I just saw the movie Page 3 which was directed by Madhur Bhandarkar, who also directed Chandni Bar. I really liked it.

Ever since I saw Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, I’ve become a big fan of both Rahul Bose and Konkona Sen Sharma, only the latter of which was in Page 3. As I recently discovered when I was in India earlier this year, page 3 is the actual page on which newspapers dish out the latest gossip on Bollywood and soap opera stars, the parties they’ve been to, the latest fashions and bindis and logos they wear, the people they are with. As you could probably imagine, the page is not filled with much criticism and boasting with high-photos. There were times when I flipped to page 3 automatically after picking up the newspaper, taking a cursory-I do social justice work so I should be in the know about politics in India, my homeland over which I have some authenticity so there is perhaps even a moral obligation I have to have this working knowledge!-look at first couple of pages before setting my eyes on the gloriousness of page 3. While my friend Amal spent more than the 15 seconds I took poring over the latest in the activities of Parliament, I went straight to the eye candy.

Amal has intimate knowledge of various crushes I had on certain Bollywood stars, most notably Sushmita Sen and Bipasha Basu, and used that to his advantage. One time, I was rudely awakened by the crispy scent of newspaper in the morning, when he threw page 3 on my face when there was a cover story about Bipasha.

I was even thinking about auditioning as a Bollywood back-up dancer, but alas, my time in Bombay was too short. But I digress.

I saw a review that does a decent plot outline of Page 3. In the film, Sharma’s character, Madhavi Sharma, is a journalist for page 3, and goes through a realization that the world of actors and stars is flighty and catty, ridiculous and unconcerned about “real” issues such as rape, dowry, gangs, etc. When she starts working with Vinayak Mane, played by the excellent actor Atul Kulkarni, who covers criminal cases, she gets a dose of the same stuff - that the world is similarly disgusting, that her newspaper is run by corporations that are sycophants to the companies that pay its bills.

I like how there are more folks in Indian cinema doing interesting things. I remember on my visits to India when I was much younger - maybe in high school - and I used to ask about these so-called “art films” (we know them as independent films) and none of my cousins would watch them. Perhaps there were a ton of art films back then and my family simply didn’t watch them, but it seems there are a lot more of them now. And these art films are connected to Bollywood - actors, directors, perhaps now even funding sources, are shared.

Bollywood has been a global phenomenon for some time now, mostly due to the scattered nature of the desi community and their demand for desi things such as basmati rice and Hindu priests. But I think because of the mechanisms of corporate-led globalization, Bollywood has been able to reach a ton more people and, consequently, has reached more non-desi audiences. Nowadays, once every 2 or 3 months, I meet a non-desi who loves Bollywood movies. Its becoming less surprising each time, but its still surprising and a tiny bit unsettling (as in, is that what they think about desi folks? That we only believe in love at first glance and spend our youth loving and then getting into an arranged marriage which nobody is happy about?). So maybe the demand for art films is also increasing because of a growing Bollywood fan base; a side-effect of globalization is the increased promotion and funding of independent art films that discuss the “real” issues.

Who knows? Someone should look into it. For now, I’ll settle with using globalization (via the internet) to get the latest goop on my favorite Bollywood stars.

Posted by Vivek on Monday, June 12th, 2006 at 12:24 am.