Bollywood Nation

Jan 23
Nepal is a direct neighbour to India. I atually think we are only a few hours bus ride to the Indian border and the city of Darjeeling (like the tea!). Nepal gets bombarded with Indian media, because the Indians are so dang good at producing movies, music and entertaining reality shows. Nepal just hasn’t seemed to have been able to jump on that form of production wagon. There are power cuts for about 16 hours a day, so the times that the power is on AND the tv has a signal are precious times indeed. These 2-3 hours a week when this momentous occasion happenes, nepali people are sure to be found sat infront of the tv set.
Some shows that blow my mind are “bajhle naachle” a singing variety show that showcases traditional and popular dance performances. Indian Idol, just like American idol. And “dancing queen” witch takes popular “serial and soap” stars and turns them into “dancing queens”. Other than those shows we love watching the “zoom” tv channel. Its sort of like “star tv” in Canada. And has the latest music videos, with the words for each song scrolled along the bottom, like karaoke!

So much of bolly wood movie culture seeps into every day. It would be hard to imagine an equilivant culture in Canada. People blast the newest film songs from their cell phone radios, car radios, shop radios and even sing along out loud. All the kids in my class know all the songs to a Movie , before it has even reached the theatres!! Bollywood stars are like omnipresent gods. They are everywhere and endorse almost any thing. Every day you will see Salman khan, Akshieh Kumar and Katrina Kapoor staring gown at you from whirlpool , pepsi and soap billboards. It is absolutely mad. But cool at the same time.

You can buy copies of almost any movie before or as soon as it hits theatres. Most working people buy dvds from their corner stand for about 30 rupees each. The quality is hit and miss, but almost all dvd sellers will take back a “dud”. Its also popular to buy DVD’s of the top film songs. You can buy all the latest sound tracks with about 100 songs on each DVD for about 50 rupees.

Last night was Satyndra and Jarina’s wedding anniversary and we all went to see a thriller called “raaz”. The movie was dead scary and any one that knows me , knows I cant take scary movies. I was tossing and turning all night and I had the craziest dreams. But regardless of that this thriller had the most amazing sound track! I could never imagine “The Saw” with a killer sound track. But this movie had great songs.

It feels like India is like America, and Nepal is like a small Canada. But what is cool is that Nepal has some crazy bite! The country has banned the block buster “Chandi Chowk to China” because a scene in the movie states that the Buddha was born in India. Nepal is really pissed and refuses to have the movie shown in Nepal, because the Buddha was born in Nepal.
Way to stick it to em!!
But I sort of really want to see the movie any ways because I already know all the songs and dances from watching the Indian “Zoom star channel”
