Namastey London (2007)

I know many of you may be questioning my decision to celebrate an entire week of Katrina Kaif films. While she is one of the most bankable actresses in Bollywood, Katrina has surprisingly few champions among the critics and on the blogosphere.

While I fully admit that there are better working actresses in Bombay, I don’t think anybody else brings to the table what Katrina does. Her reel life charisma reminds me a bit of Marilyn Monroe, womanly yet somehow still vulnerable, a combination that I’m sure is responsible for much of her box office appeal for the masses. On top of that, a look at Katrina’s films is also a look at a good cross-section of contemporary Bollywood and, so, even if you don’t find her as charming as I do, I think you might still find something of value in looking over her filmography.

Every time I watch Namastey London, I end up taking away something new. The film’s premise is simple: “Funjabi” boy meets British girl, love follows. Yet, it has taken me numerous viewings over the years to pin down the complex stew of identity politics that frame that adorable and timeless “boy meets girl” story.

The first time I saw Namastey London was when it was released in theaters. I hadn’t known Akshay Kumar could be so romantic. I was smitten. Further viewings gave me an appreciation for Katrina Kaif and her uncompromisingly English character “Jazz” and then led me to be frustrated with what I saw as the retro-gender politics of the ending and what I then perceived as anti-Western views. But viewing it with fresh eyes a few days ago for this blog post, I was surprised again. While I’m still smitten with Akshay and charmed by Katrina, I didn’t find the ending to be a guilty verdict for the “modern” and “Western” girl at all; I had been misreading the film. What stood out to me this time around was what the film had to say on the generational divide, and it was quite harsh on the old lions of Rishi Kapoor’s era and the pressures they put on the young generation.

Let me give you a quick recap of the story. Jazz (Katrina Kaif) is a carefree English girl. Her father (Rishi Kapoor) is desperate to see her married off to a nice Indian boy. Jazz gets a proposal from a douchey white English guy named Charlie Brown and Rishi quickly sweeps Jazz off to India, tricking her into thinking it’s a vacation when really he is trying to set her up with some guys. While visiting family friends in Punjab, Jazz’s father arranges for Jazz to be married off to the son of his best friend, a nice young man named Arjun (Akshay Kumar). Backed into a corner, Jazz tricks her father right back and marries Arjun but insists on returning to London before they finalize the paperwork or have their honeymoon night, meaning that she considers herself not married at all. She is so single, in fact, that she is accepting Charlie Brown’s proposal (Take THAT, Dad!) Arjun is crushed but decides to stick around in London until she actually gets married and, well, true love does wait for Arjun and Jazz.

What had seemed to me a regressive is actually very forward thinking. While Rishi may think that he wins in the end when Jazz chooses Arjun, the man that Rishi wanted her to marry, I’ve come to understand that he actually loses. You see, in the film, Jazz chooses Arjun in spite of her father, not because of him. And Rishi learns that he has to accept her choices and let her make her own mistakes. The happy ending is that Jazz figures out that just because she can do something doesn’t mean that she should. And Rishi learns that if he lets his daughter make her own choices instead of forcing things on her, she may just choose to do what he thinks is best for her.

There is a line early on in the film from Bobby Bedi (Riteish Deshmukh), a potential suitor of Jazz’s, about how he wants a girl who is Western on the outside but traditional on the inside. This “ideal” is later echoed by Jazz’s father, who is embarrassed by his wife’s poor English and her dress sense but is also furious as his daughter’s desire to hang out with her English friends and do things like go clubbing. Jazz is 100% English; her mother is 100% Indian and neither is good enough for him.

Jazz from the beginning is a relatable, modern British girl. Sure, she is a bit flighty and impulsive and spoiled but she owns it. The main conflict in her life is with her father, who has impossible ideals for her to live up to. He pushes her too hard to be that “ideal” of Western on the outside and traditional on the inside, not understanding that it is an impossible combination for Jazz. Her rejection of her heritage is not so much a rejection of her heritage as it is a rejection of her father’s desire to control her. The same is true for Jazz’s rejection of Arjun, a man that she turns out to genuinely like once she is not being forced to marry him. Once she is allowed some freedom and some breathing room, Jazz comes to understand a bit of her father’s desire to pass on his Indian identity to her and his pride in his heritage and finds that maybe it isn’t so bad after all…on her own terms.

Katrina Kaif does a superb job as Jazz and I suspect that anybody who didn’t like her in this probably won’t like her in anything. Katrina is like a breath of fresh air. Charming without being cloying. And her performance as Jazz is delightful to watch. Unlike other spoiled Western brats (i.e. “Poo”), Jazz is as completely unapologetic for her Western behavior at the end of the film as she in the beginning. There is no dramatic sari or salwaar suit makeover. Much like Saira Banu in Purab aur Paschim, she just keeps wearing her miniskirts and doing shots of tequila until the end of the film.

And she and Akshay Kumar do share a remarkable chemistry. You understand why Arjun is smitten immediately and is reluctant to let her go. And Katrina does a great job showing Jazz slowly falling for him in return. Much like Jazz is Western in all the ways that matter, Arjun’s thinking is very Eastern. He is unembarrassed by real romance. Unlike Bobby Bedi or the other fools that try to woo Jazz, Arjun isn’t playing from the “single rose and a bottle of wine” handbook. He is devoted in an old-fashioned hero kind of way. An Ashok Kumar-style dedication to courtly love, something that has been long forgotten in these post-modern post-DDLJ days.

So, in short, haters to the left. Here is the scene where I fell in love with Katrina! She is attempting to get rid of Bobby Bedi aka “BB” by being his worst nightmare—a girl who looks "traditional" on the outside and is "Western" on the inside. Shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots... everybody!

There is much more Katrina Kaif to come, so stay tuned!

(Originally posted December 19, 2010)