Mother India: Mehboob Khan

"All Hindi films come from Mother India.”  —Javed Akhtar

It can be daunting to dive into a foreign culture's cinema for the first time. After all, it's impossible to tell whether or not you will find the films artistically satisfying to your personal tastes. Sometimes, the transition is easy. And other times, the transition can be jarring. The latter sums my time with Mehboob Khan's Mother India, my first experience with Bollywood cinema. I had already sampled the wares of Bengali cinema courtesy of Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak. But Bollywood had remained elusive to me. And now, having sat through Mother India, I can say with certainty that my first foray into Bollywood cinema was a transcendent one. The story of a poor woman named Radha, Mother India watches as she struggles to provide for her three sons all while protecting her dignity from a deliciously despicable money-lender. Much has been said about the plot and its parallels to Indian mythology and culture. I hardly need to recount these details. All that matters to me personally is the experience of watching it. And what a movie to watch! Luscious colors, jaw-dropping costumes, magical musical numbers (which at first seem out-of-place to viewers like myself raised in a Western musical-theater tradition), and drama that would make Shakespeare himself weep in agony. One thing's for sure: Mother India is definitely not the last Bollywood film I watch.

10/10