(I got exhausted while typing this. Heads up.)
I saw a Bollywood movie last night in downtown (?) Nagpur with Erin and Hanna, the two girls traveling with me. Now quickly think of all stereotypes attached to Bollywood and how ridiculous they would all be crammed in a three-hour movie. I saw it. And I had a movie-theater samosa to top it off.
Title: Jab Tak Hai Jaan (loosely translated: Best Movie Ever!)
Plot summary: Rich Indian girl in London is fated to marry a white dude, but falls in love with an Indian musician/waiter. But then he is hit by a truck, and she prays that if he lives, she promises leave him for the white guy. He lives, and she leaves. Super emotional. Really, though.
So he joins the Indian army as part of the bomb squad. Why the bomb squad? Rule one of Bollywood: don't ask questions.
Ten years later, a super hot, young journalist starts to report on the unit that he joined. By the end of her report, she falls in love. But he can't love her because he loves someone else far away from long ago. She returns to London to produce her piece, but her boss says that the man must come to London to corroborate the story. After begging him to return to London despite his history there, he comes. Day one: he gets hit by another car... yeah, it happened.
Naturally, he experiences retrograde amnesia, so he can't remember anything that happened between the two accidents, including the first woman leaving, him joining the army, and the news reporter that he came to London for. Oh my God!
Wanting to help, the reporter tracks down the first woman, finding her at her daughter's birthday party. But for the man, she agrees to meet him and pretend that they were never separated over the ten years. She brings him home, and they "live" together. But she, unable to live with the lie, calls it quits. Enter the reporter.
Pretending to do a report on his condition, she walks him through his life up until the first accident. But it didn't do much until there was a bomb threat on one of the trains. Suddenly, his past overcomes him and he enters 007 mode, disarming the bomb before it explodes.
Realizing that he had been lied to, he leaves the first woman (who had since revealed her undying love for him and that she had divorced her husband years ago). But it is too late for the reporter also, who had let him go for reasons I'm still not sure about. He returns to the army, but we are told that this bomb, his 108th, is his last. He is not scared to die, he is not backing down, but he wants to finally have a chance to live the life he's always wanted. In the last scene, he turns around and sees the first woman dressed all in white. He walks over and gives her a ring.
This is not a story about a hero. This is not a story about bravery. It's a story about love.
*Throw in a lot of music, montages, and sexually objectified women, and you've seen India at it's best.
From Jab Tak Hai Jaan: "Jiya Re"
I saw a Bollywood movie last night in downtown (?) Nagpur with Erin and Hanna, the two girls traveling with me. Now quickly think of all stereotypes attached to Bollywood and how ridiculous they would all be crammed in a three-hour movie. I saw it. And I had a movie-theater samosa to top it off.
Title: Jab Tak Hai Jaan (loosely translated: Best Movie Ever!)
Plot summary: Rich Indian girl in London is fated to marry a white dude, but falls in love with an Indian musician/waiter. But then he is hit by a truck, and she prays that if he lives, she promises leave him for the white guy. He lives, and she leaves. Super emotional. Really, though.
So he joins the Indian army as part of the bomb squad. Why the bomb squad? Rule one of Bollywood: don't ask questions.
Ten years later, a super hot, young journalist starts to report on the unit that he joined. By the end of her report, she falls in love. But he can't love her because he loves someone else far away from long ago. She returns to London to produce her piece, but her boss says that the man must come to London to corroborate the story. After begging him to return to London despite his history there, he comes. Day one: he gets hit by another car... yeah, it happened.
Naturally, he experiences retrograde amnesia, so he can't remember anything that happened between the two accidents, including the first woman leaving, him joining the army, and the news reporter that he came to London for. Oh my God!
Wanting to help, the reporter tracks down the first woman, finding her at her daughter's birthday party. But for the man, she agrees to meet him and pretend that they were never separated over the ten years. She brings him home, and they "live" together. But she, unable to live with the lie, calls it quits. Enter the reporter.
Pretending to do a report on his condition, she walks him through his life up until the first accident. But it didn't do much until there was a bomb threat on one of the trains. Suddenly, his past overcomes him and he enters 007 mode, disarming the bomb before it explodes.
Realizing that he had been lied to, he leaves the first woman (who had since revealed her undying love for him and that she had divorced her husband years ago). But it is too late for the reporter also, who had let him go for reasons I'm still not sure about. He returns to the army, but we are told that this bomb, his 108th, is his last. He is not scared to die, he is not backing down, but he wants to finally have a chance to live the life he's always wanted. In the last scene, he turns around and sees the first woman dressed all in white. He walks over and gives her a ring.
This is not a story about a hero. This is not a story about bravery. It's a story about love.
*Throw in a lot of music, montages, and sexually objectified women, and you've seen India at it's best.
From Jab Tak Hai Jaan: "Jiya Re"
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