Bollywood's sway over south-east Asia alarms clergy

Bollywood's sway over south-east Asia alarms clergy
SONIA TRIKHA

NEW DELHI, FEB 20: If you know about five people in your city in India who have seen Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge five times each, chances are that if you lived in Malaysia or Indonesia or even Vietnam, you would still know that many people who'd seen those movies as many times.

That fact may amaze you, but it worries the Muslim clergy in Malaysia as also Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed. There are others who dismiss the entire episode as a song and dance over movies that are really about, well, song and dance, and violence comes much later.

The Mufti Council and Mahathir now plan to conduct a study to determine the effects of Bollywood cinema. The results are supposed to corroborate the hypothesis that ``violent Bollywood films'' are encouraging crime.

The study is already a subject of debate in the Kuala Lumpur with The Star reporting the National Fatwa Committee chairman Dr Ismail Ibrahim as saying the presumption that Bollywood films are responsible for the crime rate among Malaysians is too ``simplistic''.

What is, however, beyond dispute is the popularity of Bollywood movies not merely in Malaysia but the whole of south-east Asia. The evidence of it is everywhere. Just as the Afghan hills at the height of Taliban attacks resounded with Indian film songs, so does recently-democratised Indonesia.

The song: Kuch kuch hota hai, what else? A source recently returned from Kuala Lumpur shared a flat with a woman who had seen the film a dozen times. She says, ``It was painful to live there, but she was evidently enjoying herself.'' In Jakarta, pub singers take one look at you and break into Dil deke dekho. Don't listen carefully because the words are usually wrong. When Malays want to compliment a woman they say ``you look like Nargis''.

Mahathir wants to reduce the number of Hindi films shown on TV to once a week. Currently, satellite channels show Hindi movies on at least three days a week. In Indonesia, at least five TV channels -- RCTI, TPI, SCTV, ANTV and INDOSIAR -- telecast a Hindi movie daily.

This is apart from the regular screenings in movie halls for a public which can't comprehend the dialogue but doesn't care as long as there is a song and dance. Dialogues are redundant because there is rarely a story to support, says a Bollywood buff. Indonesian music, Dangdut, even plagiarises the already twice-copied Indian movie tunes.

The most popular stars are of course, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan. The latter is not known by his name but is called Rahul: his name from the ubiquitous Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. To judge the popularity of Bollywood films in the ASEAN world, use the Vietnam test. People in the war-battered country watch Indian films without knowing the stars or even the names of movies. Once again the song and dance is enough.