences that had been there all the time; they just needed
> synthesising with the mainstream. Now J-Lo and Antonio Banderas are
> showbusiness icons, Benicio Del Toro won an oscar for his role in
> Traffic, and Ricky Martin and the whole Latin sound have set the
> charts ablaze. Everybody salsas now.
>
> outside and white inside - whereas my children are truly integrated,
Habshi
that good . Listen to the fifties track - Inhi logon ne , Teri pyari
pyari surat , Yeh duniya mere kam ki nahin , Milo to ank churaun, Do
did toote , Meri duniya me tum ayin (last four from the best BW movie
of all time - anand's Heer Ranjha ) - those tunes are immortal and
stay in the memory forever .
SUNDAY DECEMBER 23 2001
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/article/0,,9004-2001593514,00.html
Why you can't get that tune out of your head
JOHN HARLOW, LOS ANGELES
Bethlehem's star wanes under siege
AN American scientist may have solved the mystery of why songs such as
Yellow Submarine linger in the mind, sometimes for years, while more
sophisticated tunes fade.
Professor James Kellaris, a social psychologist at the University of
Cincinnati, claims to have cracked the code of what makes a song
“sticky”.
After questioning 1,000 people about tunes they cannot get out of
their heads, Kellaris says a combination of simplicity, repetition and
adrenaline-inducing jaggedness can turn an otherwise ordinary sequence
of notes into something unforgettable.
These elements produce “mental mosquito bites”: they create a
cognitive itch that can be scratched only by replaying a tune in one’s
mind over and over.
Such songs may be the holy grail of the music industry, but they can
cause stress. Kellaris found one subject who had been haunted by an
Atari computer game theme since 1986.
The most successful purveyors of sticky music have been the Beatles,
Michael Jackson and Mozart. Jackson’s 1987 hit, Bad, is the
quintessential sticky song, says Kellaris. “It is upbeat and
melodically and lyrically simple and repetitive — the chorus lyrics
consist of ‘I’m bad, really bad, you know it, I’m bad’, which means
you learn it quickly whether you want to or not.”
Other sticky tunes include Queen’s We Will Rock You, a popular sports
stadium chant in America, Village People’s YMCA and Bobby McFerrin’s
Don’t Worry Be Happy.
Sticky music is not exclusively modern. Previous generations had
Mozart’s 1787 hit, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik; Tchaikovsky’s 1812
Overture, composed in 1880; the munchkins singing Follow the Yellow
Brick Road in The Wizard of Oz (1939); and the zither theme from the
1949 film The Third Man.
Oliver Sacks, a neurologist who has also worked on the subject, said
the most irritating songs are usually absorbed during adolescence. In
extreme cases they can return in old age as “audio hallucinations” so
convincing that the sufferer will look round the room for a radio to
switch off.
Meanwhile, the search continues for a cure. John Durrant, a clinical
psychologist from Los Angeles who rates sticky tunes alongside road
rage as a curse of modern civilisation, suggests a cold shower.
Others are looking at cinnamon bark, which may produce a sedative that
works on music centres in the brain.
Kellaris has a simpler method. “Most people find completing the
melodic line beyond the chorus kills it,” he said. “For myself, I
remind myself of how silly these songs are and laugh them out of my
head.”
Sam North
> Bollywood will never be popular in the West, Indian popular music is too
> primitive and banal to suit Western ears.
Right...and Britney Spears and N'sync represent the pinnacle of
"western" music at the current time. Also, don't forget about the
ever-popular rap music, charming in its incessent derogatory nature of
portraying women, and never-ending sampling thus representing
uncreativeness at its peak. The fact is, Modern music in gereral is
CRAP! Doesn't matter where from around the world, its ALL crap in
comparison to eras gone by. Get off of your "western" high horse and
get a clue.
maria
yes but Western popular music is a lot more than just bubblegum dross, yes a
lot of pop music is rubbish but then theres Dylan and Neil Young and so on
and so on. Also Western films can be very bad but they can be great works of
art as well. Bollywood is all McFilm and McMusic..........as you would know
if you had watched them instead of being just politically correct.
"Sam North" <sam_n...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:299cbf39.01122...@posting.google.com...
> "maria" <koolil...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<a04svn$2d$1...@knossos.btinternet.com>...
> > Bollywood will never be popular in the West, Indian popular music is too
> > primitive and banal to suit Western ears.
>
maria
even some good early films, but Indian music and film today is pure crap.news:3c25fc77...@news.clara.net...
-=Shekhar=-
but most bolly music is redunant, with very little originality
some good western tunes r out there too, but they hardly make it ot the top
10 list, cuz that list mostlyl for clubbers.
"satya" <sa...@e-mailanywhere.com> wrote in message
news:a0cd373f.01122...@posting.google.com...
> > Bollywood will never be popular in the West, Indian popular music is too
> > primitive and banal to suit Western ears.
>
> Ahem! I have lived in America when number one popular hits were:
>
> "Whoomp! There it is!"
> "I'm too sexy"
> "Who let the dogs out?"
> "Welcome to the Jungle"
> "I touch myself"
> "Loveshack"
>
> How are these songs for your exalted Western tastes and sensibilites?
> These are just the tip of the iceburg. Lets not get into rap, heavy
> metal, rock, etc. 100% crap.
>
> The bollywood music that is crap is the music that copies Western
> music.
harmony
maria
Dylan or Neil Young and only the lowest compares to Bollywood.
"-=Shekhar=-" <shek...@rogersNOSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:4ZzV7.2164$x78...@news2.bloor.is...
Habshi
Bollywood music cassettes . Ever wonder why ?
Niraj Agarwalla
> NRIs who are more fluent in English , still prefer to buy
> Bollywood music cassettes . Ever wonder why ?
Because they are so starved for anything that is Indian, they are
willing to pay above-and-beyond for crappy entertainment, including bad
films and their lousy songs.
--
Niraj Agarwalla - ni...@primushost.com - http://www.primushost.com/~niraj
Meredith
praise Bollywood, or vice versa. Basically, popular culture anywhere
has the aim of being catchy and appealing to the masses, so some
people - purists, I'd argue - are always going to find reasons to look
down on pop culture in any of its forms, Indian, American,
Azerbaijani, etc..
That said, I CAN'T BELIEVE anyone who's ever heard a substantial
amount of AR Rahman's work can truly feel that Bollywood's music is
mindless or somehow inferior to Western pop music. Or worthless in
general.
Meredith
Meredith
until I was fifteen. And now I watch Bollywood films far more
regularly than I do Hollywood. But I doubt that Bollywood's going to
become the cinema of choice for Westerners in general until Western
pop culture stops teaching its consumers that cynicism/jadedness and
defiant individualism are two of the main virtues of heroic figures.
Until then, most Westerners just won't be able to EASILY empathize
with a heroine who derives joy from covertly touching the feet of a
father-in-law who has scorned her simply because her family is
provincial or less wealthy than his (in Hollywood parlance, that guy
is no longer a father-in-law, he's a pure villain), or a hero whose
main angst in life is his separation from his mother and father (Both
of these examples are from K3G). These aren't culturally specific
truths, of course; Westerners value and need the support and love of
their families as much as any other people do (and I **really hate**
it when people expose their ignorance by asserting otherwise!). But
the *trend* is to handle that need in **different ways.** Watching a
Bollywood film, then, requires someone familiar only with Hollywood to
set aside a lot of the preconceived notions about cinematic reality -
the "language" of cinema, as it were: how we recognize our heroes and
our heroines, what we expect them to do in order to keep our approval
- and instead to really work at letting themselves get into another,
more Bollywood, headspace. And frankly, that's hard to do at first.
And a little uncomfortable. Most people would rather just eat their
popcorn and have their expectations comfortably met. Their loss, I
say. I just wish the makers of Lagaan would get off
their...sofas...and start marketing the film, because I think it would
appeal broadly, and be a fabulous initiation for a lot of people who,
right now, mistakenly assume all Bollywood films are incoherent
drivel.
Meredith
Deb Shanker
"Niraj Agarwalla" <ni...@primushost.com> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.30.01122...@shell2.shore.net...
> On Tue, 25 Dec 2001, Habshi wrote:
>
> > NRIs who are more fluent in English , still prefer to buy
> > Bollywood music cassettes . Ever wonder why ?
>
> Because they are so starved for anything that is Indian, they are
> willing to pay above-and-beyond for crappy entertainment, including bad
> films and their lousy songs.
Folks may be buying them because they like them and don't consider them
crappy.
Deb
heather
> news:Pine.GSO.4.30.01122...@shell2.shore.net...
> > On Tue, 25 Dec 2001, Habshi wrote:
> >
> > > NRIs who are more fluent in English , still prefer to buy
> > > Bollywood music cassettes . Ever wonder why ?
> >
> > Because they are so starved for anything that is Indian, they are
> > willing to pay above-and-beyond for crappy entertainment, including bad
> > films and their lousy songs.
>
> Folks may be buying them because they like them and don't consider them
> crappy.
>
We showed 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai' at our local film soc (had real trouble
getting a print with subtitles) and all the girls loved it. And you do get
used to Indian-toned music quite quickly.
^^^
The shuttle was barely visible in the night, and seemed almost near enough
to trip over. A bunch of shatteringly sober euronauts sat on the beach
trying to evoke a party atmosphere with fruit punch and a tub of cheese
footballs. Some fool had brought a guitar, and was adding to the gloom by
playing the "I'll have to tune it first, though" ballad in six verses.
Meredith
> In a place like San Francisco or New York, you will see people wearing
> black as if they are on the way to a funeral, or worst yet - a
> business lunch. Lack of imagination and lack of expression (not to
> mention lack of culture, or - if you will - the culture of fast food
> restaurants, massive consumerism, and materialism) is what makes
> western music not as good. It is a product of the society.
So...you're praising Bollywood as representative of Indian culture,
and knocking the West (and its products) as having no real equivalent
culture because the West's culture is based on "mass consumerism."
Yet I think no one will argue - despite our love of Bollywood - that
Bollywood is most definitely designed for "mass consumption." So does
that mean it, like (according to you) Western art, isn't culturally
valid either?
Nah. This logic is flawed. A product's cultural worth is not
determined by how many (or how few) people consume it.
Additionally, I think the real reason that so many people see the West
as not having a culture is because we have so MANY. There is no one
predominant culture, particularly in immigrant nations like the USA,
so "Western culture" can no longer be portrayed in a neat, packaged,
clear-cut product. (As Bollywood films so often try to do, perhaps,
as some have posited, in order to appeal to the homesick NRI
audience).
BTW, who says wearing black is somehow less "culturally valid" than
wearing bright colors? Since when did *you* become the color police?
:)
Habshi
>Additionally, I think the real reason that so many people see the West
as not having a culture is because we have so MANY.<
Well said . Dictatorial regimes dont understand that free
humans always create a diverse culture .
harmony
"Meredith" <suku...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:5f8cadc9.0112...@posting.google.com...
One of the things I dislike about NYC is that most people (women
particularly) wear black nearly every day. Broadway is so colorful, and yet
...
Sanjay
"-=Shekhar=-" <shek...@rogersNOSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:4ZzV7.2164$x78...@news2.bloor.is...
> but most bolly music is redunant, with very little originality
> some good western tunes r out there too, but they hardly make it ot the
top
> 10 list, cuz that list mostlyl for clubbers.
>
>
> "satya" <sa...@e-mailanywhere.com> wrote in message
> news:a0cd373f.01122...@posting.google.com...
> > > Bollywood will never be popular in the West, Indian popular music is
too
> > > primitive and banal to suit Western ears.
> >
> > Ahem! I have lived in America when number one popular hits were:
> >
> > "Whoomp! There it is!"
> > "I'm too sexy"
> > "Who let the dogs out?"
> > "Welcome to the Jungle"
HEYY!! welcome to the jungle is one of the all time great rock n roll songs.
I would love to see one indian song duplicate the rage in that song .
Typical Indian song is so vanilla. They use the same old 2 or 3 singers.
Granted the 2 or 3 singers they use are great singers. But it does say
something about the lack of diversity when Kishore Kumar and Md. Rafi sang
almost every Hindi song in the 70s and 80s. Thank god, that music director
Burman sang a few songs to add some welcome variety. And the new singers
all sound like no personality wimps. And almost evey female Indian singer
has the same damn thin voice which would force me to decrease the treble in
my sound system all the way down.
I did like Chamma Chamma. Nice tribal beat.
Indian music production comes out of the britney spears land of cookie
cutter music.At least they use better synths for the britney songs.
Love India
> The difference being that there is a lot of good music in the West i.e.
> Dylan or Neil Young and only the lowest compares to Bollywood.
>
Wow! In addition to your outstanding generalization about Bollywood
music, you even have calibrated it to the "lowest" of the Western music.
Forget that clown Dylan or Neil Young, still displaying puerile anger
without any remaining worthwhile causes to be angry about (:-); even by
way of making a fashion statement, they are simply out of date. Dare
to say Paul Simon if you will, and I'll have an iota of respect for your
pronouncements on Bollywood. :)
I have been playing Western and Indian music for more than 20 years
(since my childhood); somehow you appear to be a greenhorn when it
comes to judge music ("...lowest compares to Bollywood" ? Bah!);
your pronouncements on Bollywood and Western music are a dead giveaway.
Ask yourself a question - what do you like - "harmonic" or "melodic" ?
Western ears (and Indian ears that are accustomed to Western music rather
than Indian), are more often accustomed to harmonic, and consequently are
floored on hearing the melody in Rehman's music, or Jesudas or SPB.
But for that matter, Indian music (popular and classical) has evolved
the melodic school to outstanding finesse; something that only
a true music lover with mature, eclectic tastes can appreciate. Indians
exposed to 70s and 80s Western music would probably buy tons of
S & G, CSNY, etc., - strong on harmony, soft on melody. Western music that
ventures into the melodic would probably have an instant appeal for
most Indians. Check out the success of Andrew L Webber and Abba in India.
There has been an evolution of Indian film music; the old school of Indian
film music drew inspiration heavily from Indian classical; the present
day film music blends in a lot of Western styles - in terms of the
rhythm pattern, 3 and 4-chord structures, etc. The tabla is more of
an ornamentation to the bass and tom-tom drums. This evolution has left
a lot of older listeners confused, and perhaps also alienated. At the same
time it has drawn a lot of new (perhaps younger and/or western ?)listeners
accustomed to MTV and VH1.
As a musician with one foot in either generation, I find it fascinating
to see (hear) the evolution of Indian film music. I admire the works
of AR Rehman, Harris Jayaraj, among others. Check out *some* (not all)
of Ilayaraja's music, which in the true spirit of fusion, blends jazz &
Indian film music; not your BB King and Clapton, but this is truly an
Indian ride with the Raja (king).
Rajkumar Vedam
rajk...@ece.orst.edu