In which Alison goes to a Bollywood movie

Yesterday, while eating puri with potato curry in a leaf bowl on the street, I was suddenly transported to Grandpa’s garden, just because they included dill in the sauce, sometime I haven’t tasted since I’ve been here. I don’t have much to report, but I’ve been kind of taking a break from sight-seeing while in Varanasi. The whole place is quite a sight, honestly, and I don’t need to do more than wander in the Old City maze of streets and get myself lost to be totally enthralled. It really is one of the most strangely pleasant cities I’ve been in. I can see why people stay here for months and months.

Last night, though, was very exciting because I went to the movies. The first day I arrived here, I picked up a “friend” on the ghats, who walked me around the different sites telling me again and again, “I’m not guide, won’t take money”. He did take me to see his shop, but I didn’t like anything and he didn’t press me. Since then, I’ve seen him a bunch of times as I’ve been wondering around, and we walk together a bit. Yesterday morning, I mentioned that I wanted to se a movie while I was in India, and he said “Oh, how about tonight?” Since he’d been a perfect gentleman since I’d met him (and was a good 4 inches shorter than I was) I said ok. We met at 5:30, and he said that he was taking me to see “Doom”.

“Nope.” I said, “I’m not seeing Doom, I wanted to see an Indian movie”. “This IS Indian movie!” he said, “It has cheating, and police, and love, and music and dancing!” Since that sounds like no description I had ever heard of “Doom”, I took a chance. We walked the 15 minutes to the theater, and he bought me a ticket for the balcony (the most expensive and nicest area, he told me). The movie was actually called “Dhoom 2”, and it was quite old, so the tickets were only 10 rps each. It stared , Hrithik Roshan otherwise known as the Man with Three Thumbs, and , Aishwarya Rai the girl with the green eyes from ‘Bride and Prejudice’, and was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while.

First, let’s set the stage up in the last row of the balcony, where Ravi sat me next to the only other woman who attended the movie. The whole rest of the theaters, probably about 150 people, were men under the age of 30. I got quite a few comments, mostly, Ravi told me, people asking how he got me to come with him. “I just told them that I was a friend” he said. The theater was not a very nice one. Smoking was allowed (though only a few people did) and so was spitting Betel on the floor, which everyone did. My seat smelled a little like sour milk, and was kinda sticky. Still, when the lights went down (after shouting from the crowd that it was past time to start) and the opening music hit, I was hooked. The theme song went sometime like “Dhoom again, I feel my pulse is rising. Dhoom again, I hear it’s going down” with Three Thumbs dancing shirtless (he developed some killer muscles since the last movie I saw him in) in front of scantily clad back-up dancers. The movie opened with him stealing a diamond (“See, he is a cheater!” “You mean thief” “Yes, cheater”) off a train in the middle of the Namibian desert. He came down from a glider, stole the diamond through a window, fought the bodyguards on top of the train using a shield/snowboard and then got away by surfing down sand dunes. And this was the first 10 minutes.

The first half of the movie was him (calling card: Mr. A) being chased by a somber cop with a bumbling sidekick. There were some fight scenes, amazing amounts of slow motion, and as many kinds of moving vehicle chases as you can image (besides the snowboard, there were jetskis, motorcycles, cars, trucks, and skateboards all employed at one point). Luckily, you did not have to have seen Dhoom 1 for this to make sense, though some plot points were, I think a holdover from the first film. The somber cop had a pregnant wife (who he cooked for, which I thought was a very nice touch to his otherwise boring “Good Cop” personality) but was tempted when an old friend from his college days showed up, also a cop (and very, very hot, with long black hair that was always swinging in, you guessed it, slow motion). She went over to dinner at their house with the sidekick (who was in love with her), and then suddenly they remembered that there was a college reunion that night! Dance scene Then they all go tracking Mr. A to Mumbi, where Mr. A himself gets a surprise. A hot female thief who beat him to the diamond he was supposed to steal! She asks to work as partners, he says no, then he sees her at a club. Dance scene (“You see, now they are in love” Ravi filled me in after four minutes of steamy dancing and smoldering looks). They play basketball in the rain (with him in a disguise that makes Clark Kent look good), and if she wins they can partner up. Slow-motion rain basketball in tight tee-shirts. She wins, they become partners, except she is working with the cops all along! Oh no!

Intermission. Men walked up the ailes selling Masala puffs and Betel, and cold drinks. I got a Sprite and thought of Dena (who ALWAYS has to have a Sprite at the movies). A few guys smoked, and then the movie came back on with no warning and people scrambled back into their seats. The girl next to me, who had been sitting up stright while the lights were on, cuddled back into her boyfriend. Hee.

The second half, everyone flies to Rio where Mr. A is going to steal his next thing (his thefts, when plotted on the globe, form the shape of the letter A) except hot police woman, who fell into a plot whole I didn’t understand (Later, I am informed that “She loved the police man, but he was married, so she went away.” Well, that was easy.) Her twin sister happens to live in Rio, though, and is a bubbly and friendly as the police woman was uptight and kinda mean. Of course, sidekick and twin sister fall in love (pretty hilariously, since Twin Sister doesn’t speak Hindi, and all her dialogue was in English and only Sidekick could understand her). So, everyone parties on the beach (Dance Scene) and Mr. A stays with the Theif/Cop (hereafter Sunehri, cause she doesn’t have a convient nickname) at his amazing beachfront house (in separate rooms, naturally) and teaches her about the ways of being a thief. He also makes her a fancy candlelight dinner (which she hates but tried to eat anyway.) Then he makes her a burger and PRODUCT PLACEMENT coke, which she eats in a fancy dress with her feet up on the table. Pretty adorable. Both of them are really appealing actors, and I was very into their love story (and the audience was, for once, totally with me in rooting for the bad guy! Hurray!). They meet at a huge cliff with a waterfall and he appears for the first time not in disguise. He says he trusts her, does she trust him? She says yes. “Then jump”, he says. She does, and he jumps behind her, catching her on his rappelling gear when they’re halfway down. They laugh, and then it’s Carnival, and everyone goes to the same bar and sings and dances. Sunehri meets with Somber Police Guy, and Mr. A sees them together and knows she’s betrayed him. Then, came one of the most horrible scenes I think I’ve seen in movies, where he sits her down and confronts her, then takes a gun with one bullet in it and says that he’s not going alive, so they’re going to play Russian roulette until one of them is dead. She cries, and asks him not to do this. He shoots at her. No bullet. He puts the gun on the table, she won’t pick it up, he makes as if he’s reaching for it again, and she grabs and shoots. No bullet. He shoots her again. No bullet. She won’t shoot him again, but he holds her hand up. “Don’t make me do this!” She begs. He shoots the gun at himself. No bullet. She’s not crying now, just looks at him as he puts the gun against her head. (“She says, ‘I love you’” is whispered in my ear, but I was leaning forward and my eyes are glued to the screen and not really listening). He shoots. No bullet. That was five shots. He smiles, says that it’s ok. She picks up the gun, holds it in front of her, than says “I love you” again in English and puts the gun to her own head and fires. No bullet. He’d palmed it.

Now, if I wasn’t so into the movie I totally would have seen that coming (I’ve read ‘Malcolm X’, I know how these things work) but still, it was completely intense. But, she’s proved her loyalty, and they start planning to steal the gold coins together. (“Now they are both cheaters!”). They steal the coins, and then there is a huge chase down the beach on motorcycles. They split up, and Somber Policeman corners Mr. A above a huge waterfall. Sidekick has Sunehri with him, and when I thought that they were going the “You or her” route, it turns out she’s not in custody, that she’s back on the force. Mr. A looks devastated, and looks behind him at the fall. Then, Sunehri takes her gun out and shoots him so that he falls back off the cliff. “Why!” asks Policeman. “Because I loved him.” She says.

Now, I this point, I’ve gasped and gushed my way through the last half of the movie, and Ravi looks like I’m the most amusing thing he’s seen ever. “He’s not dead” he says to me. In my mind, I heard the Princess Bride (“She does not get eaten by the eels at this time”). OK, I’ve seen the Sting, should have figured that out too.

Six months later, according to the subtitles, in the Figi Islands, the two of them run a burger joint restaurant, her the waitress and him the chef. They are in the middle of flirting in the kitchen (“The cook is on strike until he gets a kiss!”) when they notice that there is no noise out front. They come out, it’s empty, except for Police Guy. He’s found them! Oh no! But, Mr. A says that he’s changed, that he loves Sunehri and has made a life with her, and he promises never to steal again. Long looks between the two men. Two hippies wander and ask “Hey, is this place open?”. “Sure”, says Policeman. “It’s always open”. And he leaves them there and happy, at least until the sequel.

I was defiantly satisfied with my movie experience, and Ravi walked me back to the hotel and wouldn’t take money, even to pay for my ticket (I wanted to pay for both of us). Today, my last day in Varanasi, I’m taking him to lunch to thank him, and he has made me promise that I will come back to se him get married (in 5-6 years). Anyone want to tag along?

My train is at 5:15 today, and I should be getting into Agra at 6 tomorrow morning. Nothing planned for tomorrow, just resting, getting a feel of Agra, and eating some Mugahi food. I’m sorry to leave here, where I know the curd guy, the cheap internet, the way from the hotel to the river. “You can stay here more days,” Ravi said last night, “No problem”. But, I feel like it’s time to move on, I’m ready to get back into the Tourist (though slower paced tourist) track again. I’m going to be visiting the Taj on Sunday, so if I don’t write tomorrow I’ll write after I see it. We’ll see if it’s all it’s cracked up to be.