Bolly-would-be's

Several years ago, when we were still living in Japan, Isaac sold a computer to an Indian man whose brother had just won a national contest for new Bollywood talent: I don't remember the specifics, but there was talk of a film deal for him. So the plan (meaning Isaac's plan) was to leverage this connection into renown and riches for ourselves. The substance of this plan relied on two key actions. First we had to remember our friend the computer-buyer's name, which took a few days, and then we had to gather the energy to send him an email, which promptly bounced back. That was the end of the plan, and with Mumbai looking increasingly like an overwhelming, expensive city, we had to scrap our dreams.

Fortunately, Bollywood came to us. After my yoga retreat was over, we inadvertently found ourselves in the lovely city of Panjim, capital of Goa, for IFFI, the International Film Festival of India. Unfortunately, we were able to neither attract the attention of a Bollywood director in search of pale, approaching middle-age talent nor get tickets to any of the movies. But one evening we did head off to a nearby beach for a free mass screening.

The film in question, Dhoom 2, was entirely in Hindi and, as one of the project managers of the event told us, not very good. Nonetheless, he directed us to the VVIP area in consideration of our thwarted IFFI dreams (of being able to buy tickets to a good movie) and the absence of any other very, very important people in the rows of plastic seats reserved for them.

The opening action sequence involves a heavily jewelled crown, owned by a kindly, queenly looking white woman with two rambunctious grandsons, being transported across the Nairobi desert in a posh private train.

Suddenly, the movie's villain parachutes onto the train, tricks the guards with his kindly, queenly looking white woman disguise and, when discovered, deflects the ensuing bullets with a mysterious red square. Moments later, he unfolds this red sqaure into a snowboard with which he sets off into the sands, only to reappear moments later in a full-scale dance number. (Though on second thought, the detectives who chase to this "perfect thief" might actually be the stars of that number.)

We stayed until several more jewels get burgled, the mosquitoes had chewed up our ankles, and the non-VVIP screening area filled up with thousands of people. No movie deals out of our brush with Bollywood, but we can now identify and sing along to the theme song "Dhoom Again." It's a start.