Blog - India 2012 #7: Bollywood
India 2012 #7: Bollywood
On our last full day in Delhi, we went to a place called Kingdom of Dreams in Gurgaon, the neighbor state. I had found out about it not long before our trip, by randomly searching for "Bollywood stage show" or similar.
I had tried booking tickets online, but the site seemed to refuse foreign credit cards, and I couldn't reach the listed phone number (later I realized that my cheap mobile phone probably needed a reboot after switching networks when coming back from Jaipur). So we decided to try our luck and just go. We went by metro (it's not possible to go by rickshaw), which we were told should take about an hour. We got there a few minutes late, and I was afraid we might not able to get in as I had read online about people who weren't allowed to enter because they were late, but we had no problem at all!
The show we saw was "Zangoora", it was quite something and really higher than expectations. The stage had large decors that were changed now and then, and also huge high-quality screens at different depths that were able to turn the stage into any scene in an instant. There was also wire action, with people and even boats flying over the audience.
The story was about a gypsy boy named Zangoora and his love story with a princess and gypsy girl, according to the site. It didn't matter much though, because the show went into song and dance every 5 minutes and just watching live Bollywood on stage kept us entertained the whole time. There was a 15-minute break during which we went to buy a local snack.
At the end of the show, some of the cast walked down the alleys and incited the audience to dance with them. I thought they would just shake hands with me but they dragged me on my feet and before I knew it I was dancing Bollywood-style with them, hahaha. :) We had really a great time!
While in Jaipur we also went to a movie theater, and saw the movie "English Vinglish" about an Indian mother who has to go to New York and her efforts to learn English. Thanks to this topic we could understand some of the dialog, and that made it quite an enjoyable film! When a special guest superstar came on the screen the audience reacted wildly. :)
The theater was a nice large one. We caught the last show and got there a few minutes late (we hadn't checked schedules at all before going there, we were just very lucky). We didn't have tickets and the people at the door told us to just go inside and take seats. At the entracte (there's often an "interval" in Indian movies) some guy came to us to collect the money for our tickets. Things seems quite organized for a moment, until during the second part some other guy came to collect money from us again. We thought we had been ripped off, but we just told him that we paid already and he said ok and we weren't bothered again.
At the end of the film exit doors on the opposite side opened, giving right on the backstreet where many rickshaw drivers were waiting. Our hotel was very close and they were charging too much, so we were going to walk but one helpful bicycle rickshaw man took our Rs. 20 offer.
"English Vinglish" trailer
While on the entertainment topic, we also bought 4 DVDs at INA Market in Delhi. Two of them seemed legit in standard DVD boxes ("3 Idiots" and "Superman of Malegaon"), and two others that were in thin sleeves and didn't look very legit. Back home we were able to watch the two legit ones on the computer, though they were in PAL format (when in South India all the DVDs we bought were NTSC). These are also region free, so no problem. As for the two others, they were both DVD-R's, one seems like it was filmed at a theater (very bad quality), and the other was unreadable (blank?).
So as a rule of thumb we learned this time, if it's in a normal looking DVD box in its original wrapping it should be ok (as long as you can use PAL). Don't bother with the rest.
We also watched several Indian movies in the plane (Air India) which were a lot of fun. We liked "Ladies vs Ricky Bahl" and this Facebook-inspired comedy. We also really loved "Quick Gun Murugun" that we watched on our last trip 2 years ago, with a plot about a McDonald's-like chain that sells McDosa.
Posted on November 13, 2012 at 23:45 | Tweet
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