Reflections: The Bollywood Connection

0.0

The cultures of India and Europe are connected by a long tradition of mutual projections; 'fixed' ideas on both sides that do not always correspond with reality, but persist anyway. The western cultural area finds its mostly one-sided idea modified by the recent phenomenon of Indian movies being received with increasing enthusiasm in Europe. In this anthology of short stories these two cultures meet in direct exchange, creating new fields of perception and causing illusionary ideas to fade away. Enriched by the culture of Mauritius, the identity-forming effect of the Indian film industry within the Indian Diaspora is addressed; a Viennese college lecturer getting into a complex relationship with a Bollywood actor, a Mauritian botanist in search of her identity, and an Indian author and professed Bollywood-basher working out his childhood trauma through the film version of his novel and the incidental encounters that he runs into. Cultures and strands of action in these stories are completely interlocked in multiple layers, weaving in rapid succession a closely meshed net of fiction and reality, in which reality gets unmasked as a reflection of subjective perception. The author, seeking a profound relationship with India and Indian culture attempts to build bridges between the 'east' and the 'west', gathering the best of both worlds, and in the process, enriching both. This book attempts to transcend the physical barriers of time and space which prevent a meeting of the minds and illustrates the richness of events experienced from completely different perspectives.