A sport dominated by the West, with a few incursions from the East most notably named Yao, basketball enjoys a surprising level of popularity among Indians. Several Bollywood movies contain key emotional scenes during which characters both grow and develop relationships while playing a game of one-on-one basketball.
Obviously the inherent metaphor of one-on-one basketball carries the connotations of a heated game of chess while not subjecting the audience to an image of Aishwarya Rai thinking. However, if basketball means so much to Indians as a symbol, why then do they so cavalierly break its rules? Take for example the most popular basketball scenes from Hindi cinema that come to mind. 1) Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, 2) Dhoom 2 and 3) Koi Mil...Gaya. In the first, Rahul and Anjale play a game of basketball to, I guess, determine who is better at winning. The playful nature of the match-up foreshadows the intimate foundation of their friendship.
In Dhoom 2, Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai step up 2 the streets to play some real ball in the rain. The equality of their skills, while presumably embarrassing Hrithik, inspires him to add her to his one-man criminal collective.
In Koi Mil..Gaya...I don't know what purpose basketball serves in this story other than to underscore our point.
The problem is all these scenes, for all their narrative significance, don't depict an actual game of basketball. With such rampant double-dribbling, flagrant travels and spirited goal-tending (see video below at 1:51) what results is more like water polo on land or Powerball from American Gladiators. Then again rules were meant to be broken. Ballin'!
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3 comments:
to borrow from aishwarya in that stupid movie: we are like, on the same page.
maybe abhishek bachchan taught them all to play (see discussion of kkhh).
and finally, i'm impressed you found said sexy rainy basketball scene.
oh wait, you didn't find it. someone needs to locate that for us; it's pretty egregious
Closest I could get was a Hrithiklicious scene from Koi Mil Gaya with some horrendously horrendous NBA Jam basketball.
Side note to any DJ's, PLEASE sample the synth riff that comes in at 35 seconds, remix the daylights out of it, and drop a blazing new track called Koi Mil Gaya Playaaa.
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