Post #10: Bollywood!

Movies are gigantic here -- very much part of the culture. People flock to the movies and talk a lot about their favorite stars. Many politicians are former movie stars. Maybe it's not so different than America, but somehow it seems even bigger here.

People told us to go to a Bollywood movie to catch one particular the flavor of India -- not just the movie itself but the whole scene. So we put that on our early agenda.

We heard that the Raj Theatre in Jaipur was THE place to see Bollywood movies. After arriving at least an hour early to buy tickets -- and finally determining the correct line to be in, Caroline dutifully waited in the women's line to buy tickets.The line  was 1/2 the length of the men's line. Ken joined the husbands line and boyfriends and friends all joined the party during the wait. Bedlam.

In Caroline's line, there was a constant stream of men requesting women to buy additional tickets for them. Sometimes they were known to the woman, other times not.  When the line finally started to move, it crept. The men’s line moved more quickly with pushing, shoving, and some disputes verging on fisticuffs. Even as the starting time passed by 20 minutes, we believed the reassurances of an Indian man Ken had chatted with that we would likely get in.  We were down to fourth in line when the SOLD OUT sign was turned over.  We  shrugged in disappointment and left quietly along with hundreds of others.

The second time around we booked tickets online.  This time we went to a Bollywood musical play rather than a movie -- at Delhi's blockbuster venue-- staged about 30 km south of Delhi in a "Disneyesque" venue called Kingdom of Dreams. Not knowing what to expect, we went hours early, and found that we had plenty of time to take in multiple short ethnic dance performances and acrobatic shows, sample food from all over India and watch, not try, the bungee chair rides. Another real scene.

We watched the dancers perform before the show started (below):

 

  The show called The Gypsy Prince was over the top -- as expected -- with hundreds of performers, lots of high tech effects and a simple to follow story line. No need to know Hindi for this one.  So we had our Bollywood fix. Picture below are from google images, because we couldn't take our own pictures during the performance. 

Note: midriff covered by leotard. Don't show skin!