Bollywood...

Bollywood. Wow. Last night I went to a local cinema here in Johdpur with some friends from Barcelona Daphne & Raphael. So funny. The plot best I understood it was kind of a Natural Born Killers meet's Bonnie and Clyde substitute the ultra-violence for ultra-crazy musical dance numbers. It was so cheesy it was hilarious. The costumes were completely ridiculous. Scenes like the main male lead riding on the front of a train through the desert in northwest India humping the air and singing this crazy hindu disco song. The best. the cinema photography and lighting was actually pretty nice in a lo-fi primitive way. I've got to find a place to rent these in the city. It was also a very strange experience going to the theatre. Several people outside warned us it was in hindi, that we wouldn't understand but seemed entertained that we were there. At intermission, the film was three hours long, a couple of cool young kids came up and asked how we liked the film, what country are yo from sir... It was funny to because the bad guy was so obviously ripping off Al Pacino. I said that to the kid and he told us Al Pacino was that guys favorite actor and, the father of the lead character was a total Indian Dustin Hoffman. Interestingly the theatre was all men except for maybe one or two women and, when the female lead worked her dance moves, they all whistled and cheered very loudly. My deli guy Prakash in East Village told me there's a theatre in midtown that shows all Bollywood films. Check it out. Yesterday afternoon I visited this old fortress here in Johdpur. It was pretty spectacular complete with cannonball holes.









I think I got some nice pictures up there and in the market later in the afternoon. My friend Raphael told me a funny story last about an experience in Delhi. He and Daphne came upon this guy on the street who had a small table set up. In his broken english he asked them if they were interested in his services. He had a comment book and looked like a sort of holy man, not sure what the guy was selling they read some comments from his book. One said, "I didn't know what I had inside". Another, "It took some convincing but, he did a really great job". "What does this guy do?" says Raphael. Turns out the guy was an ear cleaner. I guess it's sort of common here to include on a daily list, trip to the market, post office, haircut, and a good deep earcleaning on the streets of Dehli. I'm off to the used bookstore. I'm devouring bad detective novels.

dylan