Preview: Shreya Ghoshal at The Royal Albert Hall (Monday 6th May 2013)

Alas we won’t be able to go to this event but given the quality of Indian singers we have seen in London recently I don’t think readers will be disappointed.  We were blown away by Shankar Mahadevan in particular and look forward to his next concert in London.

At the time of writing there only appears to be standing room in the gallery available at the RAH (which has a maximum capacity of c6,000) for Shreya’s concert which must show the latent demand both for her and Indian singers in general. Judging by her Twitter feed (@shreyaghoshal) she seems very excited at the prospect of this concert. On this tour Shreya will also grace Newport in Wales, Manchester and Birmingham.

Shreya Ghoshal is of Bengali birth and background but she was raised in Rajasthan (Susen always seems to find a Bengali connection somewhere - Sue). At about the tender age of 16, following an appearance on an Indian reality show, she sang Aishwarya Rai’s part in Devdas (see my posting Bollywood and Me). Since then Shreya’s sung in many movies and languages and appeared as a judge on a number of Indian shows such as Indian Pop Idol, and sang on one of SRK’s latest movies Jab Tak Hai Jaan (see our review).

If you are fortunate enough to be going to any of her concerts please let us know your thoughts on the website, Twitter and Facebook.

Love is all we need ...in public?

Perhaps I should have been brought up in an Indian family, as my family did not do public shows of affection (nor private shows of affection, come to think of it – at least not between parents and children). I remember my acute embarrassment when I first went on an exchange visit to a French family when I was 14 and was confronted by continental-style 2-cheek kissing everywhere – and expected to join in. Every time you met someone, even someone you didn’t really know, they did the whole ‘mwa! mwa!’ thing on both cheeks (or maybe 3 times in France – you can tell I am out of practice). I was painfully shy and it was way too much for me. On a later visit to the same French family, my French friend had by that time found her first boyfriend. Muggins here found herself in the unenviable position of having to stand a respectable distance away from the happy couple at a Metro station while they embraced and snogged in public for what seemed like ages, while I tried not to look at them in case I stared.

But adolescence came and went, boyfriends came (and went) and I kind of got the hang of it – at least in private. I can just about do holding hands in public and maybe the odd peck on the cheek or perhaps lips but that’s my limit.

I am therefore perfectly happy in a country like India that also does not do public displays of affection – at least not between men and women. Richard Gere famously provoked condemnation when he kissed Shilpa Shetty at an Aids awareness rally in New Delhi in 2007, being accused of ‘insulting’ Indian culture. One of the strangest sights though, on my first visit to India was to see men (presumably just friends, or perhaps not) walking round holding hands, or with their arms around the other’s shoulders – in a way that you would never (at least rarely) see in London. And of course in Bollywood films, you would never see a man and woman actually kissing. You would see the man (eg. Shah Rukh Khan) come tantalisingly within a centimetre of the woman’s mouth before turning away. You could see as much suggestive dancing in wet saris, moving hips and holding each other as you wanted – but no actual kissing.

Susen took some delight in teasing me when we went to Delhi a couple of years ago about how he was going to hold my hand and kiss me in public there – to cries of ‘no way!’ from me. No way was I going to somehow reinforce the stereotype (perhaps receding) of the ‘loose’ Western woman lacking any sense of moral values by virtue of coming from a country where pre-marital sex is the norm.

But it seems that the times may be changing. The New York Times yesterday reported that in India, kisses are on the rise, even in public (link to article here). I must admit that until I read the article, I had completely missed the real significance of Shah Rukh’s last film – Jab Tak Hai Jaan – in that he actually kissed his love interest (Katrina Kaif) for the first time on screen. The sky hasn’t caved in (yet). According to Dr Srivastava, an Indian sociologist quoted in the article, “That kiss was an incredibly important moment, ......Shah Rukh Khan defines what is mainstream. If he does it, it becomes acceptable.”

Parts of the New York Times article made me quite sad. Dr Roy Abraham Kallivayalil, President of the Indian Psychiatric Society said ‘“I don’t tell my wife that I love her …….my father has never in 88 years told me that he loved me. We don’t do that.” Perhaps I am sad because my family didn’t do ‘love’ either – which made me all the more determined to tell my son often how much I love him.

Sad perhaps also because I had in my mind that maybe India was like Victorian Britain – where although public morality might be very conservative, underneath that exterior, it was all going on. But maybe not. According to Dr Sharma, a psychiatrist practising in New Delhi, younger women now are more insistent that their emotional needs are met – which ‘often involves kissing’. Which tends to suggest that kissing was not part of marital intimacy for many couples in the past. Another Dr Kothari (founder of the department of sexual medicine at Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College in Mumbai) said, ‘“For years, most Indian men used sex with their partners as a kind of sleeping pill, and few devoted any time to foreplay……..now, many women are able to ask for what they want.” Thank goodness for that.

Maybe the old maxim of supporters of arranged marriages – ‘marriage first, then love comes after’ does not always work out so well. After all, you are not going to always get it right – many of us would cringe at the thought of having got married to our first boyfriends or girlfriends and still being stuck with them, rather than being able to move on as we have grown and changed.

But it seems India is slowly becoming more liberal – with women becoming more assertive about what they want and (at least among the urban educated) more say in their choice of marriage partner. Ever since seeing Shankar Mahadevan in concert in London last year, I have loved his exuberant and warm-hearted style – and obvious love for his wife. He posts on Facebook about how much he loves her on her birthday and today, for Valentine’s Day he posts ‘Happy Valentines day to all my darlings !!! Love is the greatest power we have !! Spread it :)’

Here here!! So, Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone – don’t forget to tell your nearest and dearest how much you love them and, if you are really daring, give them a kiss in public.

 

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.