Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

Laugh if you want, but I'm a late convert to the arena of Bollywood films. (I can hear all my South Asian friends—especially one of my best friends—clapping their hands like, "Welcome to our world!") I mean, Filipino (from the Motherland) cinema is melodramatic and cornball too, but never as over-the-top as South Asian films. (Those variety shows and novelas on TFC [The Filipino Channel] that my aunties watch religiously are another story. If you know how to "Ocho-ocho" like one of the Sex Bomb Dancers, then you know what I'm talking about.) My previous exposure to Bollywood film came via my work at NAATA's film festival. Two years ago the festival screened Bend it Like Beckham, the classic Mother India, and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (starring SRK). I remember sitting in the publicity office, formatting media lists and dubbing press screener copies of KKHH while the volume was muted. Even as I was focused on my computer monitor, I found my peripheral vision wandering towards the images I was dubbing. I checked out a screener copy of KKHH to watch at home. My interest was piqued enough to watch a Sri-Lankan film at the San Francisco International Film Festival a few months later. But it's taken two years for me to finally jump onto the Bollywood Bandwagon that all of my cine-phile friends have been riding long before me. After seeing Main Hoon Na, I had these fantasies of exiting the Castro Theater, bursting into song and dance: My hair windblown just so, as my shoulders bounce to bhangra beats. You know, singing a duet with a tall, gorgeous Shahrukh Khan look-alike, his arms outstretched towards me… Oh wait, I'm getting carried away. I'm such a sucker for musical melodrama, sheesh. T promised he would take me to Naz8 again so that we can see Shahrukh Khan in Swades. The trailers before Veer-Zara said it was coming out December 17th. Until then, I have Netflix—the next couple DVDs in my queue are all starring SRK! Holla at me now!