(Note: I swiped the title(s) of my post from Shortpurge and Amit)
In Lage Raho Munna Bhai, Sanjay Dutt has a visitation from “Bapu,” and afterwards starts trying live in a more Gandhian way. The film is technically the sequel to the superhit from 2003, Munna Bhai, M.B.B.S., but wisely goes off on a completely different direction from the first film (you don’t need to have seen Munna 1 to enjoy this). The “dadagiri” is the same (just wanted an excuse to use the word “dadagiri”), as is the “everyman triumphs against heartless bureaucracy” theme, but the story and the shape of the two films couldn’t be more different.
One of my favorite bits: at one point, Munna is getting smacked around by a security guard employed by his nemesis, the heartless builder Lucky Singh. After getting slapped once, he gamely turns the other cheek. After getting slapped twice, he gives the guy a big, “baap re baap” punch in the gut, which knocks the guy across the street. Munna’s sheepish explanation: “Bapu never said what to do after they’ve hit both of your cheeks.”
Now that’s the kind of Gandhianism I like. And indeed, this is the kind of Bollywood I like. (Manish, who is pretty choosy with regards to Bollywood, also liked it; in fact, we went to see it largely on his recommendation). The humor is sweet, the songs are energetic and relatively “traditional,” and everything is actually in good taste for once. Moreover, the Mahatma Gandhi part of the plot is the excuse for an admirable, relatively non-dogmatic social message. At the theater where I saw it last night, in Doylestown, PA, the audience all came out looking well-pleased.
Apoo from Baltimore liked the film as well, calling it a “laugh riot.” He also says that Vidya Balan is so gorgeous in Lage Raho, she takes the “Droolotrophy” from Diya Mirza! I don’t know if Diya Mirza ever had my droolotrophy, but I have to concur on Vidya Balan.
Bloggers have even begun to write their own “Munna Bhai” style jokes based on the style of the comedy in these films: see Preetinder, in Patiala. And this blogger went ahead and did the guitar tablature for “Par Pal Har Pal,” one of the film’s better songs.
And Bollywood Fans Deutschland says:
LRMB ist ein sehr witziger Film, mit sympathischen Charakteren, Tanz, Gesang und einer rührenden Story. Es wird geheiratet, ein Familiendrama spielt eine Rolle, und so erhält man einen typischen BOLLYWOOD-Handlunsgsstrang witzig erzählt. (link)
Couldnt agree more. Especially about the Handlunsgsstrang part — how true.
Sigh!! Have to catch it over one of the weekdays!!
I know, I know this is against SM policy.
Do you have Vidya Balan’s email address?
colorism?
Kush, no!
And Sahej, why do you say “colorism”? Is it because Vidya B. looks fair-skinned in the photo? In fact she isn’t quite as fair as that image makes her look (flash photography again).
yeah it is because she looks really fair-skinned in the picture. From my own perspective, none of the pictures look like anyone who’s complected like people i know. SM has (sincerely) helped me gain fuller perspective on the colorism issue. if she’s a bit darker, thats good news. Although, she is beautiful, regardless of issues of complexion
Sahej, the images at the article on her at SAWF are a little more balanced.
But yeah, colorism is an ongoing problem in Indian films…
True, and there’s probably a difference made by the lighting. The desi TV shows seem to have the contrast level turned all the way up. anyway…
But yeah, colorism is an ongoing problem in Indian films…
the truth is that many boolywood actors are fair by nature – if you look at south indian films, color is not given that much importance at all- most actors are actually quite dark – strangely, the heroines are usually very fair
i dont think that things such as ligthing are used to make indian films actors look more fair – if they look fair, chances are thery are pretty fair already
i doubt this. i think in general actors are made to look like some kind of ideal representation
found this movie very funny and moving in parts and very irritating and annoying at other parts. vidya balan is one of the main plus points. she has a rare, classic indian beauty that stands out in today’s sea of mostly trendy newcomers with non-descript, easy-to-forget faces in bollywood. plus she can act in a very natural fashion, unfortunately her role was too limited and she had some irritating lines. vidhu vinod chopra must really like her because the promo for eklavya (with amitabh and saif) also had her.
on a separate note, before the movie started they showed the promo for dhoom 2 and although i hate judging a movie on its promo, it looked pretty bad, like a copy of every hollywood action movie (good and bad) out there. didn’t see dhoom so have nothing with which to compare it.
“i dont think that things such as ligthing are used to make indian films actors look more fair – if they look fair, chances are thery are pretty fair already”
lighting is definitely used in bollywood and on tv soaps, as is pancake, ashy make-up that doesn’t suit one’s skintone, no matter how fair you are.
i would say Rani Mukerhjee is a classic indian beauty. Vidya Balan, from the pictures i have seen,does seem to be beatiful. and if part of the classi indian beauty standard is to have soft features and a gentle and kind visage, i agree with you. but, if we are talking in some way about her complexion, i would not say that aspect of her is part of the classic indian beauty, as one can not be a classic beauty for a region in which one is not representative, no?
But I do agree, she seems beautiful. Where is not for the nature of this discussion forum I would not quibble with your words, as they are understandable to me as well as anyone else
Dhoom 1 was equally bad — “The Fast and the Furious” on bikes but even less fast and even less furious. I think the catchy, danceable music made a big difference there.
lighting is definitely used in bollywood and on tv soaps, as is pancake, ashy make-up that doesn’t suit one’s skintone, no matter how fair you are.
the guy who posted this, amardeep , has written about this subject
http://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2005/08/bollywood-delusions-race-vs-language.html
Amardeep wrote: “And this blogger went ahead and did the guitar tablature for “Par Pal Har Pal,” one of the filmÂ’s better songs.”
Yes, it is a better song since it is a straightforward lift from Cliff Richard’s ‘Theme for a dream’.
Sahej – you got to let go of this color issue. If she’s made to look lighter (how much of effects can you really add?) so that more of the masses like it, then so be it. There is nothing wrong with being light skinned or being attracted to one.
now if everyone in that region looked like her – would she still be a classical beauty?
I just you tubed Munna Bhai MBBS and its second to none in its juvenility.
Vidya Balan is a Tamil Brahmin. There are quite a few with that complexion.
Sahej,
It’s because they all saw you coming and ran away to Ingerlaanda. There are plenty of people who look like that here (at least amongst the ladies. Especially the ladies).
Jokes aside, everyone be careful about opening the floodgates re: the whole fairness thing. You know what happened last time. However, one brief point from me:
Very very true and definitely not cricket. If they were showing people just as they were in real life (ie. actors/actresses who really are that light-skinned), then that’s one thing, but when you have deliberate efforts to maximise the alleged fairness of the actors/actresses (which seems to have increased in the last few years) then it’s more than a little unnatural and does indeed subtly promote some kind of only-very-fair-is-attractive attitude amongst the viewing audience. They should show the characters concerned exactly as they are. Not everyone in India is as light as the characters depicted — the vast majority are not, including most of the actors & actresses, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Deliberately distorting the skin tone of the people playing these roles adds to the misguided idea that there’s something “wrong” with their real colour.
O’YBBB,
Correct, as long as one is not nasty towards individuals who are not so light or disparaging towards them either in terms of their attractiveness or their intrinstic worth as human beings. (I’m not saying you are, but this “addendum” apparently needs to be emphatically stated on SM these days. Some of the reading audience are a little touchy about the topic).
I was extremely impressed with Vidya Balan’s performance in Parineeta and remember hoping for her sake that she got further decent roles. Which she seems to have done, fortunately.
I thought Gayatri Joshi in Swades was also excellent; I believe she even won some “Best Newcomer” awards at the time. She seems to have done a disappearing act (or did she just get married and decide to remove herself from Bollywood ?)
Actually, I’m as polite as can be, a perfect gentleman. Not having been long to England I don’t doubt there are plenty of beautiful women there. But the source region for all of us is Punjab, and Punjabi people are not as light-skinned as the light-skinned appearing actors and actresses (especially) of Bollywood.
There is of course nothing wrong with being who you are, or of finding someone attractive. But, I disagree that the pendulum swings both ways as it were. There is also nothing wrong with being darker skinned or findind someone with darker skin attraction. And yet, we usually see Bollywood going in one direction.
If we walk around saying Harrison Ford is the classic indian leading man, instead of Amitabh Bachan, all of us who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s would suddenly have lost something special to us, as we would no longer be able to fully associated ourself with our child-hood role model. We liked Amitabh Bachan because he was the Man. And he was desi like us. same principle here
actually i worried after writing that, that someone would think i meant complexion. when i say classic beauty it has nothing to do with color. to me, color has absolutely nothing to do with beauty or facial attractiveness. to be honest, when i say classic indian beauty, it can mean many things, many types of features: to me vidya balan, aishwarya, rekha, nandita das, madhabi mukherjee, leela naidu, deepti naval, hema malini, smita patil, madhuri dixit, shobana, namrata shirodkar, asin, gayatri joshi, bipasha basu, maharani gayatri devi, rani mukherjee, kajol, tabu, jaya bhaduri, mandira bedi, meera jasmine, waheeda rehman, vyjanthimala, ujjwala raut, sheetal mallar and a host of other celebrities/non-celebrities (some of the most stunning women i’ve seen are tribal/rural woman all over india who would put many a bollywood film star to shame in my opinion) from various regions of india are all classic indian beauties. it’s hard to explain, but there is something essentially “indian” and timeless that comes across in them compared to some others. it’s purely subjective on my part.
Whose God,
knowing a fraction of your list, I tend to agree with your characterization. Especially, of the actresses I know, Shabana Azmi, Sharmila Tagore, and Nandita Das. Not having seen Hema Malini (in pictures) until she was much older, I can’t say in regards to her
With all due respect “classic india beauty” doesnt make any sense. And Aishwarya classic indian beauty?? less than a fraction of one percent of women in India look like Aishwarya.
Jai you think British Asian women are good looking? Meh. About average, same proportion of fitties and mingers as back in the desh or across the Pond. I don’t think their fairness is particularly different either, if one were to compare with the people in the areas from whence they came. However, Brits, Yanks and Indian Indians all apply makeup in a different way. This creates a slightly different look amongst the assorted nations’ womenfolk.
Quizman,
Hey, at least they’re stealing from classy sources. (It sure beats “Ya Ali”/”Ya Ghali,” or Aitraaz’s rip of R. Kelly’s “Thoiya Thoing”)
Amardeep. Cliff Richard, classy?
I feel faint.
“With all due respect “classic india beauty” doesnt make any sense. And Aishwarya classic indian beauty?? less than a fraction of one percent of women in India look like Aishwarya.”
in a way you contradict yourself unless you think a classic beauty should represent the population. you’re right though, classic indian beauty doesn’t really make sense given the diversity. however, i use it purely as a personal definition of something that evokes a certain response in me. so whether the woman is from north, south, east or west india, or whatever skintone or facial features, she can evoke a certain similar feeling. but if classic indian beauty doesn’t make sense to you, then it shouldn’t matter that not many indian women look like aishwarya. a classic beauty doesn’t necessarily have to be representative of a population, in my opinion. meaning they should have similar features to a population but are more idealized. audrey hepburn and ava gardener were also classic beauties and very, very few western women look like them. i think people fixate too much on aishwarya’s skin and eye coloring. her facial features, regardless of her skin and eye color (which are not unindian either) are very indian to me. she just comes across as very indian no matter what. in choker bali, they gave her dark contact lenses and you (well to me at least) can see how indian she really looks. i thought she looked a lot better with brown eyes, in fact. when they lighten her hair (as it looks like in dhoom 2) and give her pasty makeup and style her too western, it just doesn’t suit her as much or look as natural (to me at least).
“if they were showing people just as they were in real life (ie. actors/actresses who really are that light-skinned), then that’s one thing, but when you have deliberate efforts to maximise the alleged fairness of the actors/actresses (which seems to have increased in the last few years) then it’s more than a little unnatural and does indeed subtly promote some kind of only-very-fair-is-attractive attitude amongst the viewing audience.”
i think they do it for everyone, even those who really are that pale or fair or whatever you want to call it. they just wear way too much make-up and it’s not the shade of pale makeup that suits them. indian fair skin or pale skin just has different undertones. it looks bad on them and even worse on the not-so-fair ones who have to hide a really attractive face and natural skintone under pasty goo. i have a really fair-skinned friend who nevertheless wore this ghastly white mask and garish red lipstick on her wedding day. it’s a sickness of sorts. i think the lovely gayatri joshi got married.
amardeep, looks like i will skip dhoom 2 then since sequels are rarely better. senax, thanks for the link. interesting read.
Bong Breaker,
Welcome back buddy — great to see you here (and on PP) again. You missed some fireworks here (again) involving myself last week. Ironically it was about this same topic:
I originally didn’t think so either, but apparently our “wonderful” local British climate makes a difference to some extent, along with the different composition of the Asian population here compared to the US (many people seem to be from highly localised and distinct sub-regions too). You can trawl through the recent “Adoption” thread for more details, assuming you can make it through the psychotic cesspool that it ended up becoming thanks to some hijacking that occurred. But some relevant points are in there, mostly by myself, Amitabh and our old friend Razib.
{I know you love a good flamewar but try not to laugh too much at what I ended up getting dragged into 😉 }
I am extremely glad that you are here in order to provide some additional input from the British contingent. You have no idea how much I missed your presence a few days ago.
Whose God is it anyways?
I’m not normally a fan of Aishwarya Rai, but made an exception for her in the case of Shabd. I thought she looked phenomenal there; the makeup & hair-colouring, along with the very stylish photography and clothes had a lot to do with it. It was all very beautifully shot — very artistic, vivid colours etc.
All I’m going to say is that I’m not surprised Shahrukh Khan’s character decided to turn his back on his life in the West for her in Swades 😉
dear god, what’s up with sm nowadays? complexion somehow sneaks into every comment thread, and you guys claim 2-genners are not complexion obsessed!
this was abt a movie review, and bam! tapori in bollywood–>giggly idiot aishwarya—>fair skin. you know they say you can reach almost any person on the earth thru 6 ppl (i know a, who knows b, who knows c etc.etc.). likewise (jai in particular) you all reach fair skin from any topic.
oh, and the ref to jai is not meant to be serious..
Jai, nice to be missed. Cheers. Will read through. Last point about this though – even though our climate may make a difference, so does our culture. I know quite a few British Asian girls (and guys) who relish getting a tan. So even if there’s less sun here, they will make more use of it. Anyway!
bytewords, allow me to move the topic off colour for you if I can. I wasn’t initially interested by this ‘Indian beauty’ thing but now I have something to say.
My girlfriend doesn’t like it when people say she looks ‘exotic’ or if they say ‘oh you don’t look Indian!’ because she’s offended that they mean it as a compliment. She thinks she looks Indian and she wants people to think she’s Indian. However Indians frequently think looking non-Indian is desirable – witness the woeful spate of coloured contact lenses and highlights that swept across desis WORLDWIDE a few years back. Hell I see plenty of Indian Americans who still stick blue irises in their eyes. Another friend recently echoed the sentiment, saying she was annoyed that people thought she was Latin when she’s Pakistani.
So the concept of ‘a true Indian beauty’ seems odd. It’s almost as though a girl should be congratulated for looking attractive despite looking Indian. When people normally say ‘classic Indian beauty’ it tends to be the wholesome, beautiful, maternal beauty like Madhuri or Vyjanthimala. Which is why I was glad to see Bipasha in your list WGiiA – the hot sexy chick gets left out of this Indian beauty thing most of the time, which is a shame. As any young man will testify (if they’re worth they’re salt!) Indian girls are outrageously sexy.
Hence. My point. ‘Typical Indian beauty’ is a by-word for not-sexy beautiful not pandering to the West’s imposed aesthetic rules. I think it’s a meaningless phrase.
So true! In fact whitish complexion is the norm. The invading aryans, ancestors of all brahmins, were whites after all.
Bong Breaker said:
what is her ethnicity…if you don’t mind my asking…
Exactly. Its a business decision. Dark faces do not sell tickets in India.
I wanna watch LRM but it doesnt seem like a sequel, kind of like same characters but in a diff situation. Thats how most reviews have come up with. Circuit was brilliant in MBBS with his one liners and Boman with his nervous laughter. Its sad also that we wont get to see late Mr. Sunil Dutt. Father and son had some powerful scenes in the first one.
Vidya is flawless and in Parineeta she exceeded expectations, being her first movie. A good new pairing would be to see Aamir and Vidya together
BB,
Your insight into things that normally would not concern young men never ceases to amaze me!! That was meant as a compliment. I love it when people can think outside their own experiences and show a little empathy and insight into others.
Aw metric, you’re too kind. AC my girlfriend is an 100% ultra-proud Bengali who says that marrying me (half English) is “bringing me back to the good side”!!
Tambram, there were no invading Aryans. The theory has been abandoned by all bar the most stubborn Western historians.
BB, ditto practically everything you said in post #32. although i would add that wholesome and sexy/hot or not necessarily mutually exclusive. to me, many of the women i find “classic” or “wholesome beauty” are also the same women who i think are sexy/hot in their own way.
Jai, i didn’t see shabd but did see some promos and stills. i preferred the ones where she’s got darker brown hair and less pastelly make-up to the other ones, but overall it did look visually good. the whole second half of bride and prejudice where she had really light to orangish/blondish hair was not a good look.
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these arent immigrants. they are expats killing time till they go home. is this your grad school project – it’s not coming from your heart?
i know youth wanes… but some of the “youthful” actors look like they’re hooked to booze or drugs. sunjay dutt has definitely seen better days.
vaht’s the scoop yaar? does suketu mehta cover the drugs angle in mumbai’s riche?
Hell I see plenty of Indian Americans who still stick blue irises in their eyes
you got screwed up ABCD’s as your friend dost
Tambram, there were no invading Aryans
lol
I think Neha Dhupia is one of the hottest. Tabu too. Both are tall and tagri. Another one who is sort of past her prime now but who was really hot is Archana Puran Singh. All very desi-looking, none of them fair, but far above-average in facial features, height and figure.
I would add Madhubala in particular to the list of “classic Indian beauties”. She could be quite saucy too, as you’ll know if you’ve seen Mughal-e-Azam.
Amitabh,
There’s a film called Julie which you will probably like (I haven’t seen it but have heard some, er, interesting things about it). Ditto for a movie called Sheesha .
By the way, Ms Dhupia is a Sikh, so you might consider dusting off that archived copy of your biodata, know what I mean ? 😉
Sahej,
Haven’t you seen Sholay ? She was in the full flower of youth in that movie. Had quite a nicely-swishing ponytail too 😉
You should read Maximum City. There is a whole chapter on Sanjay Dutt. Made me have a deep respect for him.
Sahej,
What, classic Indian beauties have to be young? 🙂
Tambram:
No actual evidence for Aryan Invasion.
On Aryan Invasion, Abhi had a nice post back in January.
But yeah, I agree with an earlier commentor — these days it seems like you could blow your nose, and someone would come back at you with a comment about the caste of your nose, and the caste of the kleenex. I really don’t care about Vidya Balan’s caste background. It’s not important to me. I admire her acting — bas.
Wouldn’t the caste of the Kleenex change once it’s been used? ducks
Deepa, Yes, and its complexion might change as well. 😉