I've just seen this f#cking insane movie, I was blown off my movie seat, I'm stunned. It was titled "RRR." Violent, macho warrior religious nationalist nutty... WTF? But engrossing, and anything depicting righteous revolution sucks me in.
Cinema is NOT dead, especially not in India. Yes, the giant screen, yes the loud sound system, but mostly the shared experience with a huge crowd, cheering, screaming, whistling, chanting, booing and stamping their feet, as a community. Yes, Indians really respond to the big screen.
Some of you may think I'm kind of mad, spending a large hunk of my life in India. As a kid I wanted to be a swashbuckling pirate or a sword and sorcery rebel flying on a magic carpet, just like I'd seen in the movies. Exploring India, especially in my youth, those "wild wild east" adventures and fantasies actually came true for me.
There are many fantasies in this world that we can dwell upon, chase and live out, each of us chooses a number of fantasies that suit us, that we are compelled to desire, their wish fulfilment of achievement, sex and power satisfying us for awhile. Fantasies thick as a fog, gambling, kingship, Casanova, sharp-shooter, bank looter, airplane flyer, glamorous movie star, astute businessman, female president, whatever, take your pick, we choose a few dreams and attempt to realise them.
Of course there's harsh reality, I was a palliative care nurse, off and on, for 40 years, try that for in your face entropy. Yet for all those years I fantasised I was Sister Kenny, administering to the fallen and needy. Some fantasies can contribute to the community.
For what reason did I live out my Indian Jungle Book Sufi folktale magic I don't know. My DNA? My Hollywood brainwashing? My previous life? My narcissistic living inside my own head? You say.
I hit the road, got lost, saw a lot of movies, met some Big Babas, meditated upon it, and try not to think at all. Yes, I'm mad; I call it being a Punk Outsider, and a vision-questing wanderer.
I've been all over the sub-continent, from the top of the Himalayas to the crashing together of the three oceans at the tip of India. I've visited many mausoleums, museums and monuments. Watched Hindu epics Ramayama and Mahabarata played out on stages on a street corner.
I've read a lot of Indian history and literature, danced with Bollywood movie stars at fantastic parties in Goa and nightclubs in Mumbai.
I've slept on the streets and in Maharaja's palaces. I've thrilled to the wildlife and participated with glee in Indian festivals such as Diwali, Siva Ratri and Holi.
But to get much of Indian culture encapsulated in one quantum of experience I go to the movies. I've been to a lot of Indian movies in many of their cities, to imbibe their 10,000 year history, to cry during the enthralling music and dance pageants.
But "RRR" tonight beat them all for heart-startling action and cut to the bone sentiments about love, loyalty and survival. The theme: the Indian revolt against the British Empire's looting, torturing and murdering the natives, set in the 1920s. If only we Australians were so brave as to kick out the British and become a Republic!
The crowd basically rioted, chanting prayers in unison; singing rousing revolutionary slogans; heckling the obese, ruddy and very nasty villain, a British Governor who with blue eyes and white goatee beard looked somewhat like me and I was terrified the mob might tear the "Angrezi dog", me, to pieces out the back of the cinema, me wailing, "But I'm Australian! We hate the British too!"
They gasped, gurgled, giggled and gestured with surprise at some of the effects, such as a herd of captive animals set loose amongst the British elite at one of their elaborate, celebratory dinners: think tigers at Memsahibs' throats.
The crowd continued their half-riot after the movie, out the front of a cinema hall that was as big as an aircraft-hangar. They yelled, hooted, gabbled and laughed ecstatically, a grand thrill-ride of assured nationalism and brave spirituality had been had by all.
They also shot around on their motorbikes yahooing like sub-atomic particles in a turbulent whirlpool. My over-excited driver, who up to then I trusted and half-felt safe with, suddenly turned our motorbike into oncoming traffic, head on, causing a young man tearing towards us to slam on the brakes of his giant motorbike and skid right up to us. My driver braked also, otherwise we would've collided.
I was furious and I now lie in my bed thinking: I've taken on the challenge of 7 motorbike rides every day and only just made it through to here; but it's similar to Russian roulette, sometime your number has to come up.
I'm chilling with the motorbikes after this, the third close call. I think I'll walk from now on, while I still have legs. But next day I didn't live up to my vow, like in that old sore, "it's like falling off a pushbike, you just get up and ride again." And I did survive, as if my guardian angel worked overtime.
