MUMBAI, INDIA
This morning I walked five minutes from my hotel to the Gateway of India, a huge stone arch facing out to Mumbai Harbour that was built by the British in 1924 and has since become the symbol of the city. The area around the arch has a real carnival atmosphere, as it's really crowded with tourists and hawkers selling everything from giant balloons to peanuts to cotton candy (or "candy floss" or "fairy floss" or whatever they call it here). There are also gilded horse-drawn carriages you can hire to take you around the area. Not being a fan of the crowds, I didn't stay too long; just long enough to take a few photos of the arch and the ornate Taj Mahal Palace hotel next to it, built in 1903.
A little later on I decided to experience an honest-to-goodness Bollywood movie on the big screen; after all, I'm IN Bollywood, right? So I walked down to the Regal Cinema, one of Mumbai's famous old Art Deco movie palaces, and caught a sold-out showing of Don, the hottest Bollywood blockbuster out now. It's apparently a remake of a famous Indian film from the '70s, a real action-thriller about a ruthless gangster, the lookalike sent by the police to impersonate him, and all kinds of vicious double-crossing and spy stuff.
At least, I think that's what it's about--I have to admit I couldn't follow everything, since the dialogue was all in Hindi without any English subtitles. Actually, what was really frustrating was that the characters would occasionally lapse into English, just long enough to confuse me. (Police Detective: "Gentlemen, I'll get right down to business...[Talks in Hindi]... So you can see our problem.")
The movie was pretty interesting--very slick and stylish, and filmed in a number of locations, including Paris, Mumbai, and Kuala Lumpur. But from my biased Western perspective, it's still strange to see a movie that follows all the conventions of a typical "serious" Hollywood action-thriller (complete with lots of violence and bloodshed) that's also a frickin' musical! Sometimes it was a little too much like Scarface-meets-Grease for me, but I guess that's the beauty of Bollywood! Like a lot of other Bollywood movies, it's also really long--almost three hours, including an intermission. Anyway, it was certainly an experience.
This morning I walked five minutes from my hotel to the Gateway of India, a huge stone arch facing out to Mumbai Harbour that was built by the British in 1924 and has since become the symbol of the city. The area around the arch has a real carnival atmosphere, as it's really crowded with tourists and hawkers selling everything from giant balloons to peanuts to cotton candy (or "candy floss" or "fairy floss" or whatever they call it here). There are also gilded horse-drawn carriages you can hire to take you around the area. Not being a fan of the crowds, I didn't stay too long; just long enough to take a few photos of the arch and the ornate Taj Mahal Palace hotel next to it, built in 1903.
A little later on I decided to experience an honest-to-goodness Bollywood movie on the big screen; after all, I'm IN Bollywood, right? So I walked down to the Regal Cinema, one of Mumbai's famous old Art Deco movie palaces, and caught a sold-out showing of Don, the hottest Bollywood blockbuster out now. It's apparently a remake of a famous Indian film from the '70s, a real action-thriller about a ruthless gangster, the lookalike sent by the police to impersonate him, and all kinds of vicious double-crossing and spy stuff.
At least, I think that's what it's about--I have to admit I couldn't follow everything, since the dialogue was all in Hindi without any English subtitles. Actually, what was really frustrating was that the characters would occasionally lapse into English, just long enough to confuse me. (Police Detective: "Gentlemen, I'll get right down to business...[Talks in Hindi]... So you can see our problem.")
The movie was pretty interesting--very slick and stylish, and filmed in a number of locations, including Paris, Mumbai, and Kuala Lumpur. But from my biased Western perspective, it's still strange to see a movie that follows all the conventions of a typical "serious" Hollywood action-thriller (complete with lots of violence and bloodshed) that's also a frickin' musical! Sometimes it was a little too much like Scarface-meets-Grease for me, but I guess that's the beauty of Bollywood! Like a lot of other Bollywood movies, it's also really long--almost three hours, including an intermission. Anyway, it was certainly an experience.
posted by John Kuge at 11:41 PM
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