My Name is Salt

I generally tend to avoid documentaries about the poor in India; often their lives are abject, harsh by our own standards and without hope. Perhaps this attitude of mine is inherited from my parents who would usually not watch programmes about India, possibly not wanting to be reminded of the country they had left behind.  TV programmes about, for example, Mother Teresa in Calcutta were inevitably shunned in our household.  I did however enjoy Born Into Brothels, an award-winning documentary set in Calcutta.

Despite my misgivings I arrived at the ICA with an open mind and was richly rewarded.  “My Name is Salt”, promoted by the Doc House, is a documentary about salt farmers in the Kutch Desert in Gujarat. I also wonder if my negative viewpoint was influenced by knowing that Soviet dissidents were often sent to salt mine gulags in Siberia.

Each year for about 8 months, outside monsoon season, 40,000 people arrive from their villages to harvest salt. The director Farida Pacha spent 3 years trying to produce the documentary and together with her cinematographer Lutz Konermann spent 60 shooting days with a family of salt farmers living with them in basic accommodation.

The opening sets the scene for the audience’s interaction with the documentary. A truck arrives – of the kind many of us have seen in India, brightly coloured with “Horn Please” emblazoned on the back – and begins unloading. Slowly but surely a small settlement is “built” of sack covered simple shacks, and the protagonist family have brought almost everything with them, from beds, to cooking equipment.  There is no narrator, no voiceover. You are your own silent narrator making sense of your observations. Just occasionally conversations, in Gujarati I think, are rendered in subtitles. The family we are following is a couple, with 4 children, a teenage boy and girl, and a younger boy and girl, together with an older man. We are not told whether he is an uncle perhaps or the father of one of the couple.

Immediately the family starts to dig a large hole close to their “home”. Without any knowledge of salt farming one wonders if the salt is below ground. Then it becomes clear: a crude pump has been buried, together with plastic and rubber piping. The pump is cleaned and fired into life. Water is pumped from underground into eight salt pans: small lakes of water, perhaps 200 by 200 feet each. Clearly it is the salt pans that are now the family’s main focus. Mounds of soil are built up to ensure no water can escape.

At face value salt farming seems so simple. Flood the salt pans, wait for the water to dry, crystals are produced, and the salt harvested. Lorries are loaded, the family is paid, they pack up and go back to their village to return the next season. But life is never so simple.

The potential problems mount up: the pump fails, and the father spends hours repairing it with parts kept one imagines over many years. A couple of salt pans fail to crystallize on time, and the family spend days it seems carefully treading the pans to compact the salt. Four members of the family tread almost as a ritual dance. And always the concern about the costs of the oil used to power the pump. The problems and issues would bind together most families but it seems there is little communication. During the Q&A Pacha is asked why there were not more scenes of interaction between husband and wife, and she answers almost brutally that few couples in India communicate. Despite the lack of communication the family does seem to work well together. There are bonds between the parents and children.  But what comes over mostly is the meticulousness of the work and in particular the patriarch's dedication. He is painstaking and perfectionist in his attention to detail, fixing the pump, seeking advice from other farmers, giving detailed instructions to family members.

In the midst of the stresses that perhaps most farmers face in one form or another there are further glimpses into their lives. Teenage boys from various settlements signal each other with mirrors; one thinks they are playing games but soon children from other settlements arrive with rucksacks, and then school for maybe 15 children begins under the aegis of a teacher in what appears to be a dedicated “building”. The children seem happy and playful. Later the whole family are dressing up, the patriarch shaving carefully, the girls and mother putting on jewellery and getting their hair braided. Are they heading to a wedding? A 3 wheel truck arrives to take the family to a nearby fair. Prayers are said, small trinkets are bought. It is a welcome distraction from the worries of the salt harvest.

There is very little of the modern world that encroaches on their lives. I wonder how if the desert is flooded each monsoon the family finds their way back to the same place each year. The father has a mobile phone, perhaps used very sparingly, but it is often the conduit for bad news; the unseen salt trader, to whom the salt is sold, needs updates and demands to know when the salt will be ready. The trader seems to ignore any problems the family has most notably the costs of the oil which will eat into the family’s profits. Pacha revealed in the Q&A that the family would make £2,000 or Rs2 lakh in a good year. In a bad year they would be indebted to the salt trader.  It’s not clear whether the family has another productive life in their village in the other 4 months of the year or that they live merely to farm salt.



The camerawork and cinematography in My Name is Salt are outstanding; one is almost in the desert with the family, and the intimacy of the family is portrayed without emotion. One gets a great sense of the scale of the desert and the isolation, particularly at night. The family and their nearby neighbours are alone.  Pacha describes the film as “honouring what they (the family) are doing”.

My Name is Salt is the best kind of entertainment and education: one that has you asking for more, demanding and questioning. One doesn’t pity the family but admires their fortitude, endeavour, will to get on in difficult circumstances.  Pacha said she did not want the film to be polemic and in that she succeeds; the film celebrates the salt farmers but does not blame anyone for their plight. My Name is Salt is an astonishing, compelling film marking, for me at least, a positive change in perceptions of Indian documentaries.

The Lunchbox - a review

My father was a chartered accountant.  He (like my mother) had left school at 14 in wartime Liverpool to work as an office clerk after his own father died of cancer.  From there he took his accountancy exams and eventually – through hard work and talent - became Chief Accountant at an insurance company in the City of London.  In another era and more auspicious family circumstances, he almost certainly would have gone to university and perhaps studied the history and classics he was so interested in.  Instead he was self-educated, with our house filled with the hundreds of books he bought throughout his life – along with a half-started, never completed, Open University course in classics.

But towards middle age, the responsibility of being the breadwinner and commuting to London and back from the suburbs every day took its toll and he had a weariness about him.  He suffered a heart attack in his early 50s but recovered reasonably well.  Only a few years later, however, six months after taking early retirement to have more time developing his interests, he died suddenly in his sleep of another heart attack at the age of 58.

Saajan Fernandes (played by Irrfan Khan) in the film ‘The Lunchbox’ reminded me of my father.  He is an accountant approaching retirement in the claims department of a Mumbai office, surrounded by piles of papers and files.  His wife has died and each day he takes the crowded train to and from the office, lunchtimes spent eating alone and evenings spent alone on his balcony, away from the chatter of family life.  He has that air of world weariness, a lifetime of dutiful employment – steady, reliable but resigned to a humdrum and lonely existence.

Each day his lunch is delivered in a tiffin box by one of Mumbai’s feated dabbawalas – whose efficiency and accuracy in the meal delivery service has been studied by Harvard business school.  One day, however, a one-in-a-million mistake is made and instead of his usual delivery, he is given a superior, but wrong lunch intended for the husband of Ila (played by Nimrat Kaur).  Ila’s days are taken up looking after her young daughter, cooking and household chores and occasionally visiting her mother, who is caring for her father dying of lung cancer.  She is lonely too, in a loveless marriage with an indifferent husband she suspects is having an affair.  ‘Auntie’ is a companion of sorts – an older woman who lives in the flat upstairs, who we meet in the film only as the disembodied voice offering advice and assistance to Ila in conversations through the open window.

Ila realises that her lunch she had prepared had been wrongly delivered when the tiffin box is returned empty for once.  She decides to include a note in the next lunch, believing it will be delivered again to the same wrong person.  When it is returned with a return note in the tiffin box, a correspondence starts between these two lonely individuals.  Slowly, each reveals more about their life to the other and a friendship of sorts develops.

I loved and was captivated by this film.  Directed by Ritesh Batra, it is a departure from the Bollywood classic combination of romance, music and dance with its realism and low key detailing of ordinary lives.  There are many resonances and themes within the story itself.  Food becomes a medium for connection – and communication when Ila gets her own back by making the meal too spicy as ‘punishment’ for Saajan’s previous complaint of a meal being too salty.    Each character has their own loss: Ila’s brother had died in an accident and her terminally ill father eventually dies.  Saajan has lost his wife and his over-eager trainee Shaikh (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is an orphan, having lost both his parents.

The women in the film are seen as defined and limited by their caring and domestic roles: Ila as a young mother and housewife and Ila’s mother in caring for her terminally ill father – her mother confessing that she found him ‘disgusting’ in the last few years of his life.  Even ‘Auntie’ upstairs has been caring for her husband who has been in a coma for many years.

But we see the old bureaucratic India – in Saajan’s paper-filled and computer-less office – being replaced by a faster, brasher city, with Shaikh - Saajan is supposed to train as his replacement - having blagged his way into the job he is not really qualified to do.  The old-fashioned communication by letter allows space and suspense in a way today’s instant email and texts do not.  Saajan’s young replacement defies the social norms and lives with his girlfriend as her father had not approved of their marrying (a ‘love’ match rather than the traditional arranged marriage).  Even Saajan finds himself awkwardly referring to Ila as his ‘girlfriend’ for want of a better word.

When my father started work in the City of London in the early ‘60s it was still a world of bowler hats and starched collars.  It was very much a gentleman’s club with business still conducted on a personal level, based on agreements and trust. My father could still be mostly assured of catching the same train from London Bridge each day to get him home in time for tea at 6pm – prepared by a mostly stay-at-home wife.  The ‘Big Bang’ of the 80s brought in 24 hour world markets, faster impersonalised dealing in a globalised world with deals conducted anonymously via computer screens - the old-school city gentlemen left marginalised and bewildered as they were pushed aside by youthful testosterone, female ambition and bravado.

‘The Lunchbox’ has this same sense of the quiet decay of the old order – but one that also beckons at possibilities and lives beyond the quiet loneliness of both Saajan and Ila – as their tiffin box correspondence allows them to hope for more.

A beautiful and deeply touching film.

Chennai Express

The only time I have ever walked out of a film was 5 minutes into a Hindi film in Southall when I realised there were no subtitles. Luckily my Hindi speaking companion was sympathetic. Even now I am rather tense watching the first moments of a Hindi film until the subtitles appear on the screen. I bring this up because had Sue suggested we leave at the interval I would have been out of my seat like a shot. I think we stayed partially because we were already there and, for me, to see if the second half could be worse than the first.

Chennai Express is one of the fastest grossing Bollywood films of all time. It’s already a member of the 300 Crore Club ($48m) worldwide, one of only four films to do so, and broke box office records in the weekend of its release in India. While the public have flocked to the film the critics, both in India and abroad (the film was released worldwide almost simultaneously) have not been so impressed.

So to the movie: Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan (SRK)) is the scion of a well-to-do sweet seller’s family in Mumbai, raised by his grandparents after his parents’ deaths. After an indulgent and spoilt childhood Rahul (SRK) is seemingly prevented from meeting women because he’s so committed to his grandparents and the business. At the time of his grandfather’s death Rahul is planning a “boys’ “ weekend in Goa but plans are complicated by having to dispose of the ashes near Chennai. Getting on the Chennai Express Rahul helps a running woman, Meenamma (played by Deepika Padukone) onto the train, but finds she is pursued by a number of non-Hindi speaking brutish men. Then Rahul finds they are her father’s henchmen who have found her after she ran away. Some comedic moments follow with lyrics from songs from SRK’s films changed to confuse the Tamil speakers. But escape attempts are futile and they arrive at her father’s “territory” and Rahul finds he is a local underworld chief who has promised his daughter to a friend’s gigantic son, Thangaballi. Rahul and Meenamma escape spending time at another local village, are found and escape, but Rahul returns to the mafia village to fight the brutish Thangaballi. Rahul says he fights for the “common man”. Love conquers all and her father accepts Rahul as her husband.

The first half was fairly pacey establishing Rahul as restricted by family issues, a familiar theme in Bollywood. But that was just to set the scene. The “boys” again were just thrown in for effect. The Hindi songs bastardised on the train were an in-joke taken from SRK’s previous films – along with a number of other references to other Bollywood films (Dilwale Dulhania le Jayenge; My Name is Khan; Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara; Khabi Khushi Khabie Gham). But beyond that there was very little characterisation, particularly of Meenamma. There were hints of racism - Indians are racist too - in the portrayal of the darker South Indians as large unintelligent brutes. There were a couple of dance numbers in the first half but they were simplistic dances and songs, often childish and facile.

The second half was actually a bit better, but that’s not saying much. A couple of the dance numbers, particularly set on the South’s tea estates, were actually quite entertaining. A car chase followed but for someone raised on Bond and Bourne the chase was fairly tame. But then a quite brutal fight scene between Rahul and Thangaballi.

None of the characterisation was strong. Rahul’s invocation of the “common man” was quite unexpected, and the love between Rahul and Meenamma was just not believable, certainly not compared to some of the couples in SRK’s previous films.

The hints of racism were added to by confusion between Hindi and Tamil, and just made one very uncomfortable. In addition, a scene when Rahul is on the run and comes across a man with dwarfism and a speech impediment is meant as a comic interlude partially but is gratuitously exploiting a dwarf and added nothing to the plot. But the Hindi speaking families behind us found it quite amusing.

The film also featured pure unreconstructed sexism of the type ingrained in Indian culture, but also of the type you hoped an international Bollywood film might manage to transform a little. Instead, we had a fairly assertive Meenamma on the run from an arranged (perhaps forced) marriage to Thangaballi, being captured and brought back to her domineering father by his henchmen. She seems to have no choice but to go through with the marriage to her father’s chosen partner before Rahul comes to her rescue. Rahul eventually ‘wins’ and is granted his chosen bride by Meenamma’s father – but only after the classic punch-up between the two would-be grooms over who gets the ‘girl’. Despite her feistiness, and constant attempts to escape, Meenamma returns to the passive bystander while the men fight over who gets to marry her. Hardly a promising role model for a 21st century woman – one in control of her own destiny - in whatever country – or indeed for her father or potential husband.

Brought up on the best of modern Bollywood and starring SRK we were expecting a lot better both in terms of the plot, songs and dances. The racism, sexism and casual treatment of the dwarf detracted considerably from the film. We didn’t find the comedy scenes funny at all – perhaps something was lost in translation.  If the film was meant as a parody of your classic Bollywood romance or Tamil action movie, then it wasn't a very good one and the in-jokes and references may well have been lost on an international audience. We do wonder if Bollywood tries too hard to combine what would normally be separate genres in its films from rom-com, to thriller to social commentary, and this was just a step too far.

Sue and I both evinced some concern for SRK’s continuing career. As we have noted before despite the fact he is good shape he can’t continue to play action roles, dance, and play the romantic partner of an actress in her 20s. Bollywood doesn’t appear to have the range of genres and movies that would be available to a leading actor of SRK’s age in Hollywood. But with SRK’s star power he can surely mould the industry to suit himself. Perhaps his wife’s involvement as a producer of Chennai Express skewed his judgement. Almost incidentally SRK and Padukone appeared on breakfast television in the UK, Daybreak, to help publicise the film. But the appearance was cringeworthy; the presenter had no idea that she was in the presence of a movie superstar, nor about the Indian film industry.

Overall 1 out of 5 and that’s mainly for the rather expensive popcorn we devoured.

 

Kolkata Street Food Experience

Last Monday evening was cold and wet. I was tired and Susen was limping around as he had somehow injured his foot the day before. If I hadn’t already had paid good money for tickets to the ‘Kolkata Street Food Experience’ it would definitely have been a curl up under the duvet in front of the TV-type evening. Instead we found ourselves in the streets around Brixton (slightly off my radar these days) looking for an old railway arch housing the ‘Whirled Cinema’ beneath it. We eventually located it down an alleyway behind a parking lot and I think if I hadn’t had Susen’s company I might have thought better of walking down there. Despite his hobbling and injured foot, he represented some sort of male protection, however illusory.

[caption id="attachment_431" align="alignleft" width="225"] Angus in action at his stall[/caption]

Stairs led up to the small cinema (hired out for private use) which had been transformed into a hippy wonderland with kitsch Indian-style signs, fairy lights and garlands of flowers. The inspiration behind all this is Angus Denoon and his roving street food stall ‘The Everybody Love Love Jhal Muri Express’. Street food is the new big thing, though nowhere near approaching the range in the US (or indeed Kolkata or Bangkok).

Angus Denoon writes on his website (streetfoodkolkata.com) that he first made jhal muri when asked to make a dish from Kolkata where he had been filming the street food there. He made jhal muri – a type of Indian snack food – as it involved no cooking and was relatively easy to mix together the assembled ingredients. He then began selling it from a converted, decorated supermarket trolley but has since moved slightly more upmarket with a van. Versions of this exist all over India: jhal muri is the Bengali name (similar to, but not quite the same, I am told, as the more widely known bhel puri). Years ago, I used to buy take away cartons of a similar kind of chaat (snack) in Manchester. Although it was more papri chaat (papri wafers, boiled potato, chick peas with yoghurt, tamarind chutney, fresh coriander and sev), I loved the flavours, especially of tamarind and coriander – similar to those in jhal muri. Jhal muri is a mixture of puffed rice, sev, nuts, chopped onion, cucumber, lime juice, spices, tamarind chutney and fresh coriander – usually mixed together freshly to order in a bowl, then served in a paper cone with a spoon. When I first knew Susen, he made me a version from his childhood, when it was more difficult to get hold of Indian ingredients. It consisted of rice krispies, chopped cucumber and peanuts mixed together – interesting, but not quite authentic. [Last year the new Quality Foods Indian supermarket in Hounslow also had a stall selling bhel puri and pani puri: a real rival for Angus’s Jhal Muri Express, although lacking the colourful signs].



But back to Monday evening. There were 4 stalls in all serving as many snacks as you wanted. As well as Angus’s jhal muri stall, there was one with a mixture of sev, red lentil dhal, onions, tamarind, coconut, lime juice, garam masala, chaat masala and coriander – served on a leaf-type plate. At first glance, a strange combination but actually very good. Another stall had pani puri (gol goppa) – stuffed with potato and chutney but lacking the cumin water that really makes it explode with taste in your mouth. Finally, a stall with lassi, chai and a sweet snack mixture of Gujarati sweet dumplings in mango lassi with lime juice. Not a combination I had come across before – but then it was apparently one of Angus’s inventions.

Looking around, the audience was mainly white English, probably fairly young, educated – I could see myself back in the 80s in my soul-searching, travelling, back-packing days trying to find some meaning in life beyond the office blocks and insurance companies of the Croydon suburb where I grew up. We spotted only one other man of Indian origin, although the woman serving on the lassi and chai stall said her mother – although English - had grown up in Kolkata as her family were working out there.

Once everyone had been fed – probably around 150 people at this point, which felt more like a small private party – time for the film. Filmed and edited by Angus himself after several trips to Kolkata, ‘Street Food Kolkata – the Film’ was a delight. Starting with dawn breaking and the city slowly waking up, it films the various stallholders cooking, with the story told by the people who make the food and those who eat it. The lack of commentary meant the focus was entirely on the food, the cooking and people themselves, with an inspired music soundtrack by Larry Lush. The vendors showed amazing skill, ingenuity, resilience and sheer hard work in producing cheap and nutritious food to sell on the streets: ranging from luchis (fried rotis), shingaras (Bengali samosas) to biryani, Chinese noodles and sweet jilapi (jelabi in Hindi). Their skill, dexterity and entrepreneurship would rival some of the top restaurants and businesses in London. The marketplace is extremely competitive – one commented that if they don’t make tasty food, they will not be in business very long.

Food is also cheap, even by Kolkata standards. One tour guide filmed said a plate of food would only cost around 17–20 Rs (around 20–25p). You might criticise the lack of hygiene or health and safety – but the other side is that there, people are earning a living for themselves producing the food and feeding nutritious food to poor people who could not otherwise afford to eat (or have the means to cook for themselves). By contrast, here in the UK the poorest people – instead of having access to cheap and nutritious food cooked on street stalls – are at the mercy of the large supermarkets or fried burger / chicken take-aways. It is possible to eat cheaply and well in the UK if cooking for yourself, but it requires resolve and motivation to resist the temptation of empty calories or cheap offers in supermarkets, together with culinary skill (social / cultural capital) that poorer and socially disadvantaged people might lack. In the UK finding good prepared food is a much harder task, leading to malnutrition and obesity when there is limited choice.

Customers for street food in Kolkata, however, did seem to come from all walks of life – both male and female, English speaking – though perhaps their choices are selective, depending on who they trusted or the type of food.

And so we left the streets of Kolkata and hippy grotto under the railway arch, back onto the wet and rainy streets of Loughborough Junction and Brixton – another exploration in itself, with Brixton’s African and Caribbean influences and a whole other world within London.

Further links:

http://eat.st

British Street Food Awards

Angus Denoon's blog

Midnight's Children

My very yellowed and battered copy of ‘Midnight’s Children’ still sits on my bookshelf where it has sat for the past 25 years. I read it when I first went to India, back in 1987 as essential reading for 21 year old backpackers in those days. It, and India, opened up new worlds for me – worlds beyond European Judeo-Christian ordered society, where human life and death, wealth and extreme poverty were lived out on the street, not sanitised by European industrial bureaucracy.

Reading the testimonials on the back cover of my 1982 edition makes you realise just how far Europe and India have come in the past 30 years. It marked Salman Rushdie as a major novelist as the voice of the ‘other’, of the ‘orient’ to start to make itself heard on its own terms in the English speaking world. ‘The literary map of India is about to be redrawn….Midnight’s Children sounds like a continent finding its voice. An author to welcome to world company’ as the New York Times proclaims on the front cover.

The story starts with the birth of independent India, as an exhausted Britain finally took its leave, and the birth of 2 boys at midnight on 14/15 August 1947. One born to a wealthy family, the other to a poor family, eeking out an existence begging for coins in exchange for a song on an accordion. But in some sort of private revolutionary act, the midwife looking after them, Mary Pereira, swaps them - denying the riches due to one, condemning him to a life of poverty (and no mother, as his mother died shortly after the birth) and the other to unexpected wealth.

And so the 2 boys are linked not only to each other but to all the other children born at midnight, at the birth of India. As Rushdie put it, ‘….all over the new India, the dream we all shared, children were being born who were only partially the offspring of their parents – the children of midnight were also the children of the time: fathered, you understand, by history’ (p.118). Saleem Sinai (the now rich boy, played by Satya Bhabha) discovers a shared telepathy in which all the children of midnight, can be conjured up for their very own conference. This included Shiva, the boy whose life he stole and Parvati- the witch with magical powers.

Trying to convey the sweep of history the book covers on screen in less than 2½ hours is difficult and not altogether satisfactory. I don’t know how much the film would have made sense without a prior knowledge of modern history of the Indian sub-continent. Rushdie’s forte lies with weaving together the personal lives of Saleem, Shiva and their families with the political events as the newly born India goes through its own growing pains – through partition and the creation of Pakistan, war in Kashmir, the war with East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh, to Indira Gandhi’s state of emergency, forced sterilisations and the military coup in Pakistan. I was slightly confused with the character of General Zulfikar Ali (played by Rahul Bose) in the film, the army general husband of Emerald Aunty, Saleem’s aunt. In the film, he seemed to be modelled, both in appearance and role, on General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq – the army general who deposed Pakistan's Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a military coup in 1977 (and subsequently had him executed on trumped up murder charges). The swapping of names in the book / film may have been deliberate, though Indira Gandhi had her own name in the film.

There seemed to be some kind of divine fate as Shiva becomes a much respected and decorated soldier following the war with Bangladesh whereas Saleem is reduced to poverty after losing all his family, killed by a bomb on the house. Saleem then marries Parvati-the-witch who is pregnant with Shiva’s child, who he vows to bring up as his own child.

The religious intermingling throughout the film (and book) is sobering, particularly in the light of subsequent world events and Iran’s ‘fatwa’ on Rushdie following the ‘Satanic Verses’. Shiva is born to a (presumably) Hindu mother, fathered by an English colonial, whilst Saleem is Muslim – both swapped at birth by a Christian midwife. Saleem then subsequently marries Hindu Parvati. The film itself was shot in Sri Lanka, as director Deepa Mehta feared protests by both Muslim fundamentalists if shot in Pakistan and Hindu fundamentalists if shot in India. As it was, even in Sri Lanka, filming was temporarily stopped following a complaint from Iran. After the film’s Indian premiere in December 2012, the Indian National Congress complained about the negative portrayal of Indira Gandhi and screenings were stopped – though apparently due to start again next month.

I found the ending poignant, as Saleem makes his way to Bombay and finds Mary Pereira now running a chutney factory. After the idealism and hope of India’s birth, the turbulence and wars of adolescence, Saleem, his son Aadam Sinai (Shiva’s biological son), Sikh father figure Picture Singh and Mary find themselves bonded to each other, connected through circumstance and events that have survived any family or religious ties. They have attained a hard-won maturity, appreciative of the depth and simplicity of human bonds as Saleem embarks on true adulthood, now responsible for his son.

An image that may resonate with many of us, as we reflect back on our own paths and growing pains over the last 30 years. And hopefully one that will now allow India to fully take its place on the world stage, on its own terms.

Jab Tak Hai Jaan (English: As Long as There is Life)

Seemingly for months now, the Indian film listings at Feltham cineworld have seemed to consist mainly of Tamil action or thriller movies which have never quite appealed. Last Sunday, however, we found Jab Tak Hai Jaan in the line up. Directed by the late Yash Chopra (of Veer Zaara fame), starring Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) and music by A.R.Rahman – it was a must. It had already achieved ‘blockbuster’ fame in the overseas market – opening at no.5 in the US and no.4 in the UK, becoming the highest midweek and weekend grossing Bollywood film ever in both countries.

It was a lengthy 3 hours long, so we settled in for the duration armed with diet cokes and popcorn. It started with a tribute to the director Yash Chopra, who sadly had died only weeks before the release of the film. The tribute was in Hindi, no subtitles, so I was slightly anxious the film would carry on in this way – fortunately (for both me and Susen), English subtitles appeared once the film started.

The first scenes were of SRK, playing Major Samar Anand in the Indian Army, a brave bomb disposal expert who refused to wear body armour whilst disabling the bombs. The location was Kashmir – in Pahalgam. This was sad to see, as I backpacked in Kashmir and stayed in Pahalgam back in 1987 – before any particular threat to Westerners and ongoing violence pretty much made it off limits to tourists. Now, the beautiful landscape was just a backdrop to bomb disposal efforts from terrorism in a Bollywood film.

Jumping back in time: Samar is trying to make his way in London. We see him sweeping snow up outside a church, where he first encounters Meera, the inevitable love object. For once, he has not inherited or made vast wealth (at least not initially) and is sharing a very basic flat with a friend (or possibly relative) from Lahore. A welcome reality check to the lives of most average people in London. His success as a fishmonger, however, earns him a job in a restaurant owned by a customer, at which he excels.

But Meera (played by Katrina Kaif, of Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara recent fame), as befits the beautiful heroine, has just graduated cum laude from university and is about to be set up for life – to marry the eligible Roger, her father’s choice - and continue in her father’s successful business. Until she meets Samar that is. Then an interesting twist on the classic Hindi duty-over-love dilemma occurs – where she feels obliged to marry Roger, who is English, (the safe choice and her father’s choice) as compared to Samar, from India, (the exciting but lower class choice). Here, the story is subverted in that the English man is the ‘safe’ choice, whilst the ethnically similar choice is the risky choice. Hence, class is privileged over ethnicity – an observation I have been making for the best part of two decades now.

But a car crash witnessed by Meera makes her do a deal with God: if his life is saved, then she will have nothing more to do with him (a scene reminiscent of ‘The End of the Affair’ based on Graham Greene’s novel). The ambulance scene is so unbelievable – I am being slightly pedantic here in that he is rolled onto the stretcher into the ambulance, despite having a head injury. I am literally crying out in my head ‘put a neck brace on!’ – to no avail.

He lives – and cut to Kashmir where he is prepared to dice with death every day as a bomb disposal officer in the Indian army. Akira appears (played by Anushka Sharma), to make a documentary of his life for Discovery Channel. This again leads to an unbelievable, cringe-worthy dance sequence of his new potential beau – Akira: doing her hip-thrusts in very short shorts with locals joining in the dance sequences. What a conservative local Muslim population must have made of this stick-thin Bollywood actress in shorts and gyrating hips, goodness only knows. I am assuming they were paid for their time and attention.

The plot winds on, fairly predictably – with echoes of Veer Zaara in the long absence, the love relinquished to become reunited decades later. Inevitably, the setting both in London and India will draw audiences from both India and the diaspora. I found myself recognising London backdrops – from Chiswick Park (near where I used to live), Trafalgar Square, Borough Market and Hay’s Galleria (near where I used to work). Man! – if I had known SRK was filming right outside, I would have been straight down there with my pen and autograph book.

Altogether an entertaining 3 hours, though any good editor could have cut it to 2 hours or under without losing meaning. Music was unfortunately forgettable, despite the promise of A.R.Rahman. Some of the scenes were poignant – most notably when Meera meets her mother and her partner (played by Bollywood stalwarts Neetu Singh and Rishi Kapoor) for the first time in 10 years. SRK was good, professional but slightly predictable. It remains to be seen how credibly SRK will continue to be as a man in his later 40s partnering women in their early and late 20s. Overall a 7/10 I think. My son rated it 4-5/10. This might have been because of the love interest and (forbidden) kissing – a real turn-off for pre-teen boys more into video games. Worthwhile, but come on SRK – we are waiting for the next wow factor.