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Movie & Music

Indians are in love with movies, even though most films follow a similar format called masala (the word for a collection of spices).  Movies are two to three hours long (and include an intermission), include songs and dances (featuring 100 or so choreographed dancers), top stars, the story between the songs of boy meets girl, lots of action, and always - a happy ending.

Fourteen million Indians go to the movies on a daily basis and pay the equivalent to US $1-3 to see any of the over 800 films churned out each year. That's more than double the number of feature films produced in the United States. 

Although American-made films have been edging into India, only the blockbuster Titanic has ever made India's top five list.  One hundred and fifty U.S. films arrived in India in 1998. 

Since India is a country of sixteen official languages and a total of twenty-four languages spoken by over a million people each, some portions of the film industry are fragmented. While Mumbai (Bollywood) leads India in film production, its specialty lies with Hindi movies. Chennai produces films in Tamil and Kolkata is the Bengali movie capital.

A big budget Hindi movie can cost in excess of US$30 million. The 'bigness' of the budget is attributable mainly to the high fees paid to 'stars', celebrated music directors, high-end technologies and expensive travel costs to shoot in exotic locations worldwide. 

Providing three hours of escapism is the primary objective of Bollywood and it's a recipe done well. Indian movies are becoming more and more popular around the world so watch for them in theaters and video stores near you. 

The Music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, popular, pop, and classical music. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and, developed over several eras, remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as sources of religious inspiration, cultural expression and pure entertainment. India is made up of several dozen ethnic groups, speaking their own languages and dialects. Alongside distinctly subcontinental forms there are major influences from Persian and English music. 

Filmi songs are extremely popular; they are sold on tape and CD, played on the radio, and featured on television programs. They combine Indian classical music, with its sophisticated, melismatic vocals and traditional instruments, with catchy tunes and stylings from Western pop music. The experimentation has been received well in India and continues to grow in popularity.

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Bhangra is a form of dance-oriented folk music that has become a pop sensation in the west. The present musical style is derived from the traditional musical accompaniment to the folk dance of Punjab called by the same name, bhangra.

Indian classical music is monophonic, and based around a single melody line. The performance of a composition, based melodically on one particular raga and rhythmically on one tala, begins with the performers coming out in a ritualized order -- drone instruments, then the soloist, then accompanists and percussionists. The musicians begin by tuning their instruments; this process often blends imperceptibly into the beginning of the music.

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