Celebrating Indian Cinema

I love Indian movies. There are hundreds of dialects in India. I speak three of them. My heritage is from Kerala (one of the states in India), which makes my mother tongue Malayalam. The neighboring state is Tamilnadu, where they speak Tamil. And then, there is Hindi which is spoken in North India. I am in no way fluent in any of them, but I won't get lost in India.

Indian movies are an absolute joy to watch. I am drawn to the Hindi and Tamil movies. They are pure escapism. Where reality and fantasy entwine to take you on an extravagant journey. Almost all of Indian cinema are musicals. Most of the stories have the same themes - romance, family, bad guys, good guys, rich girl falls in love with poor boy or vice versa, parents oppose and alls well that ends well. There is always an element of "karma" in the movies. The bad guys never win in the end. The best part is when the hero fights with the villian. No, make that 20 bad guys, and he beats them all up without breaking a sweat (grin). For a passive person like me, enjoying all the fighting with gusto is food for thought. Must be the "supporting the underdog" thing that I have.

Now it takes a fantastic director to tell the same old story in an original way. The music, the costumes, the cinematography, the choreography, the direction - all are incredible. These days, all the movies come with English subtitles. Now, the music is my favorite part. Indian music is usually a combination of classical and modern. My favorite musician - A. R. Rahman. Many of you have already heard and enjoyed his music in Slumdog Millionaire. Those of us who have been fans of Tamil movies have known and admired the "maestro" for many years.

Here is a song from the Tamil movie "Guru". The movie had three of my favorites - Mani Ratnam who directed the movie, A. R. Rahman who wrote the music and Aishwarya Rai, the gorgeous heroine. The song is about the rain and the freedom it brings. The heroine is ready to elope with her lover and seek her own freedom.