AMAZING!. Review on Bombay

This wonderful movie was part of Ted Turner Classics Bollywood Tribute. Ted Turner Classics is an American cable network that specializes in classic Hollywood films, art movies, and Hollywood musicals. This month they are paying tribute to the Indian Film Industry & thank God for that. Ismael Merchant is being interviewed prior to the film being shown to give American audiences a taste of what Bollywood is all about.

On with the review : Bombay is a Mani Ratnam film & for those unfamiliar with his work, he is like the Martin Scorsese of Indian cinema. Bombay is an outstanding example of what intolerance, & indifference can bring to this world. From the moment Shekhar (Arvind Swamy), a young Hindu man sets his eyes on Shaila Banu (beautiful Manisha Koirala), a young Muslim woman, he is instantly smitten by her beauty. He relentlessly pursues her until she gives in. Seeing as how they both live in a small village from very strict orthodox families, they decide to shun the confines of a bigoted society by eloping. They end up in Bombay around the mid 80's & are married in court.

Manisha gives birth to twin boys, Kabir Narayan & Kammal Bashir. The couple decide to neither convert to any religion & just give the boys both a Muslim & a Hindu name. By the time the boys are about seven or eight, it is 1992. 1992 was a very tragic year for India as this was the time of great unrest due to the growth of fundamentalist Hindu idealogy in India. The Hindu fundamentalists had wanted to subjugate the Indian Muslims by threatening to sack the Babri Mosque which has been a place of worship for Indian Muslims for hundreds of years. Well, as anticipated, by 1993, the worst possible thing happened. Radical Hindus stormed the Babri Mosque & destroyed it. The Muslims, naturally feeling offended retaliated & then there was what can only be described as hell on earth.

In the movie Bombay, we see disturbing scenes of men, women & children, both Hindu & Muslim, being pulled out of cars & stabbed, being incinerated & torched. Just ghastly, painful to watch scenes. The scenes can be compared to Schindler's List or The Pianist in the context of it being ghastly & harsh. As a woman, one of the most disturbing scenes for me is the depiction of mobs killing children. In one powerful scene, we see Shekhar & Shaila frantically searching for their two kids while the whole village is being torched. We see a mob of angry young men pour gasoline on the little boys & ready to set them on fire. Just in time, a terrified Shaila & Shekhar rush to save their children from these monstrous thugs.

In another scene, we see Shekhar & Shaila's house being torched & their elderly parents burned to death. This was particularly sad as both parents have reconciled with their kids after the riots. Then the riots started again & this time it was worse. We see Shekhar & Shaila go to the hospital as the stench of bodies upon bodies of people are piled on top of one another. We see children with missing limbs. Blood everywhere. I'm still shaking from this experience. Recalling this film is like being there experiencing it myself. It was HORRIBLE. The pain & desolation of what hatred brings is just out of this world.

In one particular scene, the twins get seperated as they try to run for their lives against a frenzied mob. The one boy falls & is trampled by the mob as the other boy is lost by the tide of screaming people running for their lives. The boy trampled on the ground gets rescued by a Harijan (a transsexual) who becomes his temporary mother figure. He/She feeds him & helps him search for his brother.

Bombay is a powerful epic that is important in every aspect. To the west, especially to Americans, Hindus are seen as peaceful fun loving, vegetarian people that meditate & sing bhajans all day. I guess you can't blame white people for this because if all you know about Hinduism is Ravi Shankar CDs, Yoga, and Gurus, then that is the impression you get. Bombay shows what both sides of each religion, Hindu & Islam, can bring. The ugly side of Islam & it's secular terrorism, and the ugly side of Hinduism with its radical intolerance for anything that is not Hindu Indian. I am so GLAD they show this on the TCM network because people NEED to see this. It's not just about India per se, but about the WORLD we live in. About how some of us form opinions on each other because of what we see in the media, our parents, our neighbors, ect. Oftentimes, we forget to take into account that each person is an individual. For instance, I can never understand WHY some Indians violently hate Pakistanis & vice versa. We do not take into account that like Indians, each Pakistani human being is different.

Religion might divide us, but overall we are all from God & in the case of India...we are all Indians, be it Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Catholic, Jain, or Buddhist. I salute the Ted Turner Network for allowing this film to be shown to millions of people who otherwise would not have seen it. Bombay is a BRILLIANT film & were this film sent to the Oscars instead of fluff like Devdas & god knows what, then we might have a chance of finally winning the damn thing. So much of Indian cinema is escapism & I applaud Mani Ratnam for taking a stand on reality & social issues.

For the month of June, Turner Classic Movies is featuring Bollywood films every Thursday starting at 3:00 PM Pacific Standard Time. Three movies were shown this Thursday - Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Bombay (1995), and Amar, Akhbar, and Anthony (1977). A new set of films will be shown every Thursday so please don't miss it! For all the non-Hindi speaking people, this is a blessing. Ted Turner classics have taken the time to subtitle each Indian movie in simple concise, American English. Anyway, please don't miss out on this rare opportunity to see the BEST of what Indian cinema has to offer. Here is the link to the website -- https://turnerclassicmovies.com/ThisMonth/Article/0,,27939|27940||,00.html