a lot of people have asked me about my fixation with south asia, hindi and hindi movies. and the answer i usually gave to people was, it's something i grew up with, it has become a part of me and the things that i do. and then i realized that i need to dwelve deeper into the question. shakir told us he was really hang up on hindi movies until about three years ago when he realized that they're rubbish, a waste of his time. i can't stick with my previous answer coz that would mean i'm doing something without knowing exactly why i do it and how i benefit from it, if i do. so i sat down and thought hard (you know this is not exactly true, the only time i ever think hard is when i'm taking my final exams). and i realize that india, (and also pakistan in this sense) fascinates me. the country, the rich culture, the history, the people (if you care to look deeper you'll realize how much similar india and malaysia is). i seriously want to spend a few years in india before i start my career (which i've no idea yet what it's gonna be). hindi language also fascinates me. it's a beautiful language. soft and rimy. and truth be told, when i watch the hindi movies, i care more about the songs than i do the storyline. that's why i usually get upset when my friends fast-fowarded their way through the song sequences. those are my favourite parts. the songs and dances are really wonderful. the lyrics are usually very simple, but the way they choose the words carefully so they may rhyme but still carry out deep meaning, is just mind-blowing.
for example:
woh pehli baar, jab hum mile
haatho me haath, jab hum chale
hogaya yeh dil, deewana
hota hai pyar kya, isne jaana
translated directly:
that first time, when we met
hand in hand, when we walked
became this heart, crazy
how love happened, no one knew
the music, combination of both traditional and modern instruments are just brilliant. if you ever listen to a.r. rahman, you would know what i'm talking about. some of you might be familiar with bhajan, hymns for the hindus. in hindi movies, a lot of the times songs that talk about the hindu gods or to the gods are composed by muslims. but you don't find it the other way around. correct me if i'm wrong. a lot of muslims are involved with the hindi cinema ever since it first started. no, i'm not only talking about the khans who dominate the silver screen. even behind the screen.
in andaz (1949), the main casts were raj kapoor, nargis and dilip kumar, both the latter were muslims. and other people involved with it, mehboob khan (producer & director), naushad (music director), majrooh sultanpuri (lyricist), mohammed rafi (singer, of course), and the cameraman (chatterjee mentioned the name, i can't remember it) were all muslims.
here you have a country that seems to have assimilated different cultures and religions very well (not only in the film industry, you can even look back as far behind as the time when hindu and muslim kings were both ruling the states), yet because of the propaganda left behind by colonialism, you can still find hindus and muslims fighting and killing each other (mani ratnam's satya is a great movie about the hindu-muslim bombay dispute). not that many people are paying attention to what's happening in the region, it's practically overshadowed by the middle east crisis. well, forget that. what i really want to say is that, despite every single reason people tell me of why i should stop watching the silly hindi movies, i still refuse to. because if i look deeper, past by what's on the screen, close my eyes and listen, there's so much to learn and discover.