The universal draw of Bollywood

Earlier this year I was in Kupung, in West Timor. It’s a barren place, beautiful but sparse. A land of contradictions - Timorese but Indonesian. We were riding in a mini van, on the way to the East Timor border when out of the corner of my eye I saw a familiar poster. Immediately the beat started to replay in my head, the vision of Aamir Khan and Kajol canoodling in the middle of beautiful Kashmir. It was a poster for Faana.



Excitedly I asked my guide – is Bollywood big over here? I just saw a Fanaa poster! He replied that he had never seen the movie, but that a lot of people watched Bollywood and his favourite was Dil Chahta Hai. I hadn’t seen one Indian since being in Indonesia and here I was confronted with the greatness of Bollywood?

I was surprised, but not at the same time. The universal draw of Bollywood has become apparent with western audiences quickly picking up the genre after the success of semi-Bolly films like Monsoon Wedding and Bend It Like Beckham.

So it was with interest that I also read of a report from ABC’s Australia channel, talking about the rise of Bollywood in the South Pacific country of Samoa.

I still remember the day a few years ago when my journalist friend Tamani Nair returned to Fiji from Samoa and told me about their famous chilli sauce and something else just as hot - Bollywood cinema.

My first reaction was disbelief. After all, even in Fiji it took a long time for non-Fijians to even consider spending three hours watching romantic drama and scantily clad Indian heroines running around trees with besotted lads in tow. But after a few decades it caught on, especially in rural Fiji where Fijian farmers worked alongside Indo-Fijians in the fields. It kinda made sense.

But in Samoa ?

Well Bollywood certainly fired things up a few years ago. In fact television stations had no choice but to schedule back to back Hindi film and drama so they could meet the demand. And the fans were not Indians, but full-on Samoans.
Sure, Bollywood has been flavour of the moment across Europe, the US and Australia for a few years. But that’s been largely due to the success of art house films including Monsoon Wedding and Bend It Like Beckham. Oh, and a few achievements and scandals involving Indian stars.

Now I’d missed out on investigating this the last time I was in Samoa. So naturally, this time, it had to be explored. What else is an Indian supposed to do when he has a cab driver in Apia telling you he “only watches Bollywood for the song and dance”.

Well, it all seems to have started with my lot. Yep, Indo Fijians and their predilection for Bollywood resulted in Samoan university students returning from Fiji with DVDs in their bags.

In no time the phenomenon caught on, TV stations started running shows and video store owners like Oscar started stocking Bollywood DVDs. Oscar reckons the dramas are popular because Samoans feel comfortable with clean family drama, comedy and music. “

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