How ‘Bollywood’ can make you connect across cultures

As the protagonist slithers the throat of a villain in cold blood, a crowd full of Indian students, erupts in claps. Am watching a film on surgical strikes in a multiplex in New Zealand and perhaps it’s the first time I’ve seen an Indian audience erupt in cheers, while watching a manslaughter, even it is for revenge for the country.

This is a different India, a character in the film blurts out. This is also a different India, that people of Indian origin, who migrated from the country, decades ago, are experiencing through the film. An India — which is technologically advanced. An India — which has an army unparalled, and which is eager to prove itself. An India — which will not keep quiet if attacked. An India — which has sportsmen that beat rivals on their home turf. And an India which can produce cinematography on par with Hollywood.

But it is also an India — as experienced through films such as Simmba, Mulk or Kedarnath, where division between people on religious lines is high as ever, where women safety is a constant issue. And where nationalism runs high in veins.

Many people across the world — who have never travelled to India — experience it first, through its Cinema — whether that’s in Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati, Punjabi, Malayalam, or in any other Indian language. Bollywood especially has done a lot, to dispel the myth of India as a nation of snake charmers. The global audience enjoy the song, dance and action — but also get to experience the various problems that Indians face daily through the ordeals of the film’s characters.

The same multiplex is showing another Hindi movie on another screen.

On the screen — the protagonist portrayed by actor Ranveer Singh talks about the Nirbhaya ccase and the increase in rapes in India every year since 2012, making the official cross 180,000 registered rapes in 2017. He mumbles out the statistics.

This is another India — which people get to experience through Bollywood where corruption is high amongst the netas, where sanitation and women safety are perennial problems.

I see, that there are a few people of Chinese and Causcasian origin, also amongst the audience. This could well be their first Bollywood masala film, and they enjoy the…