12 Feb. 2010
The last day in Jaipur
Royal Gaitor - cenotaph of maharanis and maharajahs of Jaipur, a walk through the bazaars,
the first night of Shah Rukh's new film - "My name is Khan"
For the last day we planned to visit the cenotaphs of maharajahs and maharanis of Jaipur. It took a while before our rickshaw-driver (this time we took a new driver - not that from the previous day) to understand what we meant. In the end he took us to the maharanis' cenotaphs - these are funerary monuments in honor of the wives of maharajahs. Here their cremations were held. The last took place just about 3 weeks before our arrival. The Queen was reportedly over 90 years old.
I learned all this from a local guide, who spoke only Hindi, so I had to make a great effort to understand a little. Very likely, too, that I've understood something quite differently from what our guide had said ....
He explained to us that the maharajahs' cenotaphs are on the other side of the road, hence we went there next. Maharajahs of course, built much more impressive cenotaphs for themselves. Elaborate, complicated designs, with which this constructions are decorated, sparkled before our eyes.
After seeing all cenotaphs we decided to let go our driver and finally to go to the famous bazaars or the Pink City. We bought there a few sets of bracelets, I bargained every rupee. There I found a colorful jhumkas, even quite cheap. On one of the side streets, where they sell mostly jewelry, we bought a salvar kameez for me, quite cheap, but as it later turned out, cheap Indian cloths are poorly made, but still enough for my needs ....
After shopping and wandering among the talkative Indians, we were already very tired. But we still remembered that this day was the premiere of the latest film of Shah Rukh Khan, and although it is not my favorite, but a very good actor (perhaps even the best actor in Bollywood), each of the film is a major event, you can not miss it. As soon as we returned to the hotel, I persuaded the boy at the reception to find a movie theater, where we could go to watch this movie. The boy tried to refuse, but in the end gave up and found out an address of a cinema.
The premiere of "My name is Khan" was at risk in India, because there were riots in Delhi in connection with the subject of the movie and there was even a thought to cancel the premiere, or make an additional edition of the movie. But as we arrived at the movie theater, there were still not a lot of people gathered there. We stood in the queue for women, which as usual was very short, that for men was almost reaching the parking lot. We bought the tickets in the Royal Box - which later turned out to be just the last row, but strangely enough, these were the best places and even one gentleman from the neighboring seat tried to throw us from there.
The film began without any advertisements, many Indians still did not have time to take their places and it turned out that they were coming until the middle of the first half (for the uninitiated the Bollywood films are so long that there must be an intermission in the middle of the movie). At some point, some men began to argue and fight, I do not know exactly what was the reason, maybe something in the movie upset them, it seems to me, however, that they argued about the places. At some point the whole room began to whistle at them and scream, so that they finally went away and allowed others to watch the movie.
Indians watch movies in a very spontaneous way. As they saw Shah Rukh entering screen, of course, they greeted him with ovations, same case with Kajol. Any wise maxims especially those advocating "equality, liberty and fraternity" was applauded and praised.
As for the film, I must say that this is one of the worst movies with Shah Rukh. It reminded me of the Forest GAMP. SRK was again brilliant. In the role he portrays, he is almost unrecognizable, but the story fails at every turn. SRK plays an autistic man, a Muslim, who becomes a great hero, who even flies to help the victims of Kathrina, ups .. sorry Monica:)
Apart from the fact that the love between an autistic patient and very attractive woman is a bit improbable, the accumulation of recently hot political facts is a bit too far-fetched. The fact that the WTC, OK, but then Guantanamo, and hurricanes and elections, and finally a meeting with Obama is a bit too much. Karan Johar is recently trying to be very on-time. Where are the free, spontaneous stories like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, or Khabhi Khusi Khabhi Ghum? Unfortunately his recent movies, do not measure up to them.
After the movie, still full of emotions, we returned delighted with the Shah Rukh' s performance to the hotel, to pack up and prepare for another trip, this time to Agra.
