24th
To be or not to be
I picked up a new book on modern Indian history, Vishnu’s Crowded Temple by Maria Misra, but on my way out of the bookstore I realized her first name was Maria and it occurred to me that she might not really know anything about India or its culture. I read some reviews to get the scoop and the take away seemed to be, “eh, give it a read, but make sure it isn’t the only book you read on Indian history.” This excerpt from a review particularly stood out to me:
Probably Misra’s evident unfamiliarity with the country leads her to commit bloomers that immediately downgrade the effort. For no apparent reason, she titles one of her later chapters “Flames” with reference to Sholay, overlooking the correct translation, ‘embers’. Worse, she decides that the film’s protagonist Jaidev (I thought it was simply Jai) portrays a “low caste character”. Having seen Sholay at least a dozen times, I cannot recall Jai’s caste origin being identified. The author goes on to comment that his caste origin determined he had to die in the movie rather than consummate his love with a high-caste Thakur’s daughter-in-law.
I haven’t heard much talk about Bollywood film in terms of caste. I think I’m going to cry.
