Laugh if you want, but I'm a late convert to the arena of Bollywood films. (I can hear all my South Asian friends—especially one of my best friends—clapping their hands like, "Welcome to our world!") I mean, Filipino (from the Motherland) cinema is melodramatic and cornball too, but never as over-the-top as South Asian films. (Those variety shows and novelas on TFC [The Filipino Channel] that my aunties watch religiously are another story. If you know how to "Ocho-ocho" like one of the Sex Bomb Dancers, then you know what I'm talking about.)

My previous exposure to Bollywood film came via my work at NAATA [1]'s film festival. Two years ago the festival screened Bend it Like Beckham, the classic Mother India, and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (starring SRK). I remember sitting in the publicity office, formatting media lists and dubbing press screener copies of KKHH while the volume was muted. Even as I was focused on my computer monitor, I found my peripheral vision wandering towards the images I was dubbing. I checked out a screener copy of KKHH to watch at home.

My interest was piqued enough to watch a Sri-Lankan film at the San Francisco International Film Festival a few months later. But it's taken two years for me to finally jump onto the Bollywood Bandwagon that all of my cine-phile friends have been riding long before me.

After seeing Main Hoon Na, I had these fantasies of exiting the Castro Theater, bursting into song and dance: My hair windblown just so, as my shoulders bounce to bhangra beats. You know, singing a duet with a tall, gorgeous Shahrukh Khan look-alike, his arms outstretched towards me… Oh wait, I'm getting carried away.

I'm such a sucker for musical melodrama, sheesh.

T promised he would take me to Naz8 again so that we can see Shahrukh Khan in Swades [2]. The trailers before Veer-Zara said it was coming out December 17th. Until then, I have Netflix—the next couple DVDs in my queue are all starring SRK!

Holla at me now!