Nisha Sharma - My So-Called Bollywood Life

Hello, blogging world! Im starting high school this fall, where Ill be studying film, and I wanted to document the Bollywood movies that Ill be watching over the next four years. Ill be reviewing both old and new movies, but Ill focus on the New Bollywood era, which is the late 80s through the early 2000s. I love that period in Bollywood cinema.

Anyway.

Each blog entry will be a separate movie review, and because my best friend, Bridget, says she has a hard time keeping track of all the movies I talk about, Ill be translating the titles into English. I know, I know, they shouldnt be translated, but I doubt Bridget will pick up the language until an app offers it for free. (Hey, Bridgetif I can learn three languages, you can pick up freaking Hindi, dude.)

Reviews are totally my opinion, yada yada yada.

I cant WAIT to share my love of drama with all you guys. I dont have any drama in my own life, so this is the perfect way to get my fix.

Kangana Ranauts blockbuster included all the elements needed to create a money-making masterpiece: a strong woman, a stupid man, and tons of girl power.

According to Google, a grave was supposed to be six feet deep, but Winnie Mehta didnt want to put that much effort into digging. Besides, it wasnt as if she was dumping an actual body or anything.

She stopped and surveyed the burial site shed chosen in the woods behind her house. After dragging three boxes and a shovel up the hiking path, Winnie had already built up a layer of sweat, but she had a lot to do before she could go home.

As she marked the hole, her phone began vibrating in her pocket. She sent the call to voice mail when she saw her best friends face flash across the screen. That was Bridgets seventh call in the last hour. Winnie wantedno, neededthis moment, in which she stuck it to her stupid destiny, the wasted years she believed in true love, and, most importantly, to Raj, her cheating ex whod hooked up with someone else while she was away at film camp. There was nothing Bridget could say that would change her mind.

It had been two months since Winnie had told Raj they needed a break, which wasnt the same thing as a breakup. And even if they had broken up, a relationship blossoming from a childhood romance that became official when they were fourteen deserved more than three weeks of mourning before one party moved on to someone else. Even celebrities waited longer than that.

The thought caused her hands to tighten on her shovel. She rolled her shoulders, and with a warriors grunt, she started digging.

Stupid love story, stupid prophecy, stupid everything, she thought as she scooped up heaps of thick black soil. Since she was a kid, her familys astrologer had predicted that Winnies soul mate would meet three unique criteria: his name would start with an R, hed give her a silver bracelet as a sign of his love, and hed cross paths with Winnie before her eighteenth birthday.

Identifying Raj as the man of her dreams wasnt too farfetched, since they went to the same school and had grown up in the same community. Not to mention, hed pulled out all the stops to get her to notice him when they were freshmen. For Winnie, accepting her destiny as truth and believing that her high school boyfriend was her soul mate for life was as easy as rattling off the top ten grossing Bollywood films per decade.

But then Raj changed. A lot. Three years later he wasnt her hipster in shining armor anymore. Hed traded in his collection of graphic T-shirts for polos and his love of movie nights for the tennis team and STEM club.

She felt her chest constrict and her heart pound from the exercise and from remembering that moment when Raj had told her he wanted to go to school in Boston instead of New York. Hed followed that truth bomb by asking her to give up her dreams and move to Boston, too.

Winnie! Winnie, are you out here? Bridgets voice echoed through the rustling trees and the sound of chirping birds. I saw the drag marks from your car and across your backyard.

Shit, she muttered. She started digging a little faster, tossing dirt in every direction.

Okay, this is nuts, Bridget yelled. Where the hell are you?

Winnie tried to block the sounds of branches snapping as she continued to create her movie grave. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bridget step into the clearing. Her blond hair was tied in a high ponytail, and her shorts and tank were streaked with dirt, as if shed wrestled her way through the rain forest instead of a small wooded area in Princeton, New Jersey.

Oh. My. God, Bridget said as she pointed to the boxes. Are those Rajs movies? You cant be serious! I get that I shouldve told you before you got back from camp this morning. Its just that I wanted to talk to you about this whole thing in person. I know its a huge betrayal

Thats one way to put it.

And youre probably pissed

Winnie froze. Probably pissed? Are you freakin kidding me? She tossed the shovel to the ground and faced her friend. No, Id probably be pissed if I got a B in film class this year. Id probably be pissed if I gained ten pounds and couldnt fit into my prom dress. Im