The Merchants of Bollywood

‘In an Indian version of Titanic, the iceberg would have melted…’

The plot of a true mainstream Indian film, alas commonly known as Bollywood, should be like an authentic Indian meal. It is all about a dazzling array of spices: conflict, love and a happy end.

Welcome to the glitter and kitsch of Bollywood - The Show, straight from the heart of Mumbai (Bombay). Saw it in Amsterdam last night and it was simply brilliant. A full house, well organised and an awesome two-hour long opulent feast for sore eyes and ears. Compelling infectious music, dance an colourful costumes. Special lighting effects (by Lize Berry, the London light designer who was also responsible for the Robbie Williams shows). If you don't believe me, then by all means click on the Bollywood promo. Have fun and don't forget to first switch off the musical playlist (top right).

And then these exceptional choreographies done by none other than Vaibhavi Merchant, the youngest daughter of the famous Merchant family. And boy, does she know her stuff. Her resume includes choreographies for film gems like Umrao Jaan, Lagaan and Devdas. The music was composed and arranged by Salim and Sulaiman Merchant.

True, lots of Merchants, but then again the plot of Bollywood - The Show is based on the true family story of one of the largest Indian film dynasties: the Merchant family. Through the eyes of the Merchant family the audience is taken for a ride along eighty year of popular Indian cinema. In between we get a tongue in cheek peak inside the world's largest film industry. And when I say ‘largest’, I really mean business, as popular Indian cinema producess some 800 films a year with about 15 million tickets sold a day!!! Gulp, that is like the entire Dutch nation going to see some film every night.

Bollywood - The Show has been shown in Australia, Asia, Spain, Switzerland and Germany (no less than 43 cities) and these last three days it was in Amsterdam.

Pity you missed it. Oh well, perhaps something to look forward to in 2008? No sarcasm intended. Happy New Year to you all.

As for this New Year, chances are that I might be interviewing India's finest actrice: Mrs Shabana Azmi. I only need confirmation in writing, as she has already said 'yes' on the phone. So keep your fingers crossed that she does not change her mind. Her often controversial films make Ayaan Hirsi Ali's fourteen-minute Submission seem like a walk in the park. And the good part about it is that Azmi's films actually make a difference.

BENAZIR BHUTTO DEAD AND BURIED

And then there were only two ...

Try and access Mrs Bhutto's own website and you'll discover within seconds that you can't access it, the reason being pretty obvious, since she was murdered last Thursday in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Only 54 years old and mother of three. One of the few ladies in this part of the world, the other one being Indira Gandhi, who got hold of the most powerful positions in what really is a man's world.

Bhutto came from a wealthy, influential family. Having studied at both Harvard and Oxford, she definitely did not qualify as a rich idiot, far from it. A very shrewd politician is probably more like it. Yet unfortunately Pakistan's only (former) female prime minister was caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Or so they say, because one should not forget that we are talking about a highly conservative society where you have forces at work, both in the military and in certain Islamic circles, that are not exactly thrilled at the idea of being represented by a woman. And that, my dears, Mrs Bhuto was.

So where does the brutal assassination of Mrs Bhutto leave Pakistan? Well, there is of course Mr Dictator himself, a.k.a. general Mush. Or perhaps one should consider Nawaz Sharif as the answer to Pakistan's prayers. Yes, the man who narrowly escaped a death sentence in 2000 after having been found guilty on charges of hijacking and terrorism. Yesterday Sharif proved a bit too quick to cash in on Benazir's death. You tell me, who would be the lesser of two evils?

'Merchants of fear' win!

My oh my, the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), a Hindu nationalist movement, has convincingly won the Gurajat elections. They won 117 out of 182 seats, with Congress winning 59 and six seats going to the smaller parties. The victory will boost the BJP as it challenges Congress in the run-up to a general election due in the next 18 months.

It marks a big victory for BJP chief Narendra Modi, who is credited with pursuing successful economic policies. At the same time, Modi and his party have often been criticised for the treatment of religious minorities, particularly the 2002 religious riots that broke out after nearly sixty Hindus wree killed when a train was set on fire in Godhra town, allegedly by a Muslim mob. According to investigative journalists working for Tehelka, one of the best sources of news in India, this proved inaccurate.

According to official figures, more than 1,000 people were killed, mostly Muslims. The state administration was accused of not doing enough to stop the riots. It earned Modi the reputation of being an Indian version of the Roman emperor Nero (who watched Rome burn).
Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi reportedly described the opposition-ruled government in the state as 'merchants of fear and death'.

The present victory must be an absolute blow in the face of the survivors of the 2002 massacre, amongst them the parents of Azhar, a twelve-year-old boy who went missing during the riots, which inspired Indian film director Rahul Dholakia to make Parzania with a class performance of Naseeruddin Shah who plays the Parsee father of the boy Parzan.

I saw the film only two months ago when Naseeruddin was in the Netherlands and I had the honor to interview this first-rate Indian actor for my newspaper. We talked about many things, amongst them Parzania and the infamous role the BJP played in this tragedy.

On the internet, some call the Gurajat killings 'a minor mistake', but what if this party wins the national elections? What would be the impact on international politics? Another minor mistake perhaps waiting in the dark ... ?


P.S. This is Azhar who until this very day is still missing.

Partytime at Dagblad De Pers

'De redactie van De Journalist heeft hoofdredacteur Ben Rogmans van dagblad De Pers uitgeroepen tot Journalist van het Jaar. Hij verrijkte Nederland op 23 januari met een gratis kwaliteitsdagblad, waarin optimisme, onaangepastheid en enthousiasme de toon aangeven.'

As my friends and relatives know, it is now almost a year ago that I started working at Dagblad De Pers, the only quality newspaper that can be picked up for free. 'Gratis, maar niet goedkoop.'

Today, my boss and editor in chief, Ben Rogmans, was awarded the prize 'Journalist of the Year'. Hats off for the man who gave me a chance to be part of this once in a lifetime adventure. De Journalist dedicated a whole article on Ben. A must-read. BTW, the reference to the article about Africa, was the one I wrote. The idea, however, was Ben's. Below, you will find an excerpt from the article as it was published in De Journalist.

'In het verlengde van de optimistische grondtoon (‘in Afrika hebben twee miljoen mensen honger, maar 778 miljoen niet’) ligt een onconventionele manier van werken. Geen hypes (de seksaffaire rond wethouder Depla werd in een éénkolommertje afgedaan), geen wirwar van korte berichten, als het nodig is een voorpagina met alleen maar commentaar (‘Niet weg uit Uruzgan!’), en actiejournalistiek.'

Where do you come from?

photo credits: Daily Mail

Before dashing off to Surinam for the funeral of Faisja, I did this interview with Londoner John Bird, founder of The Big Issue, an English street newspaper on behalf of and sold by homeless people. At the end of the interview, published on 14th November, he asked me: 'I don't get it. Where do you come from? You sound British, you are working for a Dutch newspaper and you look Indian.' I told him that I am indeed originally from India, but ended up in the Netherlands through this colonial bypass called Surinam.

Bird then asked me a question Dutch people would never do, simply because it would never occur to them. He asked: 'Where in India does your family come from?' I nearly stuttered when I replied, as nobody had ever bothered to ask me in such detail before: 'My own ancestral roots lie in the provinces of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Kashmir.' Bird: 'So we British bastards displaced you.' ;-)

'We' started coming to Surinam from 1873 onwards. Immigration records indicate that the majority of Indian (Pakistan was no where near in sight yet) Muslims who migrated to Surinam came from the urban centres of Uttar Pradesh: Agra, Allahbad, Faizabad, Gonda, Gorakhpur, Ghazipur, Mirzapur, Lucknow (film Umrao Jaan), Muradabad, Bareilly, Rampur, and Sultanpur.

Small batches also came from Karachi in Sind, Lahore, Multan and Rawalpindi in the Punjab, Hyderabad, in the Deccan, Srinagar in Kashmir, and Peshawar and Mardan in the Northwest Frontier (Afghan areas).

Then they brought us to Calcutta where we shipped off to Latin America, to the country of the holy Ram. Sri Ram. Surinam (see green small country bordering the north of Brazil and squeezed in between Guyana on the left and French Guyana.).



P.S. Surprise, surprise, John Bird actually knew Surinam: 'from the beautiful stamps.'

A rope-walk with masterly precision

What's happening? Sharida all into Indian music? It would seem so, but wouldn't you be if you heard such a superb remix of the lovely golden oldie Aap ki nazron ne samjha? The artists are Bally Sagoo and Gunjan. The song was originally sung by Lata Mangeshkar in the Indian film Anpadh (1962). I was minus three then, but I know the song from my mum's tapes. Below, some of the most beautiful lines of this sung .

Aap ki nazron ne samjha (your eyes have understood me)

Keh rahi hai har nazar banda parvar shukriya

My every glance is saying, oh lord, thank you

Hanske apni zindagi mein kar liya shaamil mujhe

You have blended me into your life with a smile

Dil ki ae dhadkan thaher jaa, mil gayi manzil mujhe

Stop, oh my heartbeat, I have found my destination

Koi toofaanon se keh de, mil gaya saahil mujhe

Someone tell the storms that I have found my shore

Har taraf bajne lagi saenkdon shehnaaiyaan

In every direction, millions of shehnaais (Indian instrument) are sounding

Do jahaan ki aaj khushiyaan ho gayi haasil mujhe

I have obtained all the joys of both worlds today.

Mother India came to visit

It so happens that brothers and/or sisters from the Motherland a.k.a. India have been passing by my blog lately. Wah, wah. Nobody would mistake me for a Lebanese, German or Nigerian - ok, Kuwaiti at best because every bleeding time I am at Beirut airport, the customs officer asks me if I am from Kuwait. - As if I look loaded.

Anyway, in a way yes of course I am most definitely Indian. I have all the genetic features. Yet I have never been to India. Perhaps 2008 is the year in which it is all happening. Can you imagine me finally going to a country which I only know from books, documentaries and Indian cinema? Me joining 1.2 BILLION countrymen. Me who comes from a single-parent family. Me who has no brothers and sisters. Me joining a sea of people who look like ... me. I think I am in for a daunting experience.

I eat Indian food. I listen to Indian music. I have certain Indian values. Yet at the same time I couldn't be more different, due mostly to the fact that I was born and bred in the Netherlands with an Indian family that is rooted in Surinam, a former Dutch colony in South America.

Please bear with me and read the following lines from V.S. Naipaul in his book India: a wounded civilization, because what he says very much holds true for me as well:

"India is for me a difficult country. It isn't my home and cannot be my home; and yet I cannot reject it or be indifferent to it; I cannot travel only for the sights. I am at once too close and too far. My ancestors migrated from the Gangetic plain a hundred years ago; and the Indian community they and others established in Trinidad, on the other side of the world, the community in which I grew up, was more homogeneous than the Indian community Gandhi met in South Africa in 1893, and more isolated from India."

Sharida for President

For those of you in the know, there is this job opening in Baabda where the Lebanese presidential palace is located. It might be right up your alley if you wish to have go at the Lebanese presidency, because at this very moment Lebanon is presidentless.

Contract
Duration:6 years (extended if necessary)

Responsibilities
Ruling a small crazy country, following orders from abroad

Qualifications
Good listener, very obedient, good smile in front of the TV, no leadership skills required

Benefits
Whatever you can get out of it

Age
5+ to 105+ years

Please send 2 copies of your CV to: Bashar@damascus.syria and Condy_rice@Everywhere.usa.

Candidates will be contacted soon. Oh and, no need to be Maronite or Lebanese for that matter.