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The show abides.

INT. STUDEBAKER. DAY.
KERMIT
Why are you jumping up and down?
GONZO
I’m hoping mad!
KERMIT
Guy’s got a sense of humour.
FOZZIE
Hey, why don’t you join us?
GONZO
Where are you going?
FOZZIE
We’re going to follow our dream!
GONZO
Really? I have a dream too… but you’ll think it’s stupid.
ALL
No, no! Tell us!
GONZO
Well, I wanna go to Bombay, India and become a movie star.
FOZZIE
You don’t go to Bombay to become a movie star! You go where we’re going, Hollywood!
GONZO
Sure, if you wanna do it the easy way.

The Muppet Movie.

The next time it’s getting to be a bit, well. Remember the International Channel. Especially at 9 o’clock on a Sunday night when Showbiz India is on. Not just for the impossibly cheerful and preposterously joyous clips of song-and-dance numbers from mass-produced Bollywood musicals (where Michael Jackson’s old choreographers must be lauded like those old Beijing Opera fighting masters on the sets of Hollywood action movies), though that’s what lifts the heart and crooks the grin in the first place. —It’s also because you get to hear a long rambling interview with Gurinder Chadha, who was born in Kenya and grew up in England, and whose new film, Bend it Like Beckham, is sparking girls’ soccer leagues like wildfires across India. You get to hear her talk about casting her aunt in a background role and having relatives call from Australia to crow about seeing Auntie on the telly in a movie and you remember once again how big and wide and unexpected the world is and yet people somehow manage to crisscross it with something approaching grace (Jane puts down in New York a newspaper picked up in Australia; she can replace it with another copy from the kiosk on the corner)—and somehow it manages not to unravel in total chaos except.

Except.

—But at least these days it’s easy enough; we can all be superstars of Bollywood. (Each in one’s own unique idiom, of course.) Lots of bhangra and Najma and Vijaya Anand to be played at work this week. Talvin Singh, too. —Especially the stuff he did with the Master Musicians of Jajouka, except we’re getting rather far afield from Bollywood. But why not? Bring along some Muslimgauze, too, and Sif Safaa—except. Except.

  1. Bill Humphries    Mar 24, 01:28 pm    #
    India is discovering why sport can be great for young women while Title IX is on Bush's hit list.

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