Headline March 20 2018/ ''' *BRO*-*DUDE* BOLLYWOOD '''

''' *BRO*-*DUDE* BOLLYWOOD '''

UP THERE IN HEAVENS - watching and ever proud of her great daughter's accomplishments, to help and build a better world, is Haleema's  Mother.

In the memory of her revered mother, The World Students Society is very honored to nominate Haleema, an Engineer and Technologist Telecommunication as-

The Honorary President of The World Students Society for the week. At the strike of the midnight tock, past, Haleema, takes over.

The students of Proud Pakistan and The World Students Society, for every subject in the world - gives Haleema, an astounding team-founder and the first - *Editor-in-Chief of Sam Daily Times* : *The Voice Of The Voiceless*,  a standing ovation.

The World Students Society expects and hopes, that  Haleema will continue to make sacrifices, and match them by tripling her hardwork and her superb devotion to all things Great.

In ''Sultan'', the man who brings the televised martial art league to India is part of the country's moneyed English speaking elite.

In ''Sultan,''  the villain,  if there is one, is the culture of franchises and brands, that has brought the  outline of a modern society to India over the past 25 years.

The eponymous protagonist and his story about a televised mixed martial  arts league functions as a parable about a society trying to assimilate an onslaught of foreign influence.

In every area of life, from sporting events to television channels, retail to restaurants,  and even think tanks, magazines and publishing houses, modernity arrives in India ready-made.

The country is in the process of refashioning itself in the image of the West.

Bollywood films capture the violence and  humiliation   -and the very rage-  that accompanies an old society remaking itself to fit the mold of another.

In ''Sultan,'' the man who brings the  televised martial arts league to India is part of the country's moneyed English speaking elite.

He uses words like ''bro'' and ''dude,'' and he almost definitely went to a college in the  United States.

He's frustrated with his country's unwillingness to embrace his league.

Early on in the film,  his father, who we are to understand is less of a foreigner in his own country, sits him down to give him a lesson.

He speaks of the need for India to make the league its own.

''It does have a future, but you don't see it,'' the father says, using the league as a metaphor, for the country.

''But the future of this league does not lie in the hands of white men. ''

Then, in speaking of the need for India to imbue modernity with her own essence, the father gives voice to a deeply disturbing emotion, an anger that boils up in societies bombarded with foreign influence.

He says : ''The only thing that's going to make that  stadium fill up is the sight of an Indian pummeling white man into the ground.''

Bollywood's reach extends well beyond India.

These melodramas, which are so distasteful to the  contemporary European and American palate, ply well in Kuala Lumpur and Cairo. This is the cinema of the global South, a fun house mirror image of Hollywood.

In America, one rarely hears about what the transmission of  global culture  -which is in fact American culture-   feels like on the receiving end.

But it is not a neutral process.

This transmission creates a    profound    disturbance. It reconfigures a society    -its mores, its values, its relationships. It can deal a blow to the morale of a place.

The world ''confidence'' comes up again and again in ''Sultan,'' and it speaks to the trauma an old society undergoes as it tries to absorb the appeal of a foreign culture, while at the same time trying to remain true to itself and its genus.

What I love about Bollywood is that it is the only popular medium in which I can see the these concerns reflected.

We live in an age when civilization anger has been so taken over by extremism that it has been rendered untouchable. Bollywood films like ''Sultan'' are a reminder that the rage of feeling culturally encircled is not limited to the Islamic world.

Nor is it incomprehensible.

That afternoon, as  I wept my heart  out on the last day of the brief appearance of  ''Sultan'' in Manhattan, I realized that I was watching something that was commercial cinema for a vast portion of humanity, and yet-

Utterly marginal in, in this center of Western power where I was watching it.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders,  Parents, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society and Twitter -!E-WOW! - the Ecosystem 2011:


'''!WOW! - !WOW!'''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless