Featuring: Neeru
Bajwa, Vekeana Dhillon, Vikram Dhillon and Ruby
Bhatia
Sound: Satheesh P.M., Leigh Hunt Wilks
Sound Design: Ed Douglas
Editing: Steve Weslak
Camera: Ali Kazimi, C.K. Muraleedharan
Produced by: Karen King-Chigbo for The National Film
Board of Canada
Directed by: Nisha Pahuja
Format: Betacam/ Mini DV
Duration: 86 minutes
Language: English
Year of Production: 2001
Bollywood Bound is a feature length documentary which
tells the story of four Indo Canadians who return
to Bombay to find fame and fortune in the Hindi film
industry. This is the basic through line of the film
but at its heart, the film is an exploration of the
relationship between NRIs and Hindi cinema.
The NRI market, is per capita, the largest consumer
of popular Hindi films and with good reason. We remain
a strange community, struggling to find our place
in the world--torn between a country which has yet
to fully let us in and a country we have yet to let
go. Bollywood films allow us the illusion that somehow,
we can go home again.
The film is inspired by my own love of popular Hindi
cinema and all of its melodramatic, musical, mini-skirted
and muscular glory. I wanted very much to make a film
which legitimized rather than mocked Bollywood, for
though most popular films are simple (to say the least)
they gave our private selves a public sphere, for
though we had moved to Canada the culture in our homes
was not something one saw on prime time television.
As Ruby Bhatia puts it in the film, "Weekdays
we'd be totally Canadian, and on the weekends we'd
be totally Indian....salwaar kameez, Diwali functions,
Holi functions and the songs...we'd always dance to
Hindi film songs and the more you knew about the movies,
the more Indian you were...." And strangely enough,
I knew exactly what she meant, for somehow in our
vain attempts at being Indian, knowing everything
about Amitabh Bachchan was as good as a passport to
the subcontinent.
There are four central people in the film who are
at various stages of success. Neeru Bajwa is a young,
candid 18 year old who goes from Canada to India when
a director calls her promising her a screen test for
his first film. Vikram and Vekeana Dhillon are a brother
and sister team who have been in Bombay for eight
years and have had some degree of success as VJs but
are still waiting for the mythical big break. And
finally there is the enigmatic Ruby Bhatia, who will
surely make the history books as India's first star
VJ and has tasted the kind of fame the others are
seeking.
There are two journeys I wanted to document--that
of the actor seeking fame and that of the person seeking
place, both in some ways are fantasies, as ephemeral
and as intangible as those incredible epics we grew
up watching. It is to this end I use many film clips
and film songs so that they become part of their own
deconstruction. I felt in that way the poignancy of
certain moments would be that much more intense. I
knew that Neeru would respond to Bombay as she does--like
an immigrant shocked at the reality of a foreign land.
I knew also that part of her disappointment would
be the realization that India was for more complex
than the fantastically simple one we had grown up
with.
What really drew me to her and Vikram Dhillon was
their absolute identification with Hindi film stars
and their desire to become the next Bachchan and the
next Sri Devi. They were never interested in Hollywood
for their idols were made in India. One of the central
questions I ask in the film is whether they would
have made that journey back if North America was a
place which recognized the complexity of their experience-if
they recognized themselves in their adopted landscape
would they return to the country their parents left
behind?
Bollywood Bound is my first film and was certainly
a very difficult film to make. It took three years
though actual shooting spanned four months. The greatest
time was spent in the research and then the edit.
I did not go to film school so the lack of actual
film training was at times quite challenging but at
other times I felt it did not limit me in ways that
a film education may have for I was not tied to memories
of 'how to make a film' per se which other first time
filmmakers may be. That said however, the film certainly
has that first time earnestness and possibly the desire
to express every profound thought one has ever had
for fear of not getting a second chance! Which brings
me to the discussion of whether the imagined Bollywood
Bound lives up to the one which I finally ended up
with. The answer of course is no. Apart from the complications
inherent in the documentary form, primarily the unpredictability
of life, (the film changed drastically due to unforeseen
circumstances involving one of the four people I follow),
I question whether anyone can ever truly be satisfied
with something they've created. I think the relationship
between the creator and the thing created is fraught
with many complications, most notably that one has
to in some sense abandon the ego and allow the story
to emerge organically from within the material…I
guess what I mean to say is that one really has to
respect the story over one's role as the story teller.
Shooting Bollywood Bound was the easy part….incredibly
exciting, scary and at times very raw as people revealed
themselves and their stories. Probably the greatest
memory I have is shooting the opening sequence of
the film which takes place at Churchgate station.
It took months to get the permission and what I wanted
to do, I think the authorities at Churchage did not
quite understand though I was emphatic in my attempts
at explaining it. Basically I was working with CK
Muraleedharan, cinematographer and a digital effects
company to formulate a fantasy sequence with Vikram.
The shoot involved a rostrum that was 30 feet high
which I was going to place in the middle of Churchgate
station, on the platform during peak hours. For some
absolutely bizarre reason, they okayed this and we
created mayhem of the kind that should have had me
kicked out of the country! We blocked the flow of
traffic, hundreds of people stopped to watch thinking
Vikram was Abhishek Bachchan and the next day, we
were written up in a Gujarati newspaper. Apparently
Churchgate had not been the scene of this kind of
film shoot in over 25 years! The authorities kept
asking, 'Madam, are you sure this is a documentary?'
The film however really came together in the editing
room. I had a strong sense of the story arcs for the
four in the film, but the way those progressed, was
established in the edit. Managing to juggle four very
strong personalities was very difficult. Fortunately,
I had an editor whose greatest strength is structure
and the film I think really has a good flow.
I was very fortunate in terms of the funding--the
film was produced by the National Film Board of Canada
who encourage and support the work of first time filmmakers
and who also understand the need to reflect the multiculturalism
of Canada--a noble concept which, inspite of its progressive
intentions, still remains problematic.
Now that the film is over, I feel a strange elation
and a sense of loss. As is the case with all filmmakers
or storytellers, it is difficult to leave something
that for so long you've inhabited and has inhabited
you. At the same time, I feel that desire again to
say something else and again in film, which is slowly
becoming a medium I am growing comfortable in. One
of the greatest difficulties was working in a visual
medium and that with other people. I've always found
writing much simpler as there is no other being to
go through in order to express oneself, the relationship
is far more direct. With film, the difficulty was
communicating what I saw in my head to the people
I was working with. It was also about learning to
show a story as opposed to telling one, far more difficult
than it sounds.
I set out to make a film really for NRIs, specifically
for my generation of NRIs for whom Bollywood meant
the ability to escape from the strangeness of our
skin. Living a dual life is not at all unusual--living
between worlds, shifting and negotiating two different
realities is commonplace. Though there is no doubt
that this is a difficult space to inhabit, it is also
an exciting place, for we are on the cusp of something
I feel. In some sense we are pioneers, telling our
stories, creating a history for ourselves for I believe
ours has always been the search to find that elusive
history, that 'phantom zameen' we could claim as ours.
I realized after making Bollywood Bound that we need
to stake our claim in this place, to set our roots
down in this place. No more borrowed pasts.
Nisha Pahuja studied English Literature at the University
of Toronto, and worked in social services before moving
into writing and researching for documentaries. Pahuja
has worked with several filmmakers including John
Walker, Ali Kazimi and Shelly Saywell, and recently
co edited Bolo! Bolo! an anthology of writing by second
generation South Asian Canadians. Bollywood Bound
marks her Directorial debut. Sources_upperstall
