When I was given the opportunity to see a Bollywood movie, I had no idea what to expect. Was it going to be in English? If not, were there going to be subtitles? Were Bollywood movies similar to Hollywood movies? I had so many questions, and, being the adventurous college kid, I had to find my answers. So, I went along with my classmates to Fun Asia, one of the Indian movie theatres in Dallas.
Luckily we came on a Tuesday night, which fell into the special ticket pricing of buy-one-get-one-free Monday through Thursday, so for $5 I had a ticket to Saala Khadoos. When I walked into the theatre, I realized the name Fun Asia was a little deceiving as it wasn’t filled with fun arcade games or cool lighting, only pictures of Bollywood films everywhere. They only serve a few American foods, like candy and popcorn, so their main attraction was the Indian food, like samosas and chaat. I ordered myself samosas, my very first tasting of these delicious fried potato balls, and went into the theatre.
It looked like any other American movie theatre, but it was definitely a lot more crowded for a Tuesday night at 7:30 than I would have expected. Once we sat down and I started to try my Samosa, which happened to be quite tasty, the movie started. I quickly learned that the movie was in Hindi, but it did have English subtitles.
www.saalakhadoosmovie.com
A quick plot summary is an ex-boxer turned boxing coach, Adi, finds a young, poor girl whom he believes could be an amazing boxer. The rebellious girl, Madhi, finds a love of boxing all while dealing with her sister, who is also an aspiring boxer, and the struggles of being a female athlete in India. The politics in this movie are dirty with Madhi even finding herself in jail, but turns to Adi to help her out. In the end, Madhi wins the World Championship for India, and her relationship with Adi seems to be taken to another level, but we are left guessing what happens between the two, as the movie ended after the Championship.
Overall, I really enjoyed the film. Not knowing much about the current Indian culture, I feel like this movie allowed me to get a feel for what it would be like living in India. Music seemed to play a big role in the culture along with dancing, and other than the fact that this was set in India and there was an intermission in the middle of the movie, I thought it could be very similar to an American film. There was definitely a lot of different plot lines going on at once, and I agree with Sidrah Roghay’s review in AAJ News that the relationship between the teacher and student was unnecessary and not really convincing (Roghay http://aaj.tv/2016/02/movie-review-saala-khadoos/ ). There were a few points in the movie where the people that spoke Hindi found something very funny that the English translation must not have captured well. Overall, I’m glad I took on this riveting Tuesday night adventure and have had all of my Bollywood movie questions answered.