Michael Jackson, the ‘king of pop’ was today finally laid to rest, 10 weeks after his death. Michael Jackson was easily the biggest global entertainer ever. Through the 80s and 90s he enjoyed unfathomable levels of popularity across the globe and India was no exception. Thinking of MJ got me thinking of impact of western culture & entertainment on Indians, and it suddenly dawned on me that MJ was perhaps the last English superstar in India. Read more
Movies
Rock On Has Got It Spot On
Writing this as I listen to the music of the movie ‘Rock On’. Rock On has got it Spot On. It’s Hindi rock and not another attempt at English rock. It’s not like it’s the greatest music ever but it just seems like an important landmark in the journey of rock music in India.
Indians rocking in English and essentially copying English rock stars and their mannerisms seemed very pseudo for it to ever catch on in India. I am nowhere near a music expert or even a connoisseur but it seemed pretty obvious that unless Indian musicians dropped the English language and moved to Indian languages, they were never going to become mainstream. So ‘Rock On‘ might be a big step in the direction of establishing Indian rock music.
Farhan Akhtar seems to emerge stronger by the day. He makes sensible movies and now also acts and sings. His talent is not surprising considering that he is Javed Akhtar’s son. However his emergence is heartening as hopefully he will lead the move away from the over the top mushy and slippery brand of common hindi movies.
Making Hindi Movies In English
I am no movie buff or expert, but I do like to stay in touch with what’s happening in the movies and the changing mannerisms of moviewalas…
Article touches on movies, regional languages, Hindi and English. Published as part of my column for the Maharashtra Herald that’s published on alternate Saturdays.
I am no movie buff or expert, but I do like to stay in touch with what’s happening in the movies and the changing mannerisms of moviewalas. Only a few years back it seemed like Indian movies would gradually lose out to English movies partly because of the spread of English education but primarily because Indian movies lacked innovation. They were beating the same stories to death. I was certain that Hindi movies were in big trouble once English movies dubbed in Hindi started being screened.