Well, not exactly, but I had two very Indian activities today here in London. One was curry for dinner. Not terribly exciting, I know, but it was rather good. The other "Indian" thing I did today was see "Bombay Dreams," which is a great big Bollywood style West-End musical. It really was not a terrible show. It was not the best show ever, but there was a lot of energy, fun costumes, good dancing, interesting music, and lots of water on stage (evidentally, wet saris are a big part of these movies?). Another interesting thing they had in the show were Eunuchs. Now I'm not sure how common or prevalent these are in India, but they were all over the stage in this musical. Think Indian drag queens. Or I guess they're more like post-op transsexuals? Anyhow, they were quite fabulous.
It's amazing how once you dug through all the convoluted plot twists in the show (including that fabulous development so perfectly described in the screenwriting lesson scene from "Sunset Blvd." - "Noone dies except the best friend.") (Spoiler Alert -- skip a bit if you don't want to find out the plot - but there's a little naughty gift for all of you at the end of the entry). Basically, it's the story of Akaash. He's a bum from the gutter. His best friend is Sweetie, a Eunuch, who is fabulous. His idol is Rani, the greatest Bollywood diva. Sweetie, with her crowd of transgender and lesbian buddies, have figured out a way to crash the Miss World pageant, which Rani will be attending, and so they invite Akaash along (but they make him wear a sari.) Meanwhile, Madan is the director of Rani's films, and he is in jail (he was framed by JK, who's in the Indian mafia). And he's due to get out of prison. And he's in charge, somehow, even though he's in jail, of said Miss World pageant. So, JK the Mafia man wants to rig the pageant, so he tells Madan to fix it, and Madan tells his daughter, Priya, who's going to be actually running the pageant, to take care of it. JK gets Madan out of jail to go to the pageant and help. So of course, at the pageant, Priya and Akaash fall in love at first sight. Trouble is, Priya's engaged to Vikram, a slimy lawyer who represents everyone in Bombay, both in civil AND criminal cases. He's the one who tells the slum dwellers, including Sweetie and Akaaksh, that the land they live on has been sold to become (what else) a movie theatre. So once Priya and Akaash fall in love at first site, he is also discovered for his true calling: to be a movie star! Trouble is, he can't act - that is, until he gets some private coaching from Priya to teach him how to play his love scene with Rani. And of course, because he's pretending it's Priya up there with him, the movie is a raving success. Too bad that JK has become pissed off at Madan (I am still not sure why) and has him assasinated at the premiere of the movie. Of course, he then picks up the distribution rights, earns tons of cash, and rakes in the glory, too, when Akaash and Rani are named Best Actor and Actress for that year. But wait, there's more. It gets better! Sweetie, who has been abandoned by Akaash because he prefers the glamour of Bollywood, confronts the evil Vikram, because one of her fellow slum-dwellers stole his wallet which contained papers proving he had lied about the sale of the slum to the cinema-builders. Vikram offers to buy her silence, but she refuses. So he kills her, then hides the body. By the time Akaash found out that Sweetie had been waiting for him, Vikram has already run off to hide the body. As he's waiting, Priya invites him out for a drink, but he declines because he's waiting for someone. "A girlfriend?" she inquires. "Maybe," is his reply. Oh my ;-) Does that mean he's bi? Or what?
Anyhow, after a denoument involving an escape by helicopter, Akaash saving the slum from demolition, and a pair of numchucks, Vikram ends up beaten up, JK escapes to his evil lair, and Priya and Akaash walk off into the Bollywood sunset. Then the cast comes on and does the token megamix/reprise of the big production number, "Shakalaka Baby."
One really interesting thing about it was... have you ever heard that theory that there are only like 16 or something possible plots in the entire world? I'm not totally sure I agree with that, but this one did, after a fashion, have the same plot as "The Wizard of Oz." Akaash is from the slums, he dreams of going to Bollywood, gets there, loves it, but realizes that all he really wanted (well, except the girl) was what he had right there at home in the first place.
Damn, I have never shared the plot of a musical like that in here before. I apologize if you find it dull.
As a consolation prize, I will now tell you the other exciting thing I did today.
You see, I'm much less inhibited, for some reason or other, when I'm on vacation than when I am at home. So I have no problem going to places like the Sauna. (In Europe, they call it a sauna. In the States, a bathhouse. But whatever. Gay men go there to fuck.) So of course there were throngs of gorgeous Brit boys with very perky asses and such. Yummy. There was also this one guy who totally was into me - and he was OK looking - but he was like, so into me that it was kind of disturbing. And since I didn't really like his intensity, I said no. Trouble is, he didn't seem to understand the WORD "No." I was sitting in the hot tub (mmmm) and noticed he was cruising me from the other part of the room, so I conciously avoided him and thought he could tell. But he signaled to another guy in the hot tub, who got my attention, so I had to be like, "No!" That was sort of not fun. Otherwise, it was all good. I didn't really "do" much but I did strongly engage my voyeuristic tendencies, which made me a happy camper.
Tomorrow I have lots more fun things to do, which will probably include shopping. There's also an exhibit of shoes by the amazing designer Manolo Blahnik that I want to see. And I'm going to "Ragtime" tomorrow night, which I am very excited about. I love the score, and this production is evidentally much more minimal (that's not proper English but you know what I mean) than the Broadway production was, and it makes it more about the score and plot, which is supposed to work quite nicely. I'll let you know.
And hopefully I'll have more sex, too!
Posted by Jon at April 20, 2003 07:22 PM