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A Lot of Thoughts about a Bollywood Movie I've Never Seen All the Way Through

Sometimes I look out for out-of-the-ordinary stuff on YouTube to entertain my Little One. You know. for when the standard screen distractions lose their appeal, and you need something attention-catching so you can just get a quick break, gulp down the remains of that cold cup of tea, make that much-needed dash to the bathroom, or drag the laundry out of the hysterically-beeping washing machine.

For such moments, I do what anyone with a childhood in Mauritius--with all its French, English, Hindi and other pop culture influences, plus the ad hoc, scattered connections to the those influences that someone who migrated to Australia in their pre-internet, tweeny years--would do. I scanned YouTube for French cartoons and Bollywood songs, starting the ones I could remember from my long-ago childhood. I hoped YouTube's recommendations would find other good ones. 

After some detours--in retrospect, it was probably not wise to jump between French cartoons and Bollywood classics--YouTube eventually suggested the song, 'Ladki Badi Anjani Hai' ,from the movie, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, which features dancing kids. 



This offering rang a bell. I was in Mauritius around the time the Kuch Kuch movie came out. Late 90s. It was popular. And by 'popular, I mean 'Hugely Popular'. Songs from the movie, especially the title song, were drenching the airwaves. They spilt out of shops and car windows in traffic and washed around the open air bazaars. It was inescapable. I still remember travelling behind a car with a large decal of the title on its rear window. Font and colour: white Harlow. Or maybe the font colour was fluoro yellow and the car was white. You get the point. Very. Popular.

I've not seen the movie. I don't want to see it. More on why not in a bit.

But we watched this particular song. Little One liked it, so we watched it a couple of times. I then remembered a relative saying they filmed a song for Kuch Kuch  at the University of Mauritius. So, using my top-notch detective skills (search Kuch Kuch  + University of Mauritius), I found the song clip, 'Yeh Ladka Hai Deewana'.



To my surprise, Little One also liked and endorsed this one. So we watched the two songs as a pair. And watching them a few times, you start to get the gist of the story around it.

Kuch Kuch starred Bollywood royalty, Shah Rukh Khan (known as SKR), Kajol and Rani Mukherjee. SKR and Kajol had earlier teamed up for a movie called Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayange (DDLJ) in the mid-90s which had been a ginormous hit. I adored DDLJ. It even eventually aired on Australia's foreign movie channel, SBS, under the title Braveheart Takes the Bride. On the back of DDLJ, even so many years later, I would've been quite happy to watch Kuch Kuch as a familiar pairing in a new story. And would've felt kinda cool I knew anything about Bollywood pop culture.

Except.

Except that the storyline (as I've gleaned it) didn't appeal. Kuch Kuch has a love triangle. Set in high school. Cool Boy SKR has a feisty friendship with Tomboy Kajol, who wears trackies, plays sport, has a short bob, is competitive, confrontational with boys, and develops feelings for him. Then enter pretty, sweet, and mostly traditionally-dressed Rani. Cool Boy SKR chooses Mostly Traditional Rani, leaving Tomboy Kajol heartbroken. Cut to 8 years later. Mostly Traditional Rani has passed away in childbirth. Cool Boy SKR is now Single Dad SKR to his 8 year-old daughter. At his daughter's summer camp (or something like it), he crosses paths with Kajol, who has now transformed into a Not-Tomboy, sari-wearing, long-hair flowing, demure type who does Indian classical dance and can't play sport any more. She has never stopped liking him; he falls for her and they get their Happily Ever After (HEA). 

You can get a snapshot of this storyline in both the song clips. Watch 'Yeh Ladka Hai Deewana' first for Tomboy Kajol. Then 'Ladki Badi Anjani Hai' for the cut-to-8-years-later Not-Tomboy Kajol. 

I'm sure there's a bit more to the story--it's a Bollywood story after all--but this seems to be the essence of it. I won't watch the movie because, well, it's pretty obvious, I think. I think it's an aggravating transition for Kajol's character. She could've at least kept being sporty. Or retained her feistiness. Or something that didn't feel like she sold out on herself and turned into everything she didn't used to be. If Cool Boy SKR couldn't appreciate her as Tomboy Kajol, he didn't deserve her as Not-Tomboy Kajol. And why should he get both the girls, anyway. Someone--I think it was my cousin who had seen the movie--said that Not-Tomboy Kajol is engaged to someone else when she crosses paths again with Single Dad SKR. But that someone else loves her so much, when he sees how much she loves Single Dad SKR, he nobly steps aside. Dammit, Not-Tomboy Kajol, at least your fiancé liked you for you. Gah.

Yes, I know. Strong feelings for a movie I've never seen. But it's *such* an aggravating story arc. And with crummy implications. 

Anyway, it's been interesting to watch these two songs several times over, knowing the overall gist of the storyline in the background. And I've especially watched the 'Yeh Ladka Hai Deewana' clip, which was all filmed in Mauritius with interest. Because, you know, it's Mauritius. Where I grew up. And there'll always be a 'how have they shown my Mauritius?' interest--a feeling which I imagine would be pretty common to anyone who sees their old home represented on screen.

And because I've now watched the 'Yeh Ladka Hai Deewana' clip so many times, I have a whole bunch of thoughts about it in particular:
  • Be sure to check out the background to all the dancing bits. Like I said, nearly everything in the clip is filmed in Mauritius. The University of Mauritius and its main colonial building of basalt stone doubles as the fictional school's backdrop. There are some sequences set in a sports stadium, which I know is definitively in Mauritius because of the advertisements in the background. There are also beach scenes (when the characters supposedly take a school trip to Goa) with Mauritius' famous lagoons and sands and casuarina trees. I'm not sure which beach(es) they used though; I'm thinking Flic-en-Flac because it's a big popular beach which is on the same side of the island as the uni. There are also some sequences set in a shopping centre, with all the milleniumy designs of bright colours and beachy swirls and spirals. I'm not sure which shopping centre, though.
  • The colour palette of clothing is all bright primary colours, along with that dash of citrus that was so ubiquitous in the late 90s. In the beach dance scenes, the back-up male dancers wear matching life jacket thingies in bright 'beachy' squares of colour. Actually, the colours in the subsequent 'Ladki Badi Anjani Hai' song are also bright, so it's possibly an across-the-movie vibe. All youth and bright colours and optimism and hope, and all that jazz. The bright life jacket thingies still make me giggle.
  • As well as the colours, the costuming is all late 90s fashion--with lots of brand name dropping. It's a vibe that fits an orthodox impression of sexy, but carefully without sex. When I did a quick search to see if I could find out in which Mauritius shopping centre some of the dance bits took place, I found a mention of the Archie comics as a visual influence. So that might give you an idea of what a 'sexy without sex' vibe might look like.
  • The back-up dancers in the clip are clearly, I think, Mauritius locals. The male dancers at least are also clearly, hilariously *not* in their teens. 
  • When the characters head off on the bus for their field trip, we see the Mauritius bus stuffed with excitedly-waving teens (with the 'Field Trip to Goa' banner carefully obscuring the license plate). In this moment, please note the quick shift to the Caribbean-esque steel drums. Because nothing musically spells beachiness like steel drums.
  • I've been to the Uni of Mau (and even taught there for a few weeks). A lot of the dancing scenes featuring the colonial building backdrop are on the main road into the uni. It's a heavily-used road at the best of times. I can only imagine the chaos of a) bringing in all the filming gear, and b) sequestering the road, and c) re-routing all the traffic. 
  • A relative who worked at the uni at the time, said that her colleagues who worked in the offices in the main colonial building (and presumably even ones who worked in other buildings) were peeping excitedly through the windows as the filming was going on. And they got yelled at by the Important Film People for being visible in the shot, and were ordered to move out of sight. Not a nice thing to do, Important Film People, burning bridges with your main customer base. 
  • But then again, the Important Film People also allowed Mauritian locals to come in and watch the filming of the sport stadium dance sequences, and even incorporated them into some of the background choreography. Check out the folks clapping along distantly in the stands - locals. At least, I'm assuming they're locals. And I'm assuming it was something of a customer relations exercise.
  • The same relative who worked at the uni at the time also said there was a moment in-between takes in the campus dance sequences where the director/choreographer was remonstrating with Kajol to jump higher, kick her heels back more and throw her head back more. For whatever reason, that little behind-the-scenes snippet from years ago stayed with me, and when I found this clip, I've been idly scanning to see if I could see which on-screen moment it related to. I didn't find it. But all I can say is that her dancing is flawless and she made the moves look easy. They all do. 
While watching both these clips with Little One, I've tried to dance along to the sequences. And I've quickly realised that, no matter how silly some of the choreography might look, when you try and echo the movements, they are difficult! There is some serious skill in how the actors effortlessly follow their choreography while still staying in character and exchanging the required flirtatious or longing glances. 

So, invariably, after a three-second burst to confirm I still can't dance, I follow Little One's lead in dance moves and instead jump up and down on the spot. Little One does it with delight. I do it with umm, less delight. It's never long before I'm huffing for air, scarlet-faced, and feeling like I'm going to be in imminent need of a knee reconstruction.

And that's when I usually remember I need to do food. Or head to the bathroom. Or get that laundry done. 

"What's that, my Little One? You want me to keep dancing? Yes, I do sound like a steam train, don't I? Just a second, my darling, I'll be back very soon. I just have to do this non-fun-non-dancing-incomprehensible-adult-activity thing right now at this very moment. You keep dancing. You're enjoying it so much and doing so well. I'll just collapse out of sight and catch my breath and ruminate on a Bollywood movie song filmed in Mauritius 20+ years ago and the increasingly long list of random thoughts I have about it, and how I might write a blog post about them...

...Oh and you've found me not-hiding around the corner. Hurray! Oh you'd like to see the song again and keep dancing some more? That's wonderful, darling! And you'd like me to dance too? Oh hurray..."


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