Hello!

Welcome to poori bhaji, a blog of many flavors. I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while but now seemed like a good time to get started on it. It's such a great way to share your thoughts and musings so I'm really excited to get started! I hope to document my adventures student teaching a lot but there are so many other exciting things to share that I by no means will limit my entries to the classroom. And since it's winter break right now I thought I'd start with one of my favorite things: movies!


Last week, rather than working on the last dregs of homework I had left I decided to watch a movie with my mother. Through the grapevine, she had heard about a Bollywood movie called English Vinglish that I was rather dubious about. Hindi movie titles can be rather strange sometimes.

But I should remember to never judge a book by it's cover because this movie was amazing. There aren't many Bollywood movies that make you think or stick with you for very long (Oh My God and Well Done Abba come to mind): this is definitely one that does. Plus, it got me thinking about the two worlds that I've always seemed to live in, a topic that I find particularly interesting to think about.

First, a quick recap for those of you who don't know. English Vinglish is about a housewife living in India who doesn't know English but has the misfortune of living in a family who makes fun of her for it. Needless to say, she is worried sick when her sister calls her to New York to help plan a wedding and she must brave the journey on her own until her husband and children can join her. While there, she joins an English class, meets a French guy who falls madly in love with her.

Now, if this was a Hollywood movie the trajectory would seem obvious. She learns English, leaves her husband and marries the French guy. She would thus assert her independence and get get out of an unhappy marriage. But this is Bollywood and Bollywood follows a different set of values. She stays with her husband, even tells him (indirectly) that she loves him.

Part of me totally wanted her to get with the French fellow. He was such a sweetheart throughout the movie but the other part of me knew that this couldn't, and shouldn't, be. Duty is a value that Indian culture and religion hammer into you and she definitely had a duty to her family that surpassed any amount of love and attention this other guy could give her. So what raged inside me was a battle between the two cultures that I've grown up with: Indian and American.

So, for what it's worth, I liked this movie because it stayed true to Indian ideals. In a day and age when every Bollywood movie seems to emulate a weird, narrow version of Western culture, it was nice to see a movie that embraced them. I was reminded of the two worlds I live in, one Indian and one Western and given a chance to reflect on what each one means to me.

Now, back to that homework that needs to get done!