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| My love affair with Bollywood in Bradford | My love affair with Bollywood in Bradford |
| (8 days later) | |
| Indian cinema is celebrating its centenary this year. It was one hundred years ago that the country's first feature film, Raja Harishchandra was premiered in Mumbai. As Bollywood's global profile goes from strength to strength, I wager that 2013 will also be the year that many of my English friends will finally get around to watching their first Bollywood film. | Indian cinema is celebrating its centenary this year. It was one hundred years ago that the country's first feature film, Raja Harishchandra was premiered in Mumbai. As Bollywood's global profile goes from strength to strength, I wager that 2013 will also be the year that many of my English friends will finally get around to watching their first Bollywood film. |
| My own relationship with Indian films goes back 30 years to the 1980s. Things were very different then. We watched Bollywood films at home, but we certainly didn't talk about them beyond our four walls. I think we knew deep down, that this was simply one more thing that set us apart from everyone else. And perhaps that's why I grew up with the perception that although I loved Bollywood films, they weren't to be taken seriously. | My own relationship with Indian films goes back 30 years to the 1980s. Things were very different then. We watched Bollywood films at home, but we certainly didn't talk about them beyond our four walls. I think we knew deep down, that this was simply one more thing that set us apart from everyone else. And perhaps that's why I grew up with the perception that although I loved Bollywood films, they weren't to be taken seriously. |
| I first discovered the world of Bollywood when I was in my teens. Channel 4 was screening a Bollywood film season in the early '80s, showing one film per week in the middle of the night. I'd religiously stay up to record each film on our highly prized video recorder so I could play it back over and over again. Many of the films were classics, mostly with traditional tales of romance. That's when I first discovered Pakeezah from 1971, a beautiful film about a courtesan with a heart of gold. I was so mesmerised by the bewitching Meena Kumari that I didn't even notice she was dancing for prospective clients as she sang about losing her honour! | I first discovered the world of Bollywood when I was in my teens. Channel 4 was screening a Bollywood film season in the early '80s, showing one film per week in the middle of the night. I'd religiously stay up to record each film on our highly prized video recorder so I could play it back over and over again. Many of the films were classics, mostly with traditional tales of romance. That's when I first discovered Pakeezah from 1971, a beautiful film about a courtesan with a heart of gold. I was so mesmerised by the bewitching Meena Kumari that I didn't even notice she was dancing for prospective clients as she sang about losing her honour! |
| Classics like Pakeezah, Mughal-e-Azam and Taj Mahal infused in me a sense of belonging. This was the first time I actively listened to Bollywood music, usually just recording the songs from the TV manually, by holding a cassette recorder near the speakers. These songs felt special because they were in my mother tongue which I rarely spoke outside home. It was the first time I hummed popular songs that weren't in English. These films made me feel that our language, music, clothes and culture were worthy of appreciation. | Classics like Pakeezah, Mughal-e-Azam and Taj Mahal infused in me a sense of belonging. This was the first time I actively listened to Bollywood music, usually just recording the songs from the TV manually, by holding a cassette recorder near the speakers. These songs felt special because they were in my mother tongue which I rarely spoke outside home. It was the first time I hummed popular songs that weren't in English. These films made me feel that our language, music, clothes and culture were worthy of appreciation. |
| I suppose we felt isolated during our early years in Bradford. We'd left behind a massive extended family in Rawalpindi to settle on the mostly white Canterbury council estate. We'd arrived in England with our clothes bundled in a few suitcases and not much else. Christian Housing Aid had kindly sent a truck to furnish our home. Mum was a single parent to three children, holding down three jobs in order to keep a roof over our heads, working as a machinist by day and taking in piece-work from factories at night. | I suppose we felt isolated during our early years in Bradford. We'd left behind a massive extended family in Rawalpindi to settle on the mostly white Canterbury council estate. We'd arrived in England with our clothes bundled in a few suitcases and not much else. Christian Housing Aid had kindly sent a truck to furnish our home. Mum was a single parent to three children, holding down three jobs in order to keep a roof over our heads, working as a machinist by day and taking in piece-work from factories at night. |
| I had little in common with my mostly white classmates. So they discussed boyfriends and mocked me because I wasn't allowed to have one. They spent the weekend going to discos while mum escorted us into town on a Saturday afternoon, so we could exchange our library books. Even Eid felt like a non-event. Taking the day off school was pointless when we were all dressed up with nowhere to go. And even though we never celebrated Christmas, I was so desperate to fit in that I'd fabricate a list of presents from Santa. | I had little in common with my mostly white classmates. So they discussed boyfriends and mocked me because I wasn't allowed to have one. They spent the weekend going to discos while mum escorted us into town on a Saturday afternoon, so we could exchange our library books. Even Eid felt like a non-event. Taking the day off school was pointless when we were all dressed up with nowhere to go. And even though we never celebrated Christmas, I was so desperate to fit in that I'd fabricate a list of presents from Santa. |
| Our sole entertainment was watching TV. Mum got really excited on Sunday mornings when a magazine programme called Nayee Zindagi Naya Jeevan, was broadcast on the BBC. It featured a news update from back home, chat with a special guest and an entertainment slot. It was especially for Asians like us and best of all, it was in Urdu. It was probably the only programme we could watch without the fear of a mildly explicit scene making us all squirm with discomfort! | Our sole entertainment was watching TV. Mum got really excited on Sunday mornings when a magazine programme called Nayee Zindagi Naya Jeevan, was broadcast on the BBC. It featured a news update from back home, chat with a special guest and an entertainment slot. It was especially for Asians like us and best of all, it was in Urdu. It was probably the only programme we could watch without the fear of a mildly explicit scene making us all squirm with discomfort! |
| The Bollywood films I recorded were entirely suitable for family viewing. Mum remembered watching some of the older films and she'd heard the songs during her youth in Pakistan, so they evoked a sense of history that we yearned for. Our new life in Bradford meant there was no history of mum around us; no pictures or mementos of her life before marriage. Now, everywhere we went was new, as were our relationships, so there was no link to mum's past. The films we watched helped to bridge that gap. They also gave mum some scarce moments of relaxation on the sofa. | The Bollywood films I recorded were entirely suitable for family viewing. Mum remembered watching some of the older films and she'd heard the songs during her youth in Pakistan, so they evoked a sense of history that we yearned for. Our new life in Bradford meant there was no history of mum around us; no pictures or mementos of her life before marriage. Now, everywhere we went was new, as were our relationships, so there was no link to mum's past. The films we watched helped to bridge that gap. They also gave mum some scarce moments of relaxation on the sofa. |
| Mum would translate for us if the language proved difficult, or she would explain if we couldn't follow the plot – usually a complicated love triangle. The films often reminded mum of her college days in Rawalpindi, when trips to the cinema were endorsed as long as she was up to date with her studies and prayers. Mum's favourite films featured the classic pairings of Dilip Kumar and Noor Jehan, or Raj Kapoor and Nargis. | Mum would translate for us if the language proved difficult, or she would explain if we couldn't follow the plot – usually a complicated love triangle. The films often reminded mum of her college days in Rawalpindi, when trips to the cinema were endorsed as long as she was up to date with her studies and prayers. Mum's favourite films featured the classic pairings of Dilip Kumar and Noor Jehan, or Raj Kapoor and Nargis. |
| Mum would reminisce about her father's fondness for music. He was a clerk in the British Indian Army when mum was a little girl. This was around 1945 before mum was even ten years old. Her father brought back a gramophone from one of his postings. Every time he returned to the village on vacation, he'd be clutching the latest records – qawwalis, naats (religious songs) as well as filmi songs. When the family slept on the roof on hot summer nights, he would ceremoniously set up the gramophone on a table on the rooftop, laying out a table cloth underneath. The sound of music travelled far, and attracted villagers to congregate on the charpois (beds) laid out on the roof. There they would sit and marvel at this new contraption. | Mum would reminisce about her father's fondness for music. He was a clerk in the British Indian Army when mum was a little girl. This was around 1945 before mum was even ten years old. Her father brought back a gramophone from one of his postings. Every time he returned to the village on vacation, he'd be clutching the latest records – qawwalis, naats (religious songs) as well as filmi songs. When the family slept on the roof on hot summer nights, he would ceremoniously set up the gramophone on a table on the rooftop, laying out a table cloth underneath. The sound of music travelled far, and attracted villagers to congregate on the charpois (beds) laid out on the roof. There they would sit and marvel at this new contraption. |
| I had learnt by my early 20s that it was perfectly possible to merge my Pakistani heritage with my British upbringing. But I had also grasped that Bollywood was still a no-go area with my English friends. It baffled me that a French or Italian film could be deemed as high culture, but Bollywood was still dismissed as brash. It wasn't until university beckoned as a mature student, that I began to realise that I could perhaps validate my interest in Indian cinema with academic study. Needless to say, mum couldn't believe I'd be awarded a degree for writing essays about the fetishisation of Amitabh Bachchan's legs! | I had learnt by my early 20s that it was perfectly possible to merge my Pakistani heritage with my British upbringing. But I had also grasped that Bollywood was still a no-go area with my English friends. It baffled me that a French or Italian film could be deemed as high culture, but Bollywood was still dismissed as brash. It wasn't until university beckoned as a mature student, that I began to realise that I could perhaps validate my interest in Indian cinema with academic study. Needless to say, mum couldn't believe I'd be awarded a degree for writing essays about the fetishisation of Amitabh Bachchan's legs! |
| The course was run by Professor Rachel Dwyer, a leading authority on Indian cinema, and it quickly became apparent that she was a friend of the stars. She'd just written about being on the set of the blockbuster Dil To Pagal Hai and was writing the biography of legendary director, Yash Chopra. Amitabh Bachchan had written the foreword for a book she'd just published. | The course was run by Professor Rachel Dwyer, a leading authority on Indian cinema, and it quickly became apparent that she was a friend of the stars. She'd just written about being on the set of the blockbuster Dil To Pagal Hai and was writing the biography of legendary director, Yash Chopra. Amitabh Bachchan had written the foreword for a book she'd just published. |
| On the last day of term, Professor Dwyer walked into the lecture with a surprise guest, actor Aamir Khan. He was shorter than I expected, boyish, handsome and completely un-star like. He stayed for an hour, casually perched on the table and talked in great detail about Lagaan, the film he was working on at the time. I later discovered that the previous year, Yash Chopra had come to talk to Professor Dwyer's students. On another occasion, she had invited Amitabh Bachchan. Apparently his appearance at SOAS had brought the college to a standstill. After Aamir Khan had left, I asked Professor Dwyer: | On the last day of term, Professor Dwyer walked into the lecture with a surprise guest, actor Aamir Khan. He was shorter than I expected, boyish, handsome and completely un-star like. He stayed for an hour, casually perched on the table and talked in great detail about Lagaan, the film he was working on at the time. I later discovered that the previous year, Yash Chopra had come to talk to Professor Dwyer's students. On another occasion, she had invited Amitabh Bachchan. Apparently his appearance at SOAS had brought the college to a standstill. After Aamir Khan had left, I asked Professor Dwyer: |
| How do you persuade these Bollywood legends to come here to talk to your students? Haven't these people got anything better to do when they're in London? | How do you persuade these Bollywood legends to come here to talk to your students? Haven't these people got anything better to do when they're in London? |
She replied: | She replied: |
| They can't believe there are people at university taking their work so seriously. So they want to come and see for themselves! | They can't believe there are people at university taking their work so seriously. So they want to come and see for themselves! |
Irna Qureshi is an anthropologist and writer on British Asian culture. She blogs about being British, Pakistani, Muslim and female in Bradford, setting her stories against a backdrop of classic Indian films. She is also curator of the Bollywood Icons exhibition which celebrates some of the greatest stars of Indian cinema through a vibrant collection of classic and contemporary film posters. Bollywood Icons runs at the National Media Museum in Bradford until 16th June 2013. | Irna Qureshi is an anthropologist and writer on British Asian culture. She blogs about being British, Pakistani, Muslim and female in Bradford, setting her stories against a backdrop of classic Indian films. She is also curator of the Bollywood Icons exhibition which celebrates some of the greatest stars of Indian cinema through a vibrant collection of classic and contemporary film posters. Bollywood Icons runs at the National Media Museum in Bradford until 16th June 2013. |
| You can read the second part of this look at Bradford and Bollywood, by Irfan Ajeeb, here. | You can read the second part of this look at Bradford and Bollywood, by Irfan Ajeeb, here. |
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