Capturing India through Bollywood

Bollywood music is the best chronicler of modern India. No vision, from toothy slum kids to Mercedes-wielding brats, has escaped its reels of alternating realism and escapism.

This is the premise of filmmaker Vijay Singh’s new project India on Song, a film soon to be released on Indian television screens.

The film rolls serenely over India’s six decades of turmoil and consumerism with a collage of characters, ranging from historian Romila Thapar to Anjali, Singh’s domestic help in Mumbai.

Different narratives braided with hummable songs and grimy train journeys — here’s looking at you, India.

Vijay Singh has been based in Paris for the last 30 years. “History and poetry, and here I mean poetry in the larger sense of the word, as art, have come together in this movie,” he says, over a telephonic conversation.

“There is the reality of people living and dying, and then there is the history of emotions, which is encapsulated by Bollywood. Is it a coincidence that at a time of extreme poverty and hopelessness, Awara Hoon was the song on everyone’s lips? Reality and Bollywood have a curious relationship, which is harmonious in its contradictions,” says Singh.

A product of St Stephen’s College and Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, Singh is also  prolific writer. He has written extensively for the French press and spoken at Harvard and Cambridge.

It was at a Harvard speaking appointment that the idea of India on Song materialised. A sweeping view from Independence to globalisation — the film attempts to see a direction in India’s chaotic and violent past.

The film is narrated through a mixture of interviews, archival reels and musical numbers. His earlier offering, One Dollar Curry, received largely positive reviews, which proclaimed it to an entertaining treatment of the serious topics of immigration and integration in Paris.

Another film, Jaya Ganga, has somewhat of a cult following, he says.

Singh is slightly bewildered by Bollywood, and has walked out of many theaters mid-feature. “Why does a girl have to walk in slow motion? Indian movies are so melodramatic, and just plain loud. I remember watching Munnabhai.” Did he like it? “No, I didn’t,” he says. “Indian movies have great concepts, but lack in execution.”