So many bloody Indians can’t be wrong!
By Mark D Manuel | Monday, November 20, 2006 10:20:12 ISTHopefully, by now Angelina Jolie would have left Mumbai; if not, she ought to go by tonight. That’s what I’ve been told...
Hopefully, by now Angelina Jolie would have left Mumbai; if not, she ought to go by tonight. That’s what I’ve been told. The shooting of her movie, A Mighty Heart, on slain Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl is over. And there’s nothing here to hold back the proud and arrogant Hollywood beauty.
She was like an ill wind that swept through Mumbai and blew nobody any good.
I shall be glad to see the last of her. Of all Hollywood’s personalities that have come to Mumbai, from the warm and funny Goldie Hawn to the sauve and charming Pierce Brosnan, Jolie is the one star I would not have cared to meet.
Not because she is not my type of actress, but because I think she is over-rated, her image outsells her performance. And the few odd movies that I saw of hers didn’t really suck, but they were uninspiring, her roles did not require great acting talent. I have no reason to believe A Mighty Heart will change my opinion of Jolie.
Daniel Pearl’s is a tragic story, but really – who was he, just another journalist who got killed in the line of duty. When he was based in Mumbai, I don’t think even 100 people knew him, and he would have probably gone back to Wall Street and not be missed. But now Brad Pitt’s production company has capitalised on his murder to make a movie on Islamic terrorism. And for good measure, since Jolie looks like Pearl’s widow Marianne anyway and this would be killing two birds, Pitt cast his latest squeeze into A Mighty Heart. That’s why they were here. Pakistan was wise. It did not allow the Pitt-Jolie unit to shoot over there. I don’t know whether India really did. Because so many days after they were here and doing their own thing in Mumbai, it turns out that quite a few permissions were not taken for shooting in the city.
But that is us. It takes an ugly incident like what happened at the Anjuman-e-Islam School to bring out these little secrets. Our police did not provide any bandobast for any of the location shoots because they were not informed, they claim. Yet, Jolie’s three bodyguards were supposedly roaming around with sophisticated firearms; and, if one newspaper is to be believed, these bodyguards are wanted back in their own countries for crimes ranging from assault to murder. Frankly, I don’t blame Brangelina, as the gutter press calls Pitt and Jolie. But their Mumbai minders ought to be taken to task.
Brangelina’s behaviour smacks of the insolence of a white man who tells the natives, “Touch me if you dare” after running wild locally. The local minders seem to have subserviently told Brangelina, go ahead and shoot, this is our city – nobody will stop you or object. And it says a lot for the tolerance of this city that Mumbaikars silenly bore the inconvenience and haughtiness of this couple until that unfortunate incident at Anjuman.
I’m afraid, the otherwise proud and reactive Muslim community let us down somewhat that day.
I have no doubt that Jolie’s bodyguards abused the parents waiting to take their children home. Just as I am sure the students must have excitedly mobbed the unit. They did not do that because it was Jolie; our Rakhi Sawant would have been just as enthusiastically received. But they are kids, this is their country, that was their school.
It is shallow of Jolie to now say she would never work with people who abuse another race. And petulant of Pitt to condemn the arrests of the bodyguards without proof. But what is worse is their Mumbai minders defending the bodyguards and denying their abusive behaviour. So many “bloody Indians”, as the offending slur goes, cannot be wrong. But yet, I am disappointed. Muslims are Indians, why didn’t they deal with the bodyguards then and there? If legal experts think the incident did not merit the arrest of the bodyguards surely, then, nobody should object to several Indians defending their nationality from foreign abuse.
http://www.cybernoon.com/DisplayArti...ild=markmanuel
****Oh Snap!!!!!!, Seems like the Brangelina will not be welcome in India anytime soon****
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