A ticket to ride?

These wonderful words rang in my mind when I read about Andrew Lloyd Webber8217;s musical, Bombay Dreams. How closely must Webber have examined the Hindi film industry about which he has produced a two and half hour, seven million dollar spectacle of English theatre, I wondered. How interested might he have been in how much Bollywood would reveal itself to him, I asked myself.

I couldn8217;t answer these questions first-hand because I haven8217;t seen Bombay Dreams, but from the write-ups I have read about it, I gathered that the production is awesome, the music brilliant and the dances full of adrenaline and thrill. But I also understand, that Bollywood Dreams bound in cliches. That the show that sings about the world of Hindi movies is not much more then a Hindi movie itself 8212; and that too an imitative one. It is filled with the very masala that the West finds exotic as well as silly.

Now this is not too surprising considering the writer and director and lyricist are all English; how could they know about life as it is really lived in Bollywood? Nor is this all-too-common presentation of India an earth-shattering problem 8212; all work and any work done well is a worthy endeavour, especially when there is a kind of collaboration of minds from different shores.

But the only danger, as I see it, is that cliches gain a certain respectability when they are shown by respectable people on such high-profile platforms like these. They become the accepted definitions by which the world views people, so much so that the flesh and blood person who is being flattened into a one-dimensional stock character, himself stops minding it, because he is so mesmerised by the spectacular production, the burst of colour and costumes, the thunder of the sound and the dazzle of the lights. He gazes in awe at his own ridicule!

Of course, I8217;m well aware that the quality of Hindi movies is tantamount to our ridicule as well. Badly written, badly made films regularly offend the viewers but then, if an English musical, considered to be state-of-the-art in entertainment, produced by someone regarded as a legend on Broadway, tells the same story, only dressed up in sparkling technique, we need not fantasise that a new sun has dawned upon the Hindi film industry and the cinema it produces. Now I8217;m certainly not implying that it is an absolute necessity that every work of cinema and theatre must have a social and moral responsibility to do anything more than entertain; that certainly need not be the case. But for us to imagine that suddenly there is a wave of recognition of Indian work abroad looks to me like massively jumping the gun.

8216;The global market8217;, 8216; The international bazaar8217; are the popular phrases bandied about today. But why not? With the world becoming more and more intimate due to the complete colonisation of most nations by satellite television, the playing field is bound to grow for entertainment. If we can watch every game of the World Cup live today in our homes, then it is only natural that many of us would dream of having an Indian team playing there 8212; not just to be a contender in world sports but also to have a stake in world business and trade through our participation.

But does the world want us? By and large, no. Despite what our leaders would have us believe, we don8217;t play such a significant role in the way the world moves. Not militarily, not economically, no great thinkers here today, hardly any visionaries. We may produce the largest number of films in the world, but the West simply does not want them. Yes, the Non-resident Indians spread all over the world get excited over them and the West does want to send its own entertainment to cities here, but for the large part the flow is one-way.

The West does not care about our brand of story-telling and, least of all, our songs. If ever they do, it is out of condescension or for the same reason the English were interested in India in the first place: they find attractive that something here which is not quite civilised, there is something spicy, magical but dark and mysterious! It is we who keep on knocking at their doors, shouting, 8216;8216;See us! Admire us! Or we8217;ll sink into nothingness; we8217;ll be rendered redundant!8217;8217; I don8217;t see why we should do this. I just don8217;t.

Bombay Dreams might well be a rocking experience and may deserve the standing ovations it received despite a low opening, but with the abundant talent and pots of money that was available to it, did it really open a new avenue in the world of entertainment?

My own answer will only come of course when I see it. But the image that comes to my mind is that of my one-year-old niece, looking around anxiously for her mother, who has gone to the kitchen briefly. To stop the little one from crying, I make a lot of noise, contort my face, even do a little jig. All this dazzles her for a few minutes. She gapes at me in amazement and even laughs once. But as soon as the moment passes, her heart starts longing for her mother again and she will settle down only when she is safely in her arms.

I don8217;t feel rejected by this. But I understand that the deepest parts of us get touched only by great emotion, by something that is quieter and unseen, by something that is not only fireworks and orchestra.

It8217;s that something that makes people tick. I think that was 8216;8216;the hidden depth8217;8217; that Imamura was talking about.

The writer is a Mumbai-based filmmaker