I had my Muqaddar Ka Sikandar Bollywood Party tonight. It was pretty successful other than half the guests not showing. (I don't know if it's modern culture and the decline of the formal party, or if it's just the laid back attitude of Santa Feans, but people in my experience don't seem to actually understand what it means to RSVP or why it's important. I've had this trouble before, because I like to throw dinner parties. People seem to think it's fine to RSVP then not show, or to bring along other guests who weren't invited.) Reminded me a bit of that C.D. Gibson illustration captioned "At the last moment, several who were invited send their regrets" showing a large banquet table with only about 5 people seated, so they've been spaced about 10 feet apart from each other. I'm extra annoyed because one of the no-shows was my own sister who actually lives with me. Plus -- she had announced that she was going to bring her (not actually invited) boyfriend, so I made sure to put together enough food for both of them. Then neither of them came! I'm going to be eating nothing but chicken korma for a month now.
The only other trouble in the evening was the DVD froze up a couple times (seems to be the player, not the disc) but, in a 3 hour long Bollywood film, missing 15 minutes in the middle here and there doesn't make too big an impact.
I cooked Chicken Korma from scratch, made Jaipur Vegetables from a package, and got carryout rice and naan from an Indian restaurant. I have never been able to make naan successfully, but one of my guests apparently knows the secret -- he says you have to just drench the dough in ghee, to the extent that you don't even see why the bread should have so much on it, and once you do that it will taste like naan. I also made some rather good chai to drink (Stash brand chai black tea brewed strong, with evaporated milk and about a teaspoon of sugar per cup.) For dessert I served a ready-made Gulab Jamun. Overall it was a pretty good method, and not too expensive -- About $40 for (supposedly) 7 people to have a nice dinner, or a bit less than $6 a person.
Muqaddar Ka Sikandar is my favorite Bollywood film I've seen so far. It's got the usual, traditional, tacky fight scenes and inexplicable occurances (i.e. Sikandar bursting into a room through a brick wall like the Commendatore) but I actually like the love story. Plus there's a certain strange pleasure I get in seeing everyone mourning Sikandar as he dies dramatically on the floor during his unrequited love's wedding to another man, everybody realizing miserably how they've screwed him over and regretting how badly they've treated him. It's one of those things people fantasize about -- "Someday I'll be dead, and then they'll be sorry!" I first was motivated to see the film after chancing to view a scene from it on YouTube, and it just has such tension in it that I wanted to see more.
In this scene, Sikandar experiences a nightmare scenario as he discovers that the girl he's loved for over a decade is now dating his best friend -- all set to a cheerful (yet spooky and somewhat disturbingly set) song about the importance and joy of being in love. Sikandar, who had earlier promised his friend that he would give up drinking, here in a state of extreme distress consumes 4 glasses of wine and most of a bottle of bourbon during the course of 6 minutes.
The only other trouble in the evening was the DVD froze up a couple times (seems to be the player, not the disc) but, in a 3 hour long Bollywood film, missing 15 minutes in the middle here and there doesn't make too big an impact.
I cooked Chicken Korma from scratch, made Jaipur Vegetables from a package, and got carryout rice and naan from an Indian restaurant. I have never been able to make naan successfully, but one of my guests apparently knows the secret -- he says you have to just drench the dough in ghee, to the extent that you don't even see why the bread should have so much on it, and once you do that it will taste like naan. I also made some rather good chai to drink (Stash brand chai black tea brewed strong, with evaporated milk and about a teaspoon of sugar per cup.) For dessert I served a ready-made Gulab Jamun. Overall it was a pretty good method, and not too expensive -- About $40 for (supposedly) 7 people to have a nice dinner, or a bit less than $6 a person.
Muqaddar Ka Sikandar is my favorite Bollywood film I've seen so far. It's got the usual, traditional, tacky fight scenes and inexplicable occurances (i.e. Sikandar bursting into a room through a brick wall like the Commendatore) but I actually like the love story. Plus there's a certain strange pleasure I get in seeing everyone mourning Sikandar as he dies dramatically on the floor during his unrequited love's wedding to another man, everybody realizing miserably how they've screwed him over and regretting how badly they've treated him. It's one of those things people fantasize about -- "Someday I'll be dead, and then they'll be sorry!" I first was motivated to see the film after chancing to view a scene from it on YouTube, and it just has such tension in it that I wanted to see more.
In this scene, Sikandar experiences a nightmare scenario as he discovers that the girl he's loved for over a decade is now dating his best friend -- all set to a cheerful (yet spooky and somewhat disturbingly set) song about the importance and joy of being in love. Sikandar, who had earlier promised his friend that he would give up drinking, here in a state of extreme distress consumes 4 glasses of wine and most of a bottle of bourbon during the course of 6 minutes.
In a bloodless culture, it's no wonder vampires are all the rage--and pathetic anemic ones at that--jeez, even they don't dare bite.