Encountering Bollywood for the first time is like entering a whole new world. Whether a movie stars Amitabh Bachchan or Shahid Kapoor is all the same to you, because you’ve never heard of either of them before. You have a hard time deciding if you should watch Kuch Kuch Hota Hai or Neal ‘N’ Nikki, because you don’t know anything about either film (actually, I’d never watch Neal ‘N’ Nikki, the title itself is enough to put me off). But after you’ve seen a few movies and start to recognise the major actors, you want to find out a bit more about them and their careers. And so we come to the point of this post: is everyone in Bollywood related to each other? Except for those people who actually share the same name, that is (i.e. all the Khans).

I really was quite surprised to discover that virtually every actor of the younger generation has parents or other relatives in the film industry.

The first and most obvious one you come across is Abhishek Bachchan, son of Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan, both actors. Ajay Devgan’s father is a director. Salman Khan’s father is a screen writer (and his stepmother is Helen). Aamir Khan’s father is a producer and his uncle a director. Hrithik Roshan’s parents are both actors, his father also directs and produces movies.

Saif and Soha Ali Khan’s mother is an actress (and their father the nawab of Pataudi, but that’s beside the point). Akshaye Khanna’s father is an actor. Tabu’s aunt is an actress and her uncle is the lyricist Javed Akhtar. Vivek Oberoi’s father is an actor. Zayed Khan’s father is an actor. Esha Deol’s parents are actors. The list just goes on and on.

And then there are the Kapoors, the Mukherjee-Samarths, the Bhatts, Dutts and Puris - whole filmi dynasties! The list of Bollywood film clans on Wikipedia is impressively long. 

There are some exceptions to the rule. Actors like Preity Zinta, Aishwarya Rai, Juhi Chawla, Priyanka Chopra, Arjun Rampal and John Abraham all started out as models. Ritesh Deshmukh actually studied acting. Vidya Balan started out in TV ads and soap operas. And of course there’s Shahrukh Khan, who started out as a TV actor.

But the great majority of actors, and even directors/producers like Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra, are from established film families. So, just why is Bollywood so dominated by these people? Is it so difficult to succeed there that only the well-connected can do it? Are parents so keen for their children to follow in their footsteps and have the same career as them? Or is it just a coincidence?

Being a Bollywood fan in Germany is not always easy. Either movies like Fanaa do not run at all in German cinemas or their start dates are unknown. With Fanaa we successfully tested the backup capacity Amsterdam. As the world-wide starting date for KANK approached and dates for Germany were not yet announced by rem (Rapideyemovies), emergency plans were framed and we (two friends and I) decided to undertake the 200 km long trip to Amsterdam. At this moment we didn’t mind that the film was shown with Dutch and not with English subtitles. We booked tickets for the showing at 4 p.m.. The showing in the evening was sold out and the midday-showing was also well attended. When we watched the film, about three quarters of the seats were taken. Nearly 95 % of the visitors were Indians. Trailers of “Kabul Express” and “Dhoom 2” were shown. When the film started and Rani appeared a part of the male audience howled and whistled. Comic scenes were rewarded with lots of laughter. When Preity slapped SRK, my neighbour clapped. Due to the missing intermission (the scene, where the intermission was cut off, was obvious), few spectators used the songs for a visit at the washrooms. At the end of the film the audience applauded.For us the trip to Amsterdam was absolutely worthwhile.

By the way, we were not the only crazy Germans who drove to Amsterdam. While we were waiting for admission, two German women were leaving the previous show.

There is a word in German that is called “hibbelig”. In fact its a colloquial word for being nervous, agitated, anxcious. Just picture a hyperactive five year old on a sugar induced high and put that state of mind in a mid-thirties woman desperatly trying to surpress the feeling. Thats how poor middle european Bollywood fans feel at the moment. We usually don´t have access to TV stations like MTV India or even B4U. And most don´t even have the new movies in cinemas as they are only playing in very few theatres in big cities like Berlin, Munich, Zurich or Vienna. So we roam the net for any glimpse of upcoming films like KANK or Don. We hound webstores like nehaflix. And if the tension gets to much we even try to get the odd bootleged DVD at a local indian grocery store (and feel bad for doing so).

The year 2006 is a good year for fans so far and one where fans are held in a constant state of being “hibbelig” . All the big stars have had movies released. We got to see Aamir, Kajol, Saif, Preity, Hrithik, Rani and SRK back on the screen. We´ll got/get movies with AB 1.0 and AB 2.0 (© Filmiholic - I love the abreviation) We´re standing a good chance to get some decent work from Sanjay, Salman and Akshay. We had Rang de Basanti. Fanaa (though that has not been played here yet). Krrish. Omkara.

And Bollywood now plays very well with the promo machinery. Websites. Teaser. Songpromos. First looks. Spoiler. The whole spiel.

The weeks before August 11th where frantic on our side of the blogosphere. Whenever a new promo showed up or new stills, comments on various blogs and threads on boards where buzzing. Then it became clear that we wont have KANK in cinemas anytime soon here and I for myself lost some interest. And I lectured myself to not get so hyped up for a movie. Because when I finally get to see it I will be totally spoilered anyway (yeah, I know I just could resort to not read the spoilers but - please - no self-restraint here on my side of the computer screen). So hope was there that one would finally find some peace of mind.

Enter Faran Akhtar and the Don promos. And YashRaj with D:2. And Jaan-E-Mann. And Guru. And Eklavya. Then there are movies I´m dying to see but at least don´t get too worked up in advance like Munnabhai 2, Kabul Express, Babhul or Pyaar Ke Side Effects. And as far as it seems next year does promise to pick up where this year left off with Salaam-E-Ishq or Jhoom Barabar Jhoom and the list goes on and on.

So here I´m sitting in front of my powerbook, working on our companies new brochure, taking a short break to see if the guys at naachgaana posted some not to be missed news. And wham. New Don Song Promo. First Jaan-E-Mann teaser. What? No link? New tab in Firefox. YouTube. Damn. Not Found. Hmm. Heartrate increases. Dig deeper. Molodezhnaja Forum. Nope. Hardcore-Fan-Forums. YESSSS. Gotcha. Short breather. Heartrate goes back to healthy maximum. Watch promo. Squeee. Cant stay seated. Get up. Open fridge. Close fridge. Sit down back again.

Pathetic. Naa. Not really. I have a live. A great one to be precise. But I´ll get hyped nonetheless. So what.

Thats simply what we have to put up with. Loving movies from an industry thats not featured in every mainstream media here. And you know what? I would not miss it for the world

By a lucky coincidence, I found myself in London right in time for this year’s London Mela festival at the Gunnersbury Park in Ealing. The festival was scheduled to start at noon, but the weather was so bad that we didn’t get there till 4pm. On the way to the park I kept worrying about all the goodness I was missing out on, but as we walked in I saw that just being there was fun, even if you don’t stand in front of a particular stage or inside a certain tent and watch what’s going on there. The festival grounds were much larger than I’d expected, and there were so many people!

Although the majority were Asians, their clothes varying from traditional to painfully stylish, you could see people of all races and colours, including a couple of middle-aged white ladies in saris and an “Om” tattoo on their shoulder blades. Despite having travelled quite a lot by now, I still find it strangely exciting to be in such a diverse and mixed crowd, as I come from a very different place. Slovenia is so small and out of the way that up to 10 or 15 years ago, the only foreigners living here came from other ex-Yugoslav countries, so they weren’t even proper foreigners. Then the first Chinese came, but even today you very rarely see any immigrants here. That’s why even London or Berlin have such a different feel for us, even though we share the same history and the cities themselves don’t look that different to Ljubljana, only much larger.

Anyway, let’s leave this brief digression and return to the Mela. We’d been to Southall earlier that day and as I heard Bollywood music playing in all the shops, I kept hoping people would suddenly start dancing in the streets. No one did, but at the Mela, you could actually see little groups of people dancing and singing. Most of the time it started with a group of performers doing a dance, and then the people standing around would just join in.

I bought a couple of DVDs and a rubber band with “Love Peace Om Shanti” on it (I’m not a Buddhist, but a message like that is pretty universal, I think), then we did a little tour of the grounds, marvelled at the speed and skill of the henna tattooists, admired all the beautiful saris and scarves on sale, tried to identify at least some of the food at the food stalls (I need an international cookbook or something!) and stopped in a tent to watch a girl dance/perform acrobatics on a rope while there was a brief spell of rain outside. Then we moved on, passing a fantastic giant paper tiger on our way.

I couldn’t stop thinking about “Tiger, tiger, burning bright, in the forests of the night“ until we returned to the main stage just in time for Pascal of Bollywood and I was completely distracted by his fashion sense. Hot pink glittery shirt, combined with bright orange trousers? Seriously? Oy!

I can’t tell you much else about him as I didn’t know any of the songs he performed. Some other people did and sang along, but the crowd around the stage seemed to thin considerably while he was on. I was much more interested in seeing Atif Aslam, especially because I had no idea what to expect. I have to be honest and tell you that I’d never heard of him before until I saw his name in the Mela programme. After that I listened to Bheegi Yaadein (or is it called Woh Lamhe? Even the announcers were confused about that) and really liked it, but didn’t know any other songs of his. The rest of the audience more than made up for my ignorance though, they chanted his name and screamed when he came onstage. We moved closer to the stage and suddenly found ourselves in a crowd of dancing Asian boys, all singing and bouncing along with the music, and there was even a bit of crowd surfing. Woo! Atif was fantastic from the moment he came onstage looking a bit like Che Guevara to the last note of Bheegi Yaadein.

I’m completely converted into a fan now and already trying to find out where I can buy his CD! We were all just starting to shout for an encore when the announcer directed us to the little stage to our left where Bollywood Steps just began their performance, which was also the grand finale of the festival. So we quickly moved there and I can’t tell you what I enjoyed more, Atif or Bollywood Steps. They were both great! I didn’t dare hope the Steps would dance to any song I know, so I was pleasantly surprised when there was a neat choreography to Dhoom Machale (complete with men ripping off their shirts and sparks flying up in the background. Woo!) and completely beside myself when they continued with Kajra Re and finished with Dhadak Dhadak!

The songs were edited down to about 2 minutes each and the choreographies were different than in the movie, but I loved it all and sang and danced along in a rather embarrassing way. I have a videoclip of Dhoom Machale that I was going to upload to YouTube, but it’s too large and anyway, you can watch it in better quality, listen to all the performances and take a look at the photo gallery on the BBC website, thanks to the BBC Asian Network!

The second Time today i’d watched if Boxoffice India has published News about KANKs profit the first few days. I do know that until next monday, or end of next week nobody can say anything about KANK becoming some new Super Hit a la Fanaa or Rang de Basanti. But all this news are so different, i still can’t wait for the final statistics for the first weekend and first week. Until then, i will look each time i am online to Boxoffice India waiting for the News… Perhaps soon?

Whats about you? Are you also curious about latest Boxoffice news? Is KANK also the only theme in your contries bollywood community? Here in germany everything goes around KANK and Shahrukh Khan.

This week there is only one Bollywood topic worldwide: Karan Johars Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna Release on August 11th. All over, as we read on several news pages, cinema halls are sold out. Reallly worldwide?

German speaking countries don’t have any KANK release yet. The situation is something between rights, dubbing and business - three things, we freaks don’t want to talk about. We just want to see movies as soon as possible. KANK, a movie to reach a lot of interested people on the screen (Shahrukh is still the only bollywoodstar known by non-bollywood people), is not available. Some lucky ones are going to Amsterdam looking it with dutch subtitles - better not to understand detais than miss the whole release. Others as Maria (shes some Shahrukh girlie) have well planned her holidays to see KANK in New York right now. But the majority has no chance to see legally anything. And that’s not good at all, neither for bollywood developement generally nor especially for cinema success of indian movies in german speaking countries. If some movie is dubbed month later less people will see it. We the people buy dvds as soon as possible, and some incorrigible ones will look out for pirated dvds. That all is clear. But RapidEyeMovies, rightholder for germany, doesn’t manage to make a german subtitled version and doesn’t allow the original one to be shown.

Others as Ashraf, the guy who brought bollywood to germany for many years can’t afford rights for such popular movies.

So we, the german community, discuss if germany is - in filmmakers opinion - still some bollywood developing country with less worth for rightholders, only good to get some fast money. On the other hand, if we look on dvd sales, bollywood in germany is a great dvd business. Many dvd releases manage to climb the ladder of sales.

Does bollywood in cinema not sell in germany? And does this affect bollywoods future in germany? If we talk with babasko or marco, there are neither big audiences in vienna or zurich cinema halls, only some hundred guys ‘n girls visiting movies in original audio with english subtitles. This does not make it necessary to focus on cinema releases, as long as bollywood on dvds sales hundred thousend times per copy.

But is it possible to survive a long time with delayed releases? Or is it counterproductive for whole fan commmunity? We freaks awaits the dvds. But also we don’t want to wait month.

Thats how it looks like in germany with the major cinema release KANK in germany. Sad, but the truth. Germany was for a long time spoilt with dubbed cinema. So only dubbed cinema sells. What future brings, we’ll see. Neither community nor rightholders nor publishers earn more in this situation. The only one lucky with that will be pirated copy sellers.

What really happend…

Bollycomics

Despite an overromanticized head swirling with cardamom and elephants and Indo-Saracenic doodads, only two experiences in India were less interesting than I was expecting: the Taj Mahal (I’ll explain that one later) and going to the movies. There are such tempting descriptions about what it’s like to be in a theater in India, how it’s boisterous and unruly, how people talk and sing and dance, how it’s acceptable to yell at the screen. I got nothing like that.

movie posters in Kolkata, July 2006

Maybe I went to the wrong movies or to the wrong theaters: Fanaa at the Plaza in Delhi and Krrish at Fun Republic (which is a very bad name for a movie theater, by the way) in Ahmedabad (’cause you can’t even see Fanaa in Ahmedabad, of course).

Our showing of Fanaa had a tiny audience - only a handful of people in addition to my group of four American teachers and our fearless tour manager and film nut Rajan. Yes, I saw Fanaa with an Indian tour guide from Delhi - he promises he is not a terrorist. And most of the people there were in seats behind us, so if there was any excitement, I totally missed it, even though I was looking for it. The loudest and most prolific talker in the theater was in fact one of my colleagues, who was entranced by Kajol spinning into the Ashokan pillar wheel but otherwise wouldn’t sit still and pay attention. A few mobile phones went off here and there, and some kids ran up and down the aisles, but nothing major. I’ve seen that at home.

The theater for Krrish was much livelier, not a packed house but respectably crowded, and our group of twelve arrived late and confusedly, stumbling over people to get to our assigned seats (we don’t have these in the US, at least not in any theater I’ve been to) in the dark and trying really hard not to spill popcorn. Never let it be said that a disorganized group of American travelers who don’t speak the local language didn’t bring it on the rowdiness. Lots of general chitchat - well, to be fair, it could have been nonstop witty comments, I have no idea - and lots of mobile phones going off. So basically, like the first one, but moreso.

So where was the roar of the crowd, the democratic critiquing, the naach-gaana-along I had been so happily anticipating? I have a few theories about the lack of…of…spirit demonstrated by my fellow movie-goers. These are just theories, of course, and anyone who wants to tell me how silly they are is welcome to do so.

Maybe behavior depends on the type of movie. Maybe Fanaa and Krrish aren’t in-the-aisles kinds of movies. You’d think I’d have an opinion on this, but since I don’t know Hindi and didn’t see these with subtitles, I don’t think I’m in a good place to comment on what they’re really about or how they play out. I would have guessed that Kajol alone would have been enough to bring certain people to their feet, but no. And I know I always dance along with Hrithik at home; I was in the middle of a row or I might have in Ahmedabad too. Maybe Fanaa had been out long enough that people’s excitement had worn off; maybe they danced and yelled during their first viewing(s) and were just coming back to pick up nuances. Maybe Delhi and Ahmedabad aren’t participatory towns - are people are beaten down by the weariness of daily national govermental inefficiencies in one and the iron filmy fist of the state government on movies in the other? Maybe Priyanka was so boring that anyone who wanted to hoot and whistle at her realized how unattractive that character actually was. Or maybe mobile phones have taken over this aspect of daily life too - if you’re yelling at the screen, you won’t hear that all-important call from your roommate about bringing home some ice cream (yet another problem that could be solved by setting phones to vibrate, but never mind).

What is clear is that I need to do more evidence-gathering and first-hand observation. Mumbaikars, anyone want to host the foreign press and show me what your city’s made of? I thought so.

We’re waiting for two things these days: KANK, of course, which is one of the most awaited movies this year,b’cause as everywhere overseas (may i call germany overseas?) waits for new shahrukh khan movies. And as king khan is the only bollywood star whos well known in germany this movie will become special. in my opinion its the first release in the main bollywood hype in germany, paheli doesnt count.

The other thing is some german written Bollywood Magazine, published by germanies top bollywood dvd provider Rapid Eye Movies. They, who brought bollywood to germany, have now made this step into helping bollywood being present everywhere: Bollywood Rapid Eye magazine will be - of course - some bollywood promo for movies in cinema delivered by rapid eye movies also as promo for new dvds. Thats some way not so good, bollywood (and indian cinema) is much more than shahrukh and kajol and amitji - but you all outside germany know that well. On the other hand, its good to get more presence, more professionality in medias. The way bollywoods community is growing (not by number, but by quality) is amazing: we’ve some german bollywood news agency - greeting to sweet alccati - pages only about german dubbed dvds, we’ve lots of boards, and marcos is the best one - we’ve one good dvd seller (and many black sheeps on ebay) - and of course our blogging community is wonderfull. most of these things has happend last year. And also as german tv ratings are getting lower and lower, our basic community is stable as never before.

We’re established, i’d say.

Und das ist auch gut so (and its good that it is this way), as Klaus Wowereit said some time before.