The, paper called the scarves “more fashionable than practical” in Afghanistan’s hot, dusty climate. The promos for Ek Tha Tiger had just released, sparking a nationwide craze for the bright scarves he wore. A 2012 article in the Washington Post reported of just how influential Salman Khan is among young boys.
So they parked themselves in a small room, its windows blackened out, and spent all their time watching films.”īollywood is everywhere: on the radio, on posters at the gyms and beauty parlours and at weddings, when they play Parde Mein Rehne Do. How? “When the Taliban took over, they weren’t allowed to go to school or work.
Taran also met two girls, who’d never been outside Kabul, but were unusually informed about Bollywood.
They giggled, “He is Tere Naam.” The animal was sporting the same long fringed hairstyle Salman had recently made popular in his film.Īfghanistan’s love for Hindi films has lasted through the decades and through the Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001, when cinemas and TV were banned. “We got talking to the boys looking after the horses and I asked why the horse looked so weird,” she says. On her first visit, in 2006, on a picnic in Paghman, north of Kabul she noticed that one of the horses on the farm had been given a haircut – weird but somewhat familiar. The journalist and writer made several trips to Afghanistan over the last decade. How much do the Afghans love Salman Khan? Let Taran Khan tell you. In Afghanistan, Salman Khan is more than a star. But marrying a man you don’t know… that’s where I draw the line.” “My mum just figured out how arranged marriages work. “My Indian friend who’s a feminist can’t understand why I love Karan Johar films,” she says. “They’re positive, entertaining role models, especially at a time of Islamophobia.” The films sit oddly with the region’s liberal mindset. Shah Rukh and the other Khans offer more than romance for Europe, Wessel says. The star must have obliged, for the women now commemorate the day they saw him!
Wessel says that when Khan was filming Don 2 in Berlin, fans gathered by his hotel window to catch sight of him. In actors like Shah Rukh, they see a guy who is soft, romantic, not afraid to cry or show his emotional side.” It’s probably why Ishq’s readers also love Shahid Kapoor (“Even his bad films, though he redeemed himself with Haider.”) and Hritik Roshan. “They’re drawn to the movies because German culture can be quite cold, especially for men. “About 95 per cent of these are women,” Wessel says. But it boasts a readership of 10,000 across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Ishq, a German magazine, at 6.50 euros, is not cheap. But nine years on, it boasts a readership of 10,000 across Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with 90,000 fans on Facebook. So in 2006, she quit studying cultural anthropology to edit Ishq, a slick German-language Bollywood magazine. “My mum never cries at funerals, but K3G got to her!” Fans connected via Web boards back then, but Wessel knew what they needed something more concrete. “I loved everything about it, especially the Shava Shava song,” she recalls. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images) (Getty Images) German women love Indian heroes as they are not afraid to show their emotional side. Shah Rukh Khan at the Berlin Film Festival in 2012. A nation of women tuned in and got hooked on to the melodrama, the family values and Shah Rukh Khan. What made Germans fall for Bollywood? It started in 2004, when a German TV channel showed Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham at prime time. It’s about, as film critic Anupama Chopra describes, “German fans – we’re talking blonde, white women – shivering in sub-zero temperatures for hours for a glimpse of Shah Rukh Khan!” This isn’t about brown folks in the UK filling theatres. It’s not about India’s “soft power” abroad either – we can scarcely understand this phenomenon, let alone control it.īut it is a humbling look at how far our films have gone, how they take on a life of their own on foreign soil, and how cinema transcends barriers in ways we’re yet to fathom. This is not a story of Bollywood taking over the world – our films have a long way to go before that happens. And even at hostile borders, all it takes is a mention of Bollywood for the doors (and hearts) to open. Fans who don’t speak a word of Hindi can sing our songs cold cultures have warmed to our comedies. In nations ravaged by war, viewers have treasured our love stories across generations. In faraway continents, young women are falling for our heroes at first sight. Our brand of cinema is thriving (dubbed, subtitled, pirated or officially released) in the unlikeliest of places. Three hours of drameybaazi, dishoom-dishoom, dialogue, song-and-dance, herogiri and maybe a few tears.