Bollywood boy by Justine Hardy

Justine Hardy

This book reflects both the culture of India and the overwhelming exhaustion of those who are its current celebrities.  As a journalist, Justine Hardy travelled to India to learn more about its film industry, and ideally, interview its current idol, the young Hrithik Roshan. 

Early on, she came to realize the significance of cinematic productions to the people of India. At one point, while visiting an acquaintance, Justine commented she thought the fight sequence in one film had been a bit over-blown.  Only when physically backed against a wall by a male fellow guest, edging closer in a menacing way, did she begin to understand their significance.

The host, having halted this guest’s intimidation, later explained its source to Ms. Hardy.  The largely impoverished and joyless lives of an audience in India renders escape into a fantasy realm a type of emotional oxygen.  In essence, Bollywood represents the Hollywood of the past, and to some degree, the present as well. Life is presented as idealized.  Reality, to the extent it must be portrayed, is kept to a minimum.

Two people fall absolutely in love; their future bliss seems beyond doubt.  Then, there must be a hurdle to overcome.  This barrier, such as a pre-arranged marriage, is overcome, freeing the lovers to live in bliss for the rest of their budding lives, with one another. The subliminal message is, this could happen in your life as well, despite its improbability.
  
Ms. Justine Hardy’s view is supported by instrumentalist Ravi Shankar, who compiled an autobiography with the help of former Beatle George Harrison.  During the early 1940s, employed to write musical scores for two films exploring the ravages of poverty and the degradation of the poor, Shankar found these films were not well-received.  Already, as Shankar recounts, fanciful songs and dances, interspersed with combat sequences, had become in vogue, and were expected and demanded. 

Returning to Justine Hardy’s account, the idolatry of Hrithik Roshan was so intense as to be almost frightening.  Her journalistic endeavor, combined with her fascination with the lives of people in other parts of the country, impelled her to sample a variety of settings.  In one upscale club, a young woman she describes as “Perfect Features”, all but ignored Justine’s efforts at conversation.

Then, with the swiftness of a flash flood, grasping and clinging to Justine as if she were a trusted older sister, she repeatedly asked her what she should do.  Puzzled at first, Justine soon gleaned this Adonis she had been sent to India to pursue had just entered the club, transforming its most savvy female patrons into teenage vampires. 

Who then was this Hrithik Roshan?  Naturally, no human being could begin to approach the iridescence surrounding him.  Still, when Justine Hardy finally succeeded in securing an interview, she found herself touched by his vulnerability.  Across from her sat an exhausted young man on the cusp of adulthood.  What was the source of his weariness?

In fact, there were several.  Having married a young woman he had been dating for some while in hopes of starting a family, he had married her.  His outraged female fans believed this wife had found some means of caging him, ending their own potential to win him as a spouse.

In addition, the physical exertion demanded by the dance and battle scenes often left him with multiple bruises, sprains, and even bone breakages.  Still, despite whatever pain he might feel, he knew the need to perform as if impervious to any suffering beyond temporary heartbreak.

There were, he was well aware, a limited number of years during which his body, mind and good looks could withstand the ruthlessness of this regimen.  Ultimately, he would need to relinquish his part in the myth of Herculean fortitude.  
What might become of him later?  

My Accidental Jihad by Krista Bremer

The Hijab

My Accidental Jihad: A Love Story by Krista Bremer

Is there some universal force which can bring people from completely differing backgrounds together in a profound, loving union?  In a sense, this is the query at the core of Krista Bremer’s candid memoir.  Raised in southern California where freedom of thought is prized, Krista moved to North Carolina in order to further her career as a journalist.  Once settled, she scheduled for herself a jogging regimen.  During one such jog, she met Ismail, a Libyan man 14 years her senior, with strong Islamic beliefs. 

Gradually, the two began jogging together, their meetings becoming less accidental, until they agreed to meet at specified times, then going out for coffee later.  Still, given their age difference, and the polarity of their cultural and religious frameworks, even after they became lovers, Krista regarded their bond as a friendly romance.  Ismail had wished to marry Krista for some time.  Although uncertain at first, her perspective changed when she realized a child had been conceived between herself and Ismail.  As neither of them wished to terminate this pregnancy, the couple were married.  Not surprisingly, awareness of the ways in which Krista and Ismail diverged grew increasingly clear.

Why, she wondered, would he go without food all day throughout the month of Ramadan, eating only three dates, in a specified pattern, just prior to sunrise?  Conversely, what, he wondered, impelled her to wish for a gift focusing on hearts each Valentine’s Day. 

Each of them did all they could to accommodate one another’s wishes.  Still, a pivotal moment came when Krista, having found Ismail took no joy in her Valentine gifts, shaped a heart out of colored paper and then wrote on it all the reasons she loved him.  Later, during an evening walk, Ismail said this was the most perfect gift she could ever have given him.

A few years after their marriage, their visit to his native Libya helped Krista understand his values.  The women, in charge of all domestic work and food preparation, spent nearly all their free hours in each other’s company.  At first, Krista wondered how they endured the inevitable level of suffocating stultification.

Gradually, she realized these women found a peace and relaxation together.  It was all they had ever known, all they expected; they comprised an affectionate unit.  Older ladies died, young women married, but the basic group stayed cohesive.

She also discovered one major reason Libyan women, aside for religious commands, are willing to appear in public with their bodies and faces all but completely concealed by various types of veils.  Having asked one sister-in-law to show her the ways in which these coverings were created, she felt the gentle but definite knot of the head scarf being secured under her chin.  For the first time, she luxuriated in the freedom of privacy.  Arguably, this mode of dress was the ultimate feminist refusal to be appraised in terms of male definitions of allure and attractiveness.  

Krista Bremer’s memoir ends with the couple’s resumption of life in America, and their mutual knowledge that some divergences will always need to be overlooked, or result in the occasional conflicts. Still, in any successful relationship, at the root of genuine love is acceptance by each partner of the other, transcending their separateness.