How To Tell If You Are In a Bollywood Movie

by Jaya Saxena · December 1, 2015

Shrill violins do not bother you.

You are a beautiful, demure widow.

If you are a man, you own one of three outfits–a kurta set, wide-shouldered and garishly patterned double breasted suit, or a tight leather jacket under which you are bare chested. Any one is appropriate for all occasions.

If you are a woman, you own one of three outfits–an embellished sari paired with 18 pounds of jewelry, all of which are full of bells; a skin tight minidress, or hideous pajamas. All three are completely impractical for whatever you’re trying to accomplish.

You can swim in the middle of a gunfight and your guns will not get waterlogged.

It’s not just a game of cricket. It’s a metaphor.

Life is but a series of increasingly dramatic decisions made in the rain.

There is a 50% chance you are married because someone’s father died.

Occasionally you take a drive with your romantic interest to go dance in a field with some villagers. You admire their local costume, and never speak of them again.

There are 14 women in your life you call “auntie” and you’re not sure if any of them is actually your Aunt.

You fell down the stairs, dramatically. If you survive, you find out it’s because you are pregnant.

You live in a gigantic, sprawling manor and nobody explains why. Your father is a professor or runs a small factory, a solid job for sure but not enough to live in a complex like yours, that features either a cricket field, a full temple in the atrium, or like 17 bedrooms. Everyone you know calls it a “cottage.”

Three and a half hours seems like a totally reasonable time to tell a story.

Your grandson wants to live his own life and it is ALL YOUR FAULT.

You were abandoned by your parents as a child and yet, as an adult, you don’t recognize your own mother, even though you were like 9 when you were abandoned so definitely old enough to remember what your mother looked like.

The love of your life has never once told you the truth, either about his intentions or his identity.

IT IS ALL BECAUSE OF FATE.

Jaya Saxena is a Staff Writer at The Toast.

105 Comments

  1. jimmyjimjimjim +21

    I got as far as half an eyebrow and the corner of one eye before thinking “is that Sridevi?”

    …

    Number of movies I’ve seen with Sridevi in them: 0.5

  2. ppyajunebug +105

    Your voice changes by a full octave or more when you start to sing

    Obligatory Dard-E-Disco gif:

    3. lilotelasserie +14

      I love this moment SO MUCH. This whole song is just every Reason Why Bollywood Movies Are Great. (I mean, the entire movie is, but this song especially.)

          1. chaarulatha +19

            i feel like if Hollywood had done something like that they would’ve turned it into an ironic circlejerk.
            or like the Taylor Swift video for Bad Blood.

            Anyway. SRK is amazing. He’s one of the few people in Bollywood right now who’s come up on his own from a poor background, so the whole trajectory of Om being a star was so fitting. That speech made me cry! Arjun Rampal is hot and Deepika Padukone is a goddess.
            I almost met him when he visited Hyderabad and I still regret not clobbering his bodyguards with my purse so I could slip in and JUST SAY HI

          2. chaarulatha +10

            also can we talk about all the mini movies Om is supposed to be shooting in the movie.
            Like the superhero movie – Mohabbat Man?
            and the film where he’s like blind and deaf and his hands and legs were cut off but there’s like an item song explaining his grief over the marriage of the girl he loves which also happens to be the most upbeat song in the world

          3. lilotelasserie +8

            I would 100% watch both of those movies.

            Also I sometimes catch myself saying “What the fish!” when something goes wrong.

          4. Ellen W. +3

            I think I’m going to start doing this now too. I should probably watch the movie first though.

            (Aargh, can’t login!)

          5. leslieellenjones +3

            And the song explaining his grief is Dard-E-Disco, for which see gif above! Oh how I love this movie. I once showed it to a bunch of friends and proudly identified every star in the Om Shanti Om item number.

            And I suspect I will end up being immortal, because I have vowed not to die until I see SRK in a full-length (i.e., 3+ hours) Mohabbat Man.

          6. chaarulatha +3

            the chaddi discussion in the scene kills me every time. and also “Mohabbat Man? More like Moron Man”

            I suspect I would pay a lot of money to watch a superhero movie about Moron Man. IT WOULD BE AMAZING.

    4. FurCoatsCinemaTropes +5

      We finished our last screening of my Bollywood course in film school with this film. SO REWARDING SRK FOR PRESIDENT.

  3. Ronit +103

    There’s always time for a dance break, even if you’re literally in the middle of getting kidnapped or planning a murder.

    2. shobhituva +1

      hahahah…very true ronit..I do not think if there would be any movie in Bollywood without songs…

  4. mabissam +43

    You’re outside in the hills and the sun, even though a few seconds ago you were totally inside, and the hills were nowhere in sight. Oh, blammo! You’re back inside again. Whew!

    2. lilotelasserie +8

      Is it just me, or is the look on her face at the end the look of a woman imagining how it would feel to kill a man?

    3. speakingofcake +7

      I am so glad to have witnessed this.
      Something meta going on here too – it appears to be a movie inside a movie!
      The backing dancer playing tablas on another dancer’s bum was my favourite part.

      1. mabissam +12

        It is life-affirming! My favorite part is the bopping director, just getting into the flow, do-do-do.

        I’m not entirely sure that there are any plot lines that go to this scene, either, in Tridev. The whole movie is about some outlaws out for justice. Why the cave scene? Who Cares, is why.

  8. citizenchristy +73

    After finishing the truly punishing Midnight’s Children and A Passage to India in my college World Lit class, we were rewarded with a Bollywood Day, during which we watched several musical numbers from recent Bollywood movies and ate three kinds of chutney. That professor is still one of the best people I’ve ever known.

    2. diaryofamadeditor +15

      I did not know that 2 British novels counted as World Lit… My World Lit could have been called, “Anything But Brit Lit.”

      1. citizenchristy +8

        It was balanced out by Candide, Notes from the Underground, A Doll’s House, and a bonkers Italian play called Six Characters in Search of an Author, plus a closing unit on Persepolis.

      2. Turnip Truck +18

        Sure, rule out Forster, but Salman Rushdie was born in Mumbai of Indian parents, so a little harsh to confine him strictly to “British Literature.”

  9. goonerkate +21

    This is everything. I love Bollywood so much!!! Also, I have watched at least 3 Bollywood movies entirely about cricket, (including one with people learning how to play cricket!) and I still do not remotely understand what is happening in any given moment of a cricket match. It is the most confusing sport in the world.

    1. neuromanticism +25

      My introduction to cricket was through the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. As far as I’m aware, the actual point of cricket is that confused earthlings are performing a cargo cult-like ceremony to prevent evil robots from destroying the universe, except the bumbling humans accidentally made everything completely nonsensical and assume they’re having fun to explain to themselves why they’re doing it. Seems reasonable to me.

      Snooker, I think, must have been invented by the evil robots themselves.

      1. jimmyjimjimjim +8

        …
        …
        also I mean, cricket is actually pretty simple. It’s not like britain’s culture is constantly bastardized as a way to dimish them or anything but still I feel weird about acting like two guys running back and forth until some one retrieves the ball is craaaazy sport. Cricket is simpler than the offsides rule in soccer.

        1. goonerkate +7

          Eh, I’m a big soccer fan and understand offsides just fine. I still get lost watching cricket. The running back and forth is fine, but there are the wicket things and the scoring is confusing and I’m not sure how long the games go, but they seem incredibly long (can be over several days, right?). I think it’s just what someone is exposed to their entire life. And wow, definitely not trying to bastardize or insult anyone’s culture.

          1. chaarulatha +3

            there are 3 hour cricket matches called 20-20’s and then one days and then test matches which last for five days. the game is not that complicated either, but the terminology usually scares people away. Just watch a few matches, know the most basic rules and you’ll get the hang of it easily.

          2. jimmyjimjimjim +7

            Look the British empire was fucking enormous and awful. They’re still a G8 country. At least 500 years before anyone should be concerned with cultural sensitivity towards Britain. Which is why I opened with a video making fun of cricket.

            I’m not even British or anything, just an American that has read the wikipedia page and seen a couple movies. It’s just that “cricket is impenetrable” as a meme always feels very much in kind to me with “oh look at those wacky _____ and their crazy (festival|game|celebration|cuisine|clothes) isn’t their culture so *colorful*”.

          3. jimmyjimjimjim +3

            Also FIFA has to re write the offside rule guidelines every decade or so because even they don’t understand it.

    3. tragicallyludicrous +9

      I did a study-abroad in London through my university and one of the English professors there tried to teach our group how to play cricket. Not only were we all Americans who had never heard of the game, we were literature students who had never played any sport since childhood. It was…not a huge success.

      I guess you try and hit the ball so it doesn’t touch the stick things?

    4. irenarowley +20

      100% of my understanding of cricket comes from reading Murder Must Advertise. Solely on this basis, I act smug when other Americans talk about how difficult cricket is to follow.

    5. saraallain +2

      I once watched a whole cricket match with a New Zealander helpfully narrating so that I understood what was happening. I still didn’t understand it.

      I’m sure if I watched a few matches and really paid attention, I would get it. It’s just not particularly similar to the sports that I have personal experience with (hockey, soccer, even baseball). The terminology is probably as confusing as hockey terminology is to someone from a non-ice-sports country. What I’m saying is: sports! What even are they.

    1. jimmyjimjimjim +26

      I mean to be fair I assume cricket was a metaphor for imperialism before film was even invented.

  11. j_bird +28

    is this what it’s like to be named becky

    Nah, then there are at least eighteen of you in any given one of your school classes.

  12. Chase +55

    The only appropriate response to a joke from a man is a scornfully raised eyebrow

    Ps Jaya *what* a post to begin your official reign!! More Bollywood please!!

  13. brujaja +10

    Is this an appropriate place to tell everyone to watch Gulaab Gang if they haven’t already seen it? It’s on Netflix.

    I’ve been spending my evenings watching a fair amount of Bollywood while my partner is at home in India for the month.

    Although I don’t know I’ve done myself any favors by feeding my imagination plenty of overly dramatic family responses to love marriages.

    1. jimmyjimjimjim +12

      ooh, wikipedia says it’s a svelte 2 hours. Recommendation noted.

      SIDE NOTE: not at all pleased with hollywood making all movies 75 hours long now. At least India has the decency to take a break halfway through and show us some unrelated music videos.

      1. brujaja +3

        Gulaab Gang is def a quicker watch than many movies! Although there is way more violence than I expected. To be fair, though, I tend to shy away from movies I know all have much violence, so my threshold is fairly low.

    2. lilotelasserie +7

      The families usually come in around in the end! After your brothers/angry men from the town beat the crap out of your partner and your father sees that they are willing to withstand any beating or torment because of their love for you! Actually, I’m not sure that’s an upside…?

      1. brujaja +4

        Yeah, I was thinking more of the decades long family estrangement, but physical violence is also not something I’d like to include as a potential outcome. Good thing my dad is a total sweetheart and I don’t have brothers!

    1. Iambe +10

      THIS IS AMAZING. Seriously, it may actually be the One True Best Thing Ever. I will be singing “ROFL ROFL ROFL LMAO” with qawwali hand gestures (mujras?) for the rest of the day. THANK YOU.

    2. Heathered +10

      Oh! I had forgotten about this and it is SO GREAT! Many unsleeping hours spent humming “Rofl-a, rofl-a, rofl-a, lmao” after I saw it and fully cracking up in bed.

  15. thebellewitch +28

    Oh god, “three and a half hours is a totally reasonable amount of time for a story just gave me “I Never Finished Lagaan” anxiety.

    1. livingindialogue +8

      Oh I love Lagaan! I love the resolution of the love triangle (such as it is), and I love the song “Mitwa.” Even so, I can only talk myself into re-watching it about every five years, because of the length. On the other hand, it’s the only Bollywood movie I’ve been able to talk myself into re-watching, even though lots of the others have Shahrukh Khan in them.

      1. thebellewitch +3

        It was so good, but I wouldn’t have a clue as to the resolution because I took a break halfway through about 10 years ago and that break is still ongoing. I lost Lagaan momentum.

        1. livingindialogue +9

          I was referring to the helpful and beautiful Englishwoman who falls in love with the hero, and the outcome of that being entirely consistent with the anti-imperialism theme of the movie. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another movie where that happens.

    2. builtahouse +8

      I made an entire group of friends watch Lagaan on a *dorm lounge TV* and I don’t know if they’ve forgiven me yet.

      I occasionally get, “remember when you made us watch that movie about cricket? It was like a million years long?”

      (but yes, it’s so worth finishing.)

    3. chaarulatha +4

      they show Lagaan on tv here every Independence day and me and most of my family watches it every year. I’m kinda surprised about people here not even finishing it once. it’s probably the intervals in the middle? like, theatres in US have no break even for a 3 hour movie, which just seems crazy to me

  16. chaarulatha +38

    there was this Bollywood movie I watched ages ago and it’s like a romance movie and the hero’s name is Prem? does anyone know which one that is?

  17. bighairnoheart +24

    There are 14 women in your life you call “auntie” and you’re not sure if any of them is actually your Aunt.

    Oh god. Why didn’t I realize it earlier? I demand more musical numbers in my life. At least one per auntie and uncle.

      3. grumblyqueer +3

        Any immigrants, I think. Whenever I used to visit the tiny uber-Slav town my grandpa immigrated to, my policy is “everyone is either a cousin or expects to be treated like one.”

  18. chaarulatha +47

    the heroine doesn’t like the hero but he stalks her for a month or two and then they dance and then they get married

    nosy asshole aunties ruin your rendezvous with Prem

    you’re singing a song in a garden and you start to kiss Prem, and flowers immediately spring up to cover your lips locking to protect your sanskaar

    1. rituleenreads +12

      You MUST protect your sanskaar at all costs
      Be it with flowers
      or your veil
      or weird neck to nose caresses

  19. Iambe +20

    You fell down the stairs, dramatically. If you survive, you find out it’s because you are <bold>were</bold> pregnant.

    FTFY. You are alive, but you have suffered a miscarriage and also can never, ever have children biologically again, forcing your devoted husband into the arms of an inexplicably bubbly Indo-Swiss prostitute so that his family’s name will not die out. You are fully in favor of this.

    1. akshatwoodhouse +2

      If you are going to go down this road, please do it “chori chori, chupke chupke.” 😉

  20. builtahouse +17

    I love how Rab Na Bana Di Jodi is soooo many of these.

    I will be forever grateful for the small Northwestern Indiana library system with a large enough Indian population that multiple libraries had a BOLLYWOOD SECTION in their movies section, like “Fiction – Alphabetical”, “Non-Fiction”, “Bollywood.”

    This is how my little brothers learned who Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai, Kajol, Rani Mukherjee, all the Bachchans, and several Kapoors were.

  21. ceaashurst +6

    You mime everything – you are either pretty or sing. All the top actors mime a la Beijing Olympics or the Meatloaf video where it wasn’t the singer. Great for self esteem

  22. daisymerolling +15

    Things that make me happy:
    The by line for this article
    the article
    the srk
    the little staff icon of Jaya
    more srkajol pls

  23. builtahouse +29

    The plotline of your life is SUSPICIOUSLY SIMILAR to a Western blockbuster, but all violent, gross, or sad bits have been sanitized.

  24. Camille +63

    You and your guy perform all kinds of suggestive pelvic thrusting moves at each other but never, ever, EVER kiss on the lips.

  26. Sulagna Misra +20

    If it’s pre-2008, you visit London, New York, Paris, or some other absurdly expensive city for school or work without worrying about the expense.

    If it’s post-2008, you only visit if you’re an NRI or through marriage.

    Also…aren’t the “cottage” houses usually because of joint families — grandparents, cousins, and uncles and aunts living in one house?

  27. annie +15

    There are fifty billion extras in the background of every single scene, making Western movies look oddly desolate in comparison.

  28. keythah +29

    Theory: Falling down the stairs in Bollywood is the same as vomiting in Hollywood w/r/t pregnancy.

    Discuss.

  29. xTinsel +33

    “Life is but a series of increasingly dramatic decisions made in the rain.”
    I can’t stop cackling at this one.

  30. leslieellenjones +10

    This, I think, is the place to admit that (one of) my annual Christmas movie(s) is Karan Arjun, starring SRK and Salman Khan as (initially) two too-sweet-for-this-world boys who are murdered at the behest of their venal uncle (Amrish Puri, natch) and are then reincarnated as two tough but unrelated boys (who still look exactly like SRK and Salman) who eventually wreak bloody revenge. With much dancing. And Kajol. I don’t know why I find it so particularly satisfying at Christmas time.

    Come to think of it, the motifs of reincarnation and doppelgangers is not adequately covered in this article, though they probably require while articles of their own. And nagas. Nagas rule.

  31. balaustine +5

    “Life is but a series of increasingly dramatic decisions made in the rain.”

    RIGHT?! It’s a wonder I haven’t gently wasted away from pneumonia, a la a Victorian heroine, but then I’d be in the wrong article.

  33. Keridee +4

    When the time for the dance number hits, every rule of practicality and some principles of Newtonian physics will be tabled. You will be dressed in daily attire in the beginning, but later decked out in a sari and joined by a platoon of dancers with perfect choreography. There may be random explosions. Your outfit will change at least three times.

  36. scritchproductions +6

    You go for an unexplained, seemingly unplanned sudden group holiday to Europe, even though visas are notoriously difficult to get for Indians, with a man who may or may not be romantically interested in you, but you both sing and dance with each other across the Alps and while walking along cobbled city streets. At some point during the song you will fall in love. But the song ends and your visa also expires.

  37. Scritch

    You go for an unexplained, seemingly unplanned sudden group holiday to Europe, even though visas are notoriously difficult to get for Indians, with a man who may or may not be romantically interested in you, but you both sing and dance with each other across the Alps and while walking along cobbled city streets. At some point during the song you will fall in love. But the song ends and your visa also expires.

  38. torrent links +3

    You were abandoned by your parents as a child and yet, as an adult, you don’t recognize your own mother, even though you were like 9 when you were abandoned so definitely old enough to remember what your mother looked like.

  44. Katrina maceuri +1

    I love Bollywood very much. I watched Every day 2 Bollywood movies , and my favorite actor is : deepika padukone, Priyanka Chopra, Kareena Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Shahrukh Khan, Kajol, Akshay Kumar, Actually, I loved them all.