Blood Diamond – starring Leonardo DiCaprio
Why are we Indian’s obsessed with foreign acceptance?
This is the question that has been frustrating me today…
Earlier today – I saw a not so well known TV actor Gaurav Chopra (has been seen in some TV soaps on Zee/Star Plus and also recently as the first round elimination along with his live-in partner Narayani Shastri on “Nach Baliye”) giving a loooooong interview to a TV news channel – about his part in the Hollywood blockbuster “Blood Diamond”… and his interactions with Leonardo DiCaprio. He even had anecdotes to share on how he was mistaken for an Italian football star – and how he and Leonardo had their trailers parked side by side….and the learnings he had from Leanardo about not having starry tantrums like the other stars in Bollywood do. Quite a lot of learning from less than 5 seconds of screen time with him…
Mistaken by this bravado – I went ahead and watched the movie later today…
Much like Mallika Sherawat’s much hyped appearance in “The Myth” which didn’t last more than two minutes… Gaurav’s appearance turned out to be lesser than that a 30-seconds long with barely an un-heard dialogue “there is no space inside”.
Had the TV channel even bothered to find out what he was upto in the movie...? What did Gaurav think before making such long statements...
What made Gaurav come on national television with such hype and pride? Maybe he thought not many will see the movie anyway (which is probably true) and yet he will get away with some brownie points… and some better scope with the talent hunters for the next soap on air… Or is it the sheer over powering urge we Indians have with getting a phoren’ stamp – be it the ‘now here now gone’ appearances of Gulshan Grover in Hollywood flicks which he doesn’t tire speaking about or be it the - ‘I will get an H1 before marriage at any cost’ attitude of each and every South Indians…we want a stamp of ‘phoren’ acceptance – irrespective of whether its worth anything at all. I have seen a few good close friends, who delayed getting married around the 2001 slowdown – just because they didn’t want to marry without an H1 stamped on their passports, bore the costs of their visa’s by paying the bodyshoppers, went to USA and hunted for tech jobs at their own cost – and once finally industry turned around and they stuck some good luck – they did get married too, the same traditional way they would have got married a good 2 years ago. But aaah… they wouldn’t have had the foreign colour to they visa that time.
Why is every Indian obsessed with when Aishwarya is doing her next Hollywood film, when Amitabh or Hrithik will break into a Los Angel’s movie career or what happened to Salam Khan’s Hollywood escapade “Marigold”, and what even an otherwise not-so-starry Kabir Bedi did in Hollywood or the American soaps like “Bold and Beautiful”…or when Sush will be seen alongside Richard Gere…or they never ending question - Oscar?
Be it the movie arena, or be it the whites adopting our age-old yoga, ayurveda, pranayama techniques or vedic thoughts - we seem to acknowledge and accept faster once the west has given a stamp of approval.
Are we still living in a colonial past…? Are we still burdened with the load of acceptance by the white skin…?
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