'Race' is a tub of popcorn ....

Aradhna and I were joined by a friend named Karun yesterday at Melbourne Central for the 5:00 showing of a new Bollywood film called Race. Heavy Indian turnout on an Easter Sunday -- I was the only gora among the 200+ movie goers. The star-studded flick was loud, colorful, scandalously illogical and a strangely satisfying way to pass three hours in the dark. In short, standard Bollywood entertainment.

I struggled to conjure a metaphor for the film as we took in Melbourne's skyline from the other side of the Yarra (a touristy area known as Southbank) afterwards. An unusual disinterest in Southbank's riverside restaurants solved the riddle. Before the film I'd bought a vat of popcorn for the three of us to share. Sitting between Aradhna and Karun, it was I who held the popcorn; it was I who subsequently ate popcorn nonstop for the duration of the film. Such does one experience a freshly popped bucket of a movie like Race. Far too much to ingest in one sitting, yet one's hand continues to dig out heaping mouthfuls long after the stomach has cried, "Bas!" (Hindi for 'enough'.)