NEVER SKIP CLASS - OR,
A FATEFUL BRUSH WITH K3G
©
bollywhat.com 2005
It
all started in music class - the only compulsory music course
we had in high school. It was a Friday morning in autumn; the
mornings were dark and getting colder. I remember thinking about
staying at home, to skip the morning class. Music class was
pretty pointless, since there was no exam; missing a lesson
would hardly harm me.
But
skipping lessons is bad and so I dragged myself to school. Our
lessons were held in the school hall, where there was musical
equipment, a video projector and a screen. Our teacher told
us that since we'd been learning about Indian music, and Indian
classical music at that, today she'd show us "Indian film
music", which was basically Indian popular music. The lights
went off and she started the film, using the video projector
and the screen.
What
appeared in front of our eyes was a scene from Kabhi Khushi
Kabhie Gham: a woman and man speaking about family values. The
quality of the film wasn't the best; it seemed to have been
taped from some TV network because there were these odd commercials
at one corner of the screen. They bugged me for the first 10
minutes, then I focused on the story.
To
be honest, it made no sense. First they show this guy, who's
really good at cricket and then he visits some grannies and
THEN there's this other guy, who comes home and meets his family,
makes fun of his fat brother, the usual. I heard snickering
around me. This girl I was sitting next to was really amused
at people dancing. I guess I was pretty amused at that point,
too. During the scene where Kajol dances after finding out India
has won the cricket match, she whispered in my ear, "What
pills have these people taken?" I don't think I'll ever
forget that, because it describes so well what people who see
Bollywood for the first time and don't fall in love with
it, think.
I'm
not sure if other people have certain scenes that were turning
points for their Bollywood obsession - something that kicked
it off, that made them think, "I want to see more of this."
For me, however, it must've been all the Kajol/SRK scenes in
the first hour of K3G. They could create these unforgettable
scenes that were hilarious, cute, romantic, hot, anything really.
It was like nothing I'd seen in any romantic film ever. The
character interaction just stunned me. I didn't even care when
the narrative became suddenly and completely illogical - abruptly
transitioning to Egypt for a song, with Kajol's sari colour
changing nearly every time I blinked.
Our
class ended in 75 minutes, so I had no idea what the cricket
player had to do with the plot, but I knew I had to get more
of it, see the end of the film. I raved about this clip to all
my friends during lunch. By the same time next week, I had seen
all of K3G. I hadn't liked the ending so much, the disco scenes
and everything were kind of boring to me, but by that time I
had already found BollyWHAT.com and read the site's list of
recommendations. So by then I wanted to see Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,
Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (and the list goes on and on).
Since this is Bollywood, I've still got loads of films to see
- loads of crucial, classic films and plenty of new ones to
look forward to.
It's
funny, to think though, if I'd just stayed in bed that morning...
-
Veracious
