BARATHI - A MUSICAL

is here KEYHOLE PICTURES

I told Pookie what I wanted to write today, but she is not interested in musicals and love stories and therefore did what all cats do when they have nothing to say, they wash !

Did you know that it is not Hollywood but Bollywood which is the largest in the world in terms of number of films produced and in number of tickets sold ? It is the name of the Indian Movie Industry. Bollywood is a strong part of popular culture of not only India and Pakistan, but also of the rest of South Asia,the Middle East, parts of Africa, and parts of Southeast Asia. Bollywood has its largest audiences in the UK, Canada, Australia and the U.S., all of which have large Indian immigrant populations. I didn't know that either until I went on Sunday evening to an Indian musical called "Barathi" .

Before the musical started a commentor explained to the spectators where the story of this musical came from and then mentioned Bollywood.

Indian movies are very tragedically and content mostly love stories with a happy end. And this was the case here too. It took place in the biggest concert hall of Brussels called "Forest National" which has more than 7000 seats. And it was fully booked !

The story was quite simple, but what they had made out of it was absolutely marvelous. A dream ! I already have seen quite a lot of Musicals in my life and always thought that "Cats" which I have seen in London were the best because of the wonderful costumes and choregraphy, but now I have a second best "Barathi". The costumes were so colorfull and the about 100 dancers floated over the scene, it is hard to describe.

So what they danced was the story of a young English engeneer who came to India and saw a beautiful princess with her courtladies at a river. Of course he immediately felt in love with her and she with him. Then the father showed up and got very angry, chased the in love guy away and promised her to another. She were hidden somewhere. The English travelled around whole India to find her (we learned a lot about India that way) and finally discovered her. They met secretely, the promised fiancé showed up, both men fought, the fiancé lost, father showed up, princess cried and finally father took the English in his arms and handled him over to his daughter, they kissed and the curtain dropped. But this rather simple story was interpreted so beautiful that it really became touching.

I tried to take some pictures from my seat, but with my simple camera it was not that easy but anyway in a few of them you can just get an idea of what I have seen.

The princess looked a little like the picture here and were also shown like that. The accessoires of the musical were absolutely wonderful.

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and while I looked for a "princess picture" I found this picture of an Indian godess. The fact that she has four arms must be very handy ! Imagine what I could do with four arms ! Paint and write at the same time and I would have enough hands to pet my four cats !