'Indian' Bahu, Brazilian Beefcake and Bollywood Jhatkas...

Living on a university campus with 'friendly strangers' can sometimes be a harrowing experience. But on the whole, it's crazy fun....And at other times, like I found out, it  can be an eye-opener...


A two-hour conversation with my Angolan flat mate and I felt like the Brand Ambassador of Bollywood who got to bask in the adoration of an enthusiastic convert, without having to put any effort to give her the spiel on jhatka...

I had no clue that in the living rooms of tiny apartments in Luanda, Angola, the favourite past time was watching Brazilian prime-time soaps.... ( Portuguese is the language spoken in both Brazil and Angola..so the love for these Latin American Soaps in distant Angola..)And not just watching them, but agonising over them and even praying for the story line to change to suit their favourite characters is the chief past time for the young and the old...And Bollywood songs provide the spice to liven up their lives...

Guess how I found out...

Here I was in my flip-flops walking down rickety English stairs like a rampaging elephant, in search of food for my grumbling tummy when I heard lusty singing from the kitchen....By now, I know who that can be...but today, the tune seemed vaguely familiar....So I sneaked up into our kitchen cum dining cum everything a.k.a common room and there she was...moving her JLo hips ( I think JLo would have a complex if she saw her!) in what can only be called a jhatka that would have Mallika Sherawat go green with envy....And when I moved closer there she was, at the stove, her back to me, her hips grinding, and Kajra Re playing...

With my mouth in a big O, I stood watching her feeling 'I don't care if I don't talk high about Bollywood numbers and am humming tunes from ColdPlay more often than not, but how dare you know about film songs from MY country without MY knowledge or more importantly, MY initiating you into it...'


And I guess sensing my presence, Lady L( haven't told her about this post, so I shall preserve her anonymity, just in case) did a royal 180 degree turn and stood with her hand comfortably resting on her jutting hip....And seeing my mouth still frozen in the big O, she wiggled her eyebrows wondering what had stung me...


So there I was pointing to her Youtube screen, where there was an unfamiliar scene on...and Kajra Re still playing on, asking her, 'How do you know this shit?'


And that's when the saga unfolded....


Angolans are crazy about Brazilian soaps, which are basically about love, lust, cheating, ditching and the step son's dilemma if his father's mistress' illegitimate child becomes his sister or if she is fair game...Now the Brazilians are intrigued by Indian exotica and especially our Kamasutra-esque dance postures that leaves very little for imagination, if the idea is to give a blatant 'come-on'...And I don't need to tell you about the wonders of a wet saree....well, I have just been informed that now, the Brazilians and the Angolans and every part of the world where there is Portuguese diaspora, are fans of pelvic thrusts and chest heaves in wet sarees.

Ok, did I digress? I guess no....I had to give you background masala, didn't I? 

Lady L sings Kajra Re in a Portuguesed fashion...it's wonderful to hear how for them, our poetry is a non-sensical grouping of os and aaas and uuuus....and by the time they break down the syllables as they hear it, a bloody post mortem has transpired on the shayari in the songs...Anyways, I shouldn't be petty about that...


But my curiosity was whetted...I had to know the storyline....And in no time, there I was, rolling on the carpet by the dining table, holding my stomach, half worried that I'd gag on my own laughter...


This is a miniaturised but descriptive story line...The son of wealthy Brazilian family stumbles upon the daughter of an Indian merchant ( read bania...and mind you, I'm being deliberately casteist..you shall soon understand why)....the girl is a mind-blowing Indian beauty, who reduces men to whimpering testerosterone pools with just a wiggle of her eyebrows and the sway of her hips behind her long flowing jet black hair...He falls in love, they have a lavish Rajasthani wedding at the castle of her father where elephants walk in straight lines and servants scamper about with their heads bowed low and turbans that seem to be bigger than their heads while everyone dances to Doli Taaro Dhol Baaje while smearing everyone else with colours like in Holi....

But the crunch comes when they can't consumate their marriage....For the father's astrologer has prohibited this, as the sun could cross into the lunar orbit ( or some such nonsense), as per the girl's stars spelling doom for their relationship...So the Brazilian groom knows it, his bride is kept in the dark...And now with the husband refusing the desperate advances of his nubile wife, she is now in a seething mass of frustrated desires....her saree drapes go lower, her blouses literally refusing to hold her assets in place, but her young Brazilian holds fast....Till the night that she dances to the Tawaif song that Rani Mukherjee croons for Aamir Khan in 'Mangal Pandey'...


Lady L knew the songs and I played Bollywood trivia by trying to guess the songs from the tunes...Should I say I failed miserably....And we ended up googling the songs....till realisation dawned like little light bulbs around my dumb head...


And as our Indian girl breached the Laxman rekha, wooing her man and having her wicked way with him, secrets start tumbling out of her royal closet.....She is pregnant by a Dalit ( now you know the casteist angle...imagine the Angolan trying to tell me about the merchant-Dalit caste problems!!!) and just as they were to elope, her father reveals her lover is a Dalit and the girl drops him like a hot potato...Right in time for a love-struck Brazilian to stumble along and the father decides to bundle her off to the Brazilian household...( What a global thinking merchant dad, isnt he?)


And this is just the main storyline...the Brazilian's father is in the throes of a major affair in Rio, his brother has an identity crisis...his sister is battling cancer...those are the side-stories I won't even go into right now....

Lady L suddenly perks up and asks me, So what does Eey Bagwen mean? And I say 'Whaaattt?'....and she patiently repeats, Eey bagwen...that's what that Indian girl keeps saying always....The coin drops and I say....Ooooooohhh, hey bhagwaan...that's like saying Oh, Lord!!


And then comes the next face...What about Arrrriiii Babaaji....Now how do I translate that?


By this time Lady L's soup is bubbling away, so is my stomach....But then, this conversation was priceless....


Who would have thought tying a nylon saree and shaking bountiful hips was the latest craze in far away Africa or that a  bored housewife in Rio knew about how a merchant's daughter cannot marry a Dalit in India or that in far away Brighthelm, an African girl cooks while Kajra Re and Tumhaari Adaon pe main waari waari was playing....


Bollywood Jhatke ki Jai.....Atiuttam Aanand....That's my new mantra!!!!