Routes to the Roots — Transcultural Ramifications in Bombay Talkie

Routes to the Roots — Transcultural Ramifications in Bombay Talkie CHRISTINE VOGT–WILLIAM Sunrise, burning heat Nothing is as travelled as a Bombay street Contradictions, city of extremes Anything is possible in Bombay Dreams Some live and die in debt Others making millions on the Internet Contradictions, city of extremes Anything is possible in Bombay Dreams1 The journey home Is never too long Some yesterdays always remain I’m going back to where my heart was light […] I want to feel the way that I did then I’ll think my wishes through before I wish again Not every road you come across Is one you have to take No, sometimes standing still can be The best move you ever make2 1 Don Black, Raza Jaffrey, Preeya Kalidas & A.R. Rahman, “Bombay Dreams,” from the musical Bombay Dreams; lyrics on http://www.allthelyrics.com/lyrics/bombay_dreams _soundtrack/bombay_dreams-lyrics-75250.html (accessed 15 March 2008). 2 Black, Jaffrey, Kalidas & Rahman, “The Journey Home,” from the musical Bombay Dreams; lyrics on http://www.allthelyrics.com/lyrics/bombay_dreams_soundtrack/the_journey_home- lyrics- 75246.html (accessed 15 March 2008). 310 CHRISTINA VOGT–WILLIAM ½¾ HE IDEA OF ‘BOMBAY TALKIE’ explored in this essay relates to fertile ‘boundary breaking’ ground particularly suited to investi- T gating transgressive artistic and literary practice. My essay is based on a film and a novel that both coincidentally bear the title ‘Bombay Talkie’: although the term ‘Bombay Talkie’ was initially confined to the Bollywood film industry, it has broken through genre and cultural barriers and has now gained currency in various manifestations in film and literature. Bombay Talkie, the film, was produced by the Indian film director Ismail Merchant and the Hollywood producer James Ivory, while the novel Bombay Talkie was written by the South Asian-American author Ameena Meer.3 Al- though both texts were created independently of each other, they do have something in common besides their title: both the film and the novel address the idea of a return to India as a transcultural strategy in effecting identity negotiations. The film is about a white woman trying to ‘return’ to herself in an India which she perceives to be spiritual, while the novel is about a South Asian-American woman who actually returns to India, where her parents came from, in order to get acquainted with that side of her cultural heritage. In this essay, I work with the premise that roots and transculturality are not mutually exclusive and that roots can in themselves be transcultural, thus questioning and even upsetting the notion that roots are the basis of an authentic cultural identity. The search for roots leads many Indian diasporics back to their ideas of their relationship to India, as shaped by their consump- tion of ‘Indianness’ in film, literature, and music. Given the diversity of cultural facets in India, these influences are intrinsically of a transcultural nature. In this respect, it is interesting to note that Bombay, the Indian metropolis that has lent its name to the term ‘Bombay Talkie’, is itself a transcultural con- struct, as Rushdie observes through his protagonist Saleem Sinai in Mid- night’s Children. Bombay was initally named ‘Mumbai’, after the goddess Mumbaidevi, by the Koli fishermen, the first known inhabitants of the region. The first colonial power to settle in India, the Portuguese, named the city ‘Bom Bahia’ because of its harbour, which sheltered the Portuguese merchant ships and men-of-war. When the British came, they called it ‘Bombay’, a British citadel, “fortified, defending India’s West against all comers.”4 This 3 Bombay Talkie, dir. James Ivory, writ. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala & James Ivory (Merchant Ivory, UK 1970); Ameena Meer, Bombay Talkie (London: Serpent’s Tail, 1994). 4 Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children (1981; London: Vintage, 1995): 92. .

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