‘YEH DOSTI’

At the end of 2007, I made some resolutions for the year 2008 on this blog. I took action on most of them, but came up with one glaring deficit... with regard to my resolution to do more blogging on Bollywood in 2008. That one I really fell down on, and so there will be no embarrassing resolutions of that kind for 2009! I can’t help but say, though, that I have a feeling that I’ll do a lot more ‘Bolly-blogging’ this year than I did last year. I’m not sure why, but I think I will be more inspired.

2008 was not quite as much fun as 2007 when it came to Bollywood movies. I watched quite a few Hindi films, but was underwhelmed and uninspired by a lot of them. On the bright side, I made a fabulous new Bollywood-movie-watching friend. The really cool thing is that we see each other almost daily, and get along unbelievably well, so we spend many hours together, talking about a wide range of subjects, among them Hindi films (of course).

She’s very opinionated, and she’s also amazingly knowledgeable about Hindi movies (she knows about a gazillion times what I do about Bollywood). Interestingly, there’s very little that we agree upon (she can’t stand SRK! She thinks the gorgeous Rani is quite ordinary-looking! She isn’t fond of films from the 60s and 70s! She detests the big B, and is singularly unimpressed by the immensely talented Jaya Bhaduri! In short, we are almost polar opposites).

Despite our rather pronounced differences, we:

· have incredibly stimulating – and sometimes very silly – discussions about Bollywood (I don’t think there’s anything we haven’t touched, from writing treatments of our fantasy Bollywood scripts, to creating our dream (and nightmare) jodis (real life and fictional), to endless debates on relative hotness, to coming up with elaborate conspiracy theories on every new development in the industry);

· go to see movies together (she loved 'Ghajini', was mildly amused by ‘Singh Is Kinng’, found ‘Race’ as ridiculous as I did, thought ‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’ was highly irritating, and, despite her strong dislike of Ash, enjoyed the epic scope of ‘Jodhaa Akbar’);

· watch DVDs together at home (and now the cry ‘Koola Laaka Vellari!’ is indelibly imprinted upon my brain); and

· make fun of people like Himesh Reshammaiya, Luv Sinha, Rahul Bose, K-Jo and Sonam Kapoor together.

It’s been such great fun! We always have a laugh, and getting to know her was definitely one of the Bollywood-related highlights of my 2008. There were others, some of which I did find time to blog about in the course of the year, and I’m definitely looking forward to many more this year. One very, very extra-special one will involve a real-life wedding, an utterly stunning bride, glowing with happiness beside her handsome groom; and a rendition of a beautiful song from a Hindi film... I can’t wait!

I will be back soon... until then, ‘hum hain rahi pyaar ke, phir milenge, chalte chalte’ (such a shame about ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’! It just didn’t hit the right notes!)