Thanks to reader Sumanth, I have links to my humiliating stellar appearance on Bollywood Ka Boss which is now on YouTube…Here you go, and thanks Sumanth!
Part the First
Part the Second
If the links above don’t work, Atul has been kind enough to upload it here:
Mercifully, I’m only on for about five minutes.
OMG,
That was awesome! You seemed pretty nervous and Boman Irani was waayyy over the top(which didn’t help, I’m sure), but you kicked some serious butt!
Was the show completely in Hindi? And is that why you couldn’t be an actual contestant and only a ‘special’ one?
Wow. Well done Memsaab! Way to go walking the talk! ;)
I really wanted to die. I felt completely frozen! and yes—the show is all in Hindi so there was no way for me to actually compete; plus certain types of questions would be impossible for me to answer (dialogues, song lyrics e.g.) so I wouldn’t get far :-) The most fun was the evening before, hanging out with Boman. He asked me a bunch of trivia questions and I managed to answer most of them—which I must admit made me proud of myself :-)
Thank you both for your kind words!
Wow, you did SO great!! I smiled when you got the Raj Kapoor question because you’ve mentioned that you aren’t a big fan – but you still managed to get it right. It must have taken some serious guts to do the show, and I think you came across really well – very genuine and smart, and your smile is so lovely and warm – even the nerves were charming. (And on a girly note, I love the earrings). Great job. Thanks to Sumanth for sharing the links – I enjoyed watching.
DG, you are nice :-) What they edited out was the part where Boman asked if I’d seen “Aag” and I said “Yes, but I didn’t really like it.” He looked shocked and kind of just shook his head—and moved along to the next question :-D
The earrings are Indian, ca. 1950. They were one of my first eBay purchases, and I love them too!
That was amazing! I’ll have to start watching… The way your fellow contestants introduced themselves was hilarious!! Next time you’ll have to work up your own patter.
:D
I liked your smile and laughter which came naturally now and then, your knowledge is impressive and those earrings are nice, but overall, you looked terrible! The nervousness really shone through. I thought there’d be a bigger studio audience and that you’ll be on it a bit longer. Was your blog web address mentioned in the show? I’m jealous about that big Boman hug.
God bless you for your honesty, Anonymous! I really agree with you completely!
I did spend more time talking to Boman, but they had to edit everything to fit. No—I never mentioned my blog by name, and yes, Boman’s hugs are v.v. good :-)
I’m sad the show didn’t apparently do better; they asked really amazingly good questions which reflected all the years of Hindi cinema. If you have time to watch the whole season on YouTube it’s worth it for the stuff you will learn, especially if you are a trivia buff like me.
Good for you. I’m surprised to not find a “recent comments” widget on your blog? Is it possible? :)
Awesome! And oh tut, you didn’t look bad, you looked a little nervous in the beginning, as anyone would be when they’re (1) on a TV show (2) in a foreign country. That takes guts! Anonymous commenting’s a lot easier… ;)
Oooh, you got Boman cuddles!
And why are there no other women contestants? Or women audience members?!
Wow.
You have a solid knowledge and a true fan of Bollywood movies. This is reflected in your blogs ofcourse.
Cheers
wow! memsaab, well done!
i would have been very nervous too!
anja
Amit: it is possible, but my sidebar is cluttered up enough already :-)
ppcc peep: Boman cuddles are lovely. There are women contestants on most of the shows, although if you look at the Winners page on the show’s site, they are almost all men. It was just a fluke though that all the contestants were men the day I was there. In fact they joked about the fact that they had to import a girl all the way from America :-)
Aspaan: thank you very much :-)
Anja: thank you too! A lot of the contestants didn’t seem too nervous, surprisingly. I thought in general they were very poised. But as ppcc said: I was in a foreign country; I remember thinking at least once as they started filming the show “What the hell am I doing up here?????”
Anonymous,
Perhaps your honesty would’ve really been commendable if you hadn’t hidden behind the anonymity.
BTW Greta, you didn’t look terrible by any means!
I have some other questions:
Did you meet anyone other filmstars/filmwallahs other than Boman Irani & Raju Hirani?
Do you also watch Regional Indian cinema other than Older Hindi Films?
You are v.v. kind Joseph :-) I briefly met Dia Mirza, Kunal Kapoor and Shantanu Moitra (music director) once with Mr. H. They were all very nice.
I have watched some Tamil movies—truthfully the few I saw that weren’t directed by Mani Ratnam I found quite dreadful, too macho and misogynistic for my taste. I am collecting names of recommended ones that other people write about, and also I recently got three Telugu films on recommendation which I’m looking forward to watching.
Well, Joseph, it is my honest opinion so has to be commendable. I’m not registered and since the name is saved on my computer, I’ve been posting as Anonymous for quite awhile now.
I’m still jealous about that big Boman hug, Greta.
Hey Greta, you’ve such a fantastic smile!! Why did you say your appearance was “humiliating”??? I found it perfect! 5 out of 5 questions right!! I only knew the answer to the Veer-Zara one (Thank goodness I wasn’t on the show!!).
Great Job!!
Okay, I give! I have updated my post to reflect the feedback I’m getting :-) It’s hard to be objective about seeing yourself as others do I guess!
Also, I KNOW how petrified I was at the time :-) but thank you all!
Just finished watching this on youtube – you were great! Loved the way you said,”Mera naam Greta hai.” :-) Loved your earrings too.
Didnt know you had watched 700 Hindi movies! I’ve had a lifetime of watching them and probably havent seen that many. How on earth did you manage in a few years?
Yes, this is the thing: I don’t have enough to do.
My job is not terribly demanding (and I work out of my house), and I’m not married, don’t have kids (just a somewhat demanding naughty little spaniel), don’t have cable tv (because there’s nothing on that I want to watch)…I do have friends and evenings out! :-) but I still have plenty of time to watch Hindi movies. I’ve been watching them for 6-7 years so it works out to about 100 a year or so—and I do get through 3-5 of them a week, depending.
I just don’t get tired of them! There’s so much variety! If I’m tired of 70’s masala, I watch a film from the 50’s, and so on.
Like Boman, I’m proud of you for being an Indian at heart too. :) Awesome job. You looked fantastic. I felt I knew you already from the blog and was not surprised by your voice, like “Oh yeah, that’s meemsaab,” weird, huh?
Boman Irani looked quite handsome, (fake hair?) and you dealt with his somewhat patronizing manner like a true lady. Shabash! Vay!
Great job! Goris represent!
All the best!
Sita-ji
p.s.
Speaking of Telugu films, maybe you’d like “Autograph”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0411131/
p.p.s.
I am also not married, no kids, no cable (don’t want it) and never get tired of these movies.
So Sitaji, since we are also about the same age, maybe we can buy a house together and make it Bollywood Central for crazy ladies when we are too old to take care of ourselves :-P
(Assuming that I haven’t been snapped up by Shammi before then!)
Boman’s hair is real; he is very handsome. I asked why he lets directors do terrible things to his head with wigs, makeup etc. He didn’t really have an answer, although I guess if I were an actor, the dressing up as someone completely different would be a great part of the fun for me.
Hi Greta,
Well, after all that crowd of admirers / enthusiasts, I’m going to sound a little repetitive, but I really enjoyed watching you on that show, and discovering your face, your smile, your knowledge… very entertaining blogging moment!
You ARE indeed lucky to have such amounts of time, and what you say explains why there are SO MANY films in your blog!! I’m actually (sillily) jealous! But this is all to the benefit of all of us, anyway. Keep it up, it’s just great to read you.
cheers
yves
PS: I have no dearth of activities, I’m married, 5 children, and a wife that keeps fretting at my spending too much time on that wretched keyboard!!
Yves, I am not tired of hearing it so thanks :-)
FIVE children! The thought of it makes me want to take a nap. And to be honest, my dog thinks I spend way too much time at the wretched keyboard.
Yes memsaab, though we’re many years from the golden years, it’s never too early to start planning for our retirement. I love your idea, but let’s call it a manor, house doesn’t sound fancy enough for filmi spinsters. :)
Let’s station said assisted living home in New Jersey, as it will then be close to much Indian food and film rental spots. We will also be open to Indian tourists who will gauk at the quirkiness of bollywood crazed aunti goris. The manor will be called “Ashram Bollywood” or maybe “Filmi Pagli Gori Manor” and it will offer several tiers of assisted living from semi-indendent, to hospice, in a bed, morphine drip, watching Bollywood until it’s time for the funeral pyre. Or we could have a receptical on the roof if we want to go Parsi and leave the bodies for the crows.
And there’s certainly a possibility of Shammi coming for you and in that case please remember me and open a “Brahmachari” style home, but for the elderly instead of for kids.
Sitaji, I see we are in perfect accord.
We will also have cabana boys, even if we lack a cabana. They will look like Imran Khan.
One can be looking like Imran Khan aur (already speaking so much Hindi!) the other would be looking like Irfan Khan. Irfan would mainly take care of all the roof top activities:
kite flying
kite flying contests
dancing
dance instruction
dance contests
laundry drying
caring for the doves
and running a small snack /coffee/chai/tea/wine/johnnie walker bar.
Wow, I’m VERY impressed! Well done you :-)
PC x
Dear Memsaab and Sitaji, can I join too? Don’t know as much about movies but am good in the coffee, bar department.
dang it i am at wk and cant listen to this! but congratulations, and much applause, which I shall reiterate once I actually hear this :)
Thank you, PC :-)
Marta—but of course, I assumed you would be there too. Where I go, you go and vice versa. You are excellent in the coffee and bar dept. but more importantly in the completely understanding and appreciating Hindi movies department :-)
Shweta—look forward to your review…I think. :-D
o m g
O M G
i so so so love u out there! absolutely brilliant! i was almost ready to burst into my comp screen w/ utter joy :D absolutely oustandingly deliciously fabulous.
i think u were as confident as u could b expected to b- its a tv show! in india! dang! i didnt think u looked nervous/frozen etc.
so once more- huzzahs and assorted sounds of appluase.
reason for delay in watching- killingly busy w/ “those damned audits,” plus my other comp kept killing itself when i opened u tube.
Shweta, thank you my dear :-) Hope you get some down time to watch (and review) more films soon.
All of this means a lot to me, it really does! It’s overwhelming…but wonderful.
you were great on the show! and you didn’t look terrible, you looked very good and even the nervousness was nice (being totally natural).
You might want to look at some Punjabi cinema (not all, some are horrendous)
Waris Shah – Ishq da waris, decent, altho a bit theatrical
Shaheed-E-Mohabbat, was based on a true incident
Long Da Lishkara (altho’ it goes way back to 1986)
A few are available for online viewing at
http://apnaview.com/Punjabi-Movies
Bebo: thank you very much :-) and thanks even more for the recommendations. I have a sneaking suspicion that I would love Punjabi films.
Fantastic ! I was not aware that you were a non Indian. I thought that you were an Indian settled in US.
You are such a die hard fan of Bollywood movie without an Indian background. Absolutely wonderful.
And you got all the answers correctly. Let me tell you, I would have flunked that test. I too consider myself a Bollywood movie buff, and I have the advantage of being an India based Indian fluent in Hindi, but I would have failed the test where you passed with flying colours.
You are beautiful and did wonderfully well on the show. I mean it.
Now that I have seen you on youtube, I will be able to appreciate the posts in your blog even better. I have already gained lots of information reading your reviews of so many Hindi movies.
I havea blog where I discuss songs from Bollywood movies. Earlier I would give the translation of the songs too with my discussions, which I then discontinued. But if you want me to translate any songs in English, I would love to do that.
Atul, I am very honored that you thought I was Indian :-) Hopefully I will be in my next life, when I come back as Helen II.
Am seeing this post only now.
But the videos have been removed from youtube. :(
Yeah, the links come and go depending on the policing going on at YouTube…you aren’t missing much, but keep trying if you really want to see it! They’ll probably be up and working again at some point soon.
You cannot trust youtube. Therefore it is always a good idea to download your favourite videos from youtube if you have the knowhow.
I have that video downloaded. Such videos should be posted in other video hosting sites where such arbitrary policing is not resorted to. Will it be alright if I upload this video to some other video hosting site ( namely dailymotion ?) where I have an account ?
Oh, that would be great Atul :-) Let me know the links and I’ll replace the ones above!
Here is part I ( the part that matters)
I will give the link for part II a few minutes later.
Hey thanks :-) I’ll add the link to the above post as well…
Hey, just watched Part 1 – that was terrific !!!
Ok, you looked somewhat nervous – but that is totally understandable.
A TV quiz would be high-pressure for anybody anyway but I think it takes much more guts to stand up there and take part in an alien-language quiz (and I don’t mean anything demeaning or patronising when I say this).
So kudos for that alone, regardless of what the result was.
Have only watched Part-1 – and you came through just fine.
Thanks a lot, Atul, for having saved this and posted it on DM.
OK, I have just watched part 2.
So you answered all 5 questions right !!!
Wow…I knew the answers only to the first 3.
I had no clue about what award Sholay had won.
Or the answer to that Munnabhai question.
This was really excellent – and you look very beautiful too.
And in part 2 you look much less nervous than in part 1.
Thoroughly enjoyed this.
Thanks to Atul for uploading this on DM.
You are very sweet raja :) And even Raju Hirani got the Munnabhai question wrong, LOL!
I really was terrified, and Boman knew it. He tried to make me less scared, but it was a hopeless task. And you are right—it was just so surreal! I kept thinking: “What am I DOING here? On Indian television!????!”
:-)
You rule over everything, Atul, you really really do.
Hii Greta,
Very nice video… I did auditioned for BKB in 08 but didnt get through. Before visiting this blog I was in a misconeption that I am a movie buff but no I am not. You have a great knowledge of Hindi films. I love old movies more than the new ones.. I used to read synopsis from wikipedia before watching any movie but now I switched to this blog as it is more accurate. This blog is indeed a very good thing happened to bollywood. I am addicted to this as I love reading about old movies and actors. Thanks for creating this blog.
Good luck :)
Deepak, you are very sweet indeed :) I have a LOT to learn still, but the journey is a lot of fun, especially with people like you to help me along!
Admittedly coming two years late to this party –
I just saw your performance ~ well done, memsaab!
memsaab is that ur own foto???do u look some what like this?
Yup that’s me!!! I have more wrinkles and gray hair now but otherwise the same, ha ha.
MemsaabStory 