LIMA, PERU, February 5th, 2007:The tourist guidebooks to Peru will tell you about the Incas, Machu Pichu, the Amazonian rainforests, the soft Alpaca wool and the beautiful textiles. But nothing in the world prepared me for the music I heard in a small Peruvian village called Ollantaytambo, in the Andean mountains. As I walked past straying Alpacas and old women in their traditional embroidered skirts, I heard a familiar tune: “Raat ka nasha abhi, Aankh se gaya nahin…” How could this be? A Bollywood song from the movie ‘Asoka’, blaring loudly from the unlikeliest of Andean villages? Mesmerized, I followed the sound until I came upon the house that was playing the music. A young woman opened the door and looked at me puzzled.
“I am from India,” I said in English. And added: “That music…from India.” The woman beamed and took me in her arms. It was one of the warmest hugs I have received. No words exchanged. She then took my hand and led me into her house. Inside her home, three little girls were twirling and swinging to the Kareena Kapoor song from “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham”. Her daughters danced, probably 7 or 8 years old. When the woman introduced me to them as an Indian, they came and hugged me one by one. As the little girls resumed their moves, the woman proudly showed me all the Bollywood DVDs she possessed. Then she said two words that I understood: “Indian Cinema” and “Amor”. In the Peruvian capital Lima, almost anybody I spoke to said they loved Indian movies, the songs and the dances. They said the movies, dubbed in Spanish, were very popular. And Bollywood music was a common fare in discotheques on Friday nights. Who says Bollywood cannot do wonders?