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Articles: My Experience | Indian Movies to Foreigners
- Mr. Srikanth Chintala
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On a very calm Wednesday afternoon at work, I was running a tedious experiment on Ford V8 Expedition vehicle. To keep myself awake, I made some instant coffee and turned on the music. 'Ramayya Vastavayya' from Raj Kapoor hits was being played at a very low volume. My new colleague from Iran passed by my room to say bye as he was done for the day. After a few steps forward, he paused for a moment as if something was missed. Actually, the song drew his attention. He returned enthusiastically saying, 'Hey, I knew this Indian song'.
I replied, “Really”?
Yeah! Also, I knew another song. It is from ‘Mera Naam Joker’. Saying this, he increased the volume.
Meanwhile my supervisor who is from Romania seemed to have been disturbed. Hearing his footsteps rushing-in towards my room I instantaneously decreased the volume. He came into the room, went directly towards the player in the corner and increased the volume again. Well, the same thing repeated, such as, I knew this song etc., etc and the discussion followed....blah....blah...blah...
Then they started singing, 'Mera Joota Hai Japani'....and I was blessed with the Iran (Persian) and Romanian versions of the song.
It was not the first time that a foreigner mentioned to me about RK's movies. I knew that RK movies were screened in Russia and England in those days. But I didn't know that they were played in other countries too. When I was working in Florida, I had a similar kind of experience with my colleagues who were from Egypt and Malaysia. The Egyptian colleague even took my CD and made a copy for himself. Back at school, my office roommate from China talked about Raj Kapoor and Ravindranath Tagore. When I was teaching assistant, my student from Mali (Africa) told me that,' My mom and my elder sister loved Indian movies. I remember them even crying during the emotional scenes of Mera Naam Joker'. Back at home, I remember people crying in the theatre watching the movie 'Mathrudevobhava', but, it was a bit difficult to imagine Africans crying while watching Indian movies. It was good to hear about Raj Kapoor and his movies from people who belong to six different countries. There is no doubt that he was a legendary actor, director, producer, and editor. All of my above said friends happened to mention about bollywood movies from Raj Kapoor's days only and none of them had a little clue about present day hindi movies. I am not sure if today's Bollywood movies appeal to foreigners as much as RK's movies did in those days. What do you think?
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