"we are like that only"
Mar. 16th, 2002 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fictionalmonsoon wedding.
this movie touched me in ways i cannot even begin to describe.
i have always had mixed feelings about my homeland. i hate it with a passion sometimes, the constraint, the dirt, the heat...and i love it with a part of me that i can't seem to get rid off, no matter how hard i try.
this movie...it captured India...my India with a jubilance that i would never have believed possible. it showed bazaars that i've shopped at, cousins that i had, weddings that i've been too. pounding music that i snicker at, and yet can't help moving to.
it's half in hindi, and half in english, and the hindi bits are subtitled. i think mira nair did a fantastic job in making it accessible and truthful and caricature all at the same time. that takes courage. the subject heading for this post: "we are like that only" appears on the screen, after the credits have all rolled. it's a very typical indianism- (when speaking english, indians tend to put only after every single sentence. and if you all are very very good, perhaps i will do the sentence for you, complete with accent.) at any rate, the statement however is true...we are like that and it's beautiful to me for the first time in a long while.
the movie takes place in a punjabi family rather than a bengali one, so it is not entirely accurate. but a large portion of my family is punjabi by marriage anyway, so i recognized all of it. there's even a nod to this in the film:
"You Punjabi's are so ostentatious"
"And you Bengali's are so pretentious!"
Hee! i know no one's going to get that joke besides me, but still. i guess that's actually part of it. there are so many people i want to show this movie to. for the first time, i think i could actually show them so that they would understand the flavor of where i come from. in all its laughter and exuberant embarrassment.
there was a more serious segment too, one that had me curled up in a ball, sobbing on my mother's shoulder. it was intense, and a little too close to home...but that just made the experience all the more real.
i loved it.
if you're reading this, be warned, i may very well be inflicting this movie on you at some point...
i think i might finally be able to show you what it's like
maybe in some deep sense, what i'm like,
or anyway at least where i come from.
this movie touched me in ways i cannot even begin to describe.
i have always had mixed feelings about my homeland. i hate it with a passion sometimes, the constraint, the dirt, the heat...and i love it with a part of me that i can't seem to get rid off, no matter how hard i try.
this movie...it captured India...my India with a jubilance that i would never have believed possible. it showed bazaars that i've shopped at, cousins that i had, weddings that i've been too. pounding music that i snicker at, and yet can't help moving to.
it's half in hindi, and half in english, and the hindi bits are subtitled. i think mira nair did a fantastic job in making it accessible and truthful and caricature all at the same time. that takes courage. the subject heading for this post: "we are like that only" appears on the screen, after the credits have all rolled. it's a very typical indianism- (when speaking english, indians tend to put only after every single sentence. and if you all are very very good, perhaps i will do the sentence for you, complete with accent.) at any rate, the statement however is true...we are like that and it's beautiful to me for the first time in a long while.
the movie takes place in a punjabi family rather than a bengali one, so it is not entirely accurate. but a large portion of my family is punjabi by marriage anyway, so i recognized all of it. there's even a nod to this in the film:
"You Punjabi's are so ostentatious"
"And you Bengali's are so pretentious!"
Hee! i know no one's going to get that joke besides me, but still. i guess that's actually part of it. there are so many people i want to show this movie to. for the first time, i think i could actually show them so that they would understand the flavor of where i come from. in all its laughter and exuberant embarrassment.
there was a more serious segment too, one that had me curled up in a ball, sobbing on my mother's shoulder. it was intense, and a little too close to home...but that just made the experience all the more real.
i loved it.
if you're reading this, be warned, i may very well be inflicting this movie on you at some point...
i think i might finally be able to show you what it's like
maybe in some deep sense, what i'm like,
or anyway at least where i come from.