However, you may be surprised to find that in the Director Gadhvi version, Uday Chopra plays the girl with the exceptionally big smile, and Jimmy Shergill plays Cameron Diaz’s part as bride-to-be. In true Bollywood fashion, the world is upside down and you have to wonder why...
Could it be that two “Asian” women can’t be seen fighting over the same guy, or perhaps it’s impossible for women in this part of the world to be friends enough with a dude to make that much difference? Or perhaps Yash Raj Films just didn’t want to get sued over stealing the script.
But whatever the reason for the twisted plot change, I have my own theory... Asian women are just too decent to be caught up in such a ridiculous love triangle, and that people here are much too serious about marriage to fool around like that.
Weddings in this part of the world are a big deal, and anyone can see that on any of the ordained marriage days throughout the year. Party Palaces are filled with flowers, kids, and “Its The Time To Disco” blaring on blown loudspeakers. Family, friends, and cousin sisters and brothers gather to wish the couple off, but also to eat like they are starving and dance like they’ve been caged in a zoo for months.
In contrast, you have the American Wedding (the non-Hollywood version), where you can just drive through a converted McDonalds restaurant and get hitched while sitting in your car. Or how about Graceland Wedding Chapel, where you have a choice of either the Fat Elvis or the Skinny Elvis to preside over the nuptials while “Heartbreak Hotel” blares on blown loudspeakers.
With a projected divorce rate in America of over 40 percent for the first, 50 percent for the second, and 60 percent for the third (but probably not the last marriage), one is not surprised that wedding vows are not taken seriously in the home of the free, land of the divorcee.
Numerous new studies reveal the effects of not taking marriage as serious as a heart attack: 25 million plus American kids living without their biological father, with 63 percent of teen suicides coming from those disrupted homes. And the cycle is perpetual, as young girls are 111 percent more likely to become unwed teenage mothers if they come from fractured families.
The problem has become so perverse that American women are even defending the trend with “We Don’t Need No Men” campaigns and with appearances on Oprah espousing single motherhood as the new wave of hope for the future. Now I am not really a “Family Values” kinda guy, but if you remove the family from the equation, what hope is there for having any values?
True, it seems that in the West there is a successful trend for same-sex couples raising healthy children. But I am reminded of the hit sitcom “Modern Family,” where there are two dudes raising an imported Asian kid. Have you ever noticed that the Vietnamese baby in that show always looks shell-shocked whenever we see the gay househusband (played brilliantly by Eric Stonestreet) toting the infant around like a sack of potatoes?
Weddings in this part of the world are a big deal, and anyone can see that on any of the ordained marriage days throughout the year.
Call me a fundamentalist family idiot, but I think that nature intended fathers and mothers to be of the opposite sex, and that human beings have evolved to the point where fathers have stopped eating their young to play football with their children instead, and for good reason.
But the world seems upside down these days, just like in a twisted script from Bollywood, don’t you think? Until you go to a Nepali wedding, and then all seems right in the world... like last Sunday at Moshks Bar, where there was a reception that placed the bride and groom centre stage: Surrounded by flowers and video cameras, and with greeting friends and family wishing them happiness and a long life together.
Statistically speaking, they will stay together, as only 1 percent of marriages in this part of the world ever end in divorce. It’s such a glaring departure from Western culture – and begs the questions: Why? What will the future result be? Will Gay and Lesbian couples ever be raising kuire babies in Nepal?
I predict that they will. After the fall of the Nuevo Roman Empire we call the States, there will be plenty of orphans needing homes in the future prospering empires of China, India, and yes, even Nepal. After all, as the world rights itself into a balance that was set over 150,000 years ago, men and women will once again flirt, fall in love, and raise children together as a family unit (regardless of gender), and perhaps the term divorce will have died out along with other by-products of break-ups like teen suicide, Zoloft, and Unhappiness with a capital U.
Writer is quirky kinda expat happily living in the Kathmandu valley with family, friends and a very large dog – and is glad that he had his own Nepali wedding many moons ago
herojig@gmail.com
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