While I was in The Hague visiting Sofia we had an eclectic day of events on Sunday starting with beaches and ending with Bollywood. In the morning / early afternoon we biked to the beach and did some people watching... it was somehow strange to see SANDY beaches right off the city. And sail boats :)
In between the Beaches and Bollywood we went to a book talk by Greta Berlin, one of the American founders of the Free Gaza Movement. In light of the escalating violence in Gaza I don't feel right talking about it in the same breath as beaches and Dutch-dubbed Bollywood. But I do want to talk about it - so in this, separate post.
This reminded me of home! I've come to realize, though, that almost anything that involves the ocean or mountains reminds me of home.
Student of the Year: trailer
GO SEE IT!!! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Not only were there the reliably catchy and colorful songs and dances... but it was kinda, sorta politically progressive! Sort of. One of the main characters, the principle, was obviously gay and plenty of the jokes centered on that fact. As Sofia articulated -on the one hand the jokes were often homophobic.... but on the other it was nice to have gay people portrayed / acknowledged! And then there was THE most homoerotic friendship between the two main characters. They were supposedly fighting over the same girl, Shanaya, but come ONNN there was nooo tension between either of them and Shanaya whereas the two of them joked more than once about how they "aren't gonna kiss!" Sofia lived in India for two years during high school - so she was there about five years before me. We both were extremely taken aback and intrigued by how the movie addressed gender and sexuality. Again I really, really want to go back to India! I know I've matured and changed immensely since I was there as an 18-19 year old and clearly 'India' hasn't stood still either. I have such a clear and distilled sense of who I was then and there.... I am sure it will be fascinating and intense to return when I manage to some day.
In between the Beaches and Bollywood we went to a book talk by Greta Berlin, one of the American founders of the Free Gaza Movement. In light of the escalating violence in Gaza I don't feel right talking about it in the same breath as beaches and Dutch-dubbed Bollywood. But I do want to talk about it - so in this, separate post.
This reminded me of home! I've come to realize, though, that almost anything that involves the ocean or mountains reminds me of home.
Looking through the photos I realized I have so so many of me hugging and kissing Sofia :)
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Sofia and I were hanging out with her friend who works at the Canadian representation to the Hague and the three of us had a real hankering for a movie. In general my movie experiences in Europe have been suuuuper classy. You get assigned seats. Very much in the spirit of how they manage to make MacDonalds a sit down restaurant here. With seats made of something other than plastic that sticks to your butt in the most unfortunate way. We attempted to see a Danish movie that's just come out, hoping that the subtitles would be English.... but they were Dutch. Since there weren't any movies in a language that all three of us understand we opted for Bollywood figuring that the raw emotion and reliance on song-and-dance to convey plot coupled with Sofia's shaky command of Hindi and written Dutch and Bollywood's occasional use of English would save the day.Student of the Year: trailer
GO SEE IT!!! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Not only were there the reliably catchy and colorful songs and dances... but it was kinda, sorta politically progressive! Sort of. One of the main characters, the principle, was obviously gay and plenty of the jokes centered on that fact. As Sofia articulated -on the one hand the jokes were often homophobic.... but on the other it was nice to have gay people portrayed / acknowledged! And then there was THE most homoerotic friendship between the two main characters. They were supposedly fighting over the same girl, Shanaya, but come ONNN there was nooo tension between either of them and Shanaya whereas the two of them joked more than once about how they "aren't gonna kiss!" Sofia lived in India for two years during high school - so she was there about five years before me. We both were extremely taken aback and intrigued by how the movie addressed gender and sexuality. Again I really, really want to go back to India! I know I've matured and changed immensely since I was there as an 18-19 year old and clearly 'India' hasn't stood still either. I have such a clear and distilled sense of who I was then and there.... I am sure it will be fascinating and intense to return when I manage to some day.
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