Bollywood Dreams
by Wendy Fitzgerald
Short Stop Press. Australian, Young Adult. Paperback rrp $19.99
Review by Barbara Brown (editor) The Reading Stack May 2009
Yesterday I went to India. To Bollywood twice! First, I finished reading Bollywood Dreams and secondly I watched Slumdog Millionaire, a movie set in India with a Bollywood theme. It was a co-incidence but next time it won’t be. Bollywood is a fascinating subject.
Bollywood Dreams is the story of a young 16-year-old girl, India Singh, who lives on a large tea plantation in Darjeeling. India sees everything through song and dance and one day wants to be a famous Bollywood star. But her father is very strict and when her chance comes to escape to Mumbai with a part in a movie, he ensures she can’t go.
A few days later India is in Sydney Australia, hating everything.India thinks her family is narrow minded and old fashioned. They don’t see what she sees. But what India doesn’t realise is that she is also wearing blinkers and cannot see the wonderful opportunities her new country offers.
The story is a fresh approach to how it feels to be an immigrant teenager. Not only do India and her family come across some prejudice I didn’t realise would exist- especially in Australian schools- but discover they have some prejudices of their own.
The narrative has such an authentic feel that, I was surprised to find Fitzgerald is not Indian or an immigrant, but she did go to India on a writer’s retreat. There she found the inspiration for Bollywood Dreams. On her website she says, “I developed some new skills. I now can cook dinner, read English subtitles and dance at the same time.” I too have been known to do all three but not to a Bollywood movie. I’m inclined to go and rent one because they are good fun. Or better yet – someone may just create a movie in Australia with Bollywood Dreams as the script. Perfect!
http://wendyfitzgerald.aampersanda.com/
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Bollywood Dreams by Wendy Fitzgerald (A & A Publishing Pty Ltd- www.aampersanda.com)
RRP $19.99
India Singh, a beautiful talented sixteen-year-old living in Darjeeling, is determined to become a Bollywood star.
Inside her chest, India’s secret dream is ‘Awake, listening, poised to dance for joy’. The only problem is that, her father forbids it, and he has landed a job in Australia which will take her even further away from her goal.
This is a beautiful tale told with pathos and understanding about a young girl’s struggle between the culture she was born to, and the person she wants to become.
Bollywood Dreams us written with lyrical description and well developed characters; telling an age old tale of teen rebellion. A tyrannical father, a mother who has always accepted her lot until now, and an exciting new way of life that beckons, make India’s dilemma even more difficult to handle.
I found India appealing not just because of her obvious talents, but because of her ‘soul’ and the fact that in spite of her great ambition, she is able to empathise with those around her.
India learns the hard way that dreams don’t always turn out the way you expected them to, but her resilience and optimistic spirit allow her to make the most of her situation, and become the person she is destined to be.
Wendy Fitzgerald’s narrative is beautifully descriptive, ‘My dream stands up, yawns and scratches its head’, and readers follow India’s plight with page turning tension.
I found myself willing India to break free from the traditions that shackled her.
Wendy Fitzgerald is a Sydney-based author and teacher, who enjoys writing about cross-cultural themes. She was inspired to write Bollywood Dreams after a trip to India.
Dee White is a reviewer who writes for junior and YA readers.
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Review in Indian Link Newspaper June 1st 2009.
Lessons in Integration
Chitra Sudarshan reviews a pleasant read which explores a young and reluctant migrant’s psyche in an alien country.
Bollywood snares different people in different ways. For Wendy Fitzgerald, a trip to India in 2005 was the trigger that inspired her to write Bollywood Dreams for teenagers: a story that is dominated by the Hindi movie theme, without being of it. It is, in a nutshell, a cross between Bend it like Beckham and the 1970′s hit movie Guddi – complete with the teenage girl with a passion: strict, over-protective Sikh parents and old fashioned grandparents who wish to marry her off to the son of a family friend!
India Singh is a teenager growing up in Darjeeling, besotted with Bollywood (okay, India is not a name that is typical, but once you get past it, it is a quaint, feel good story) She talks to Aishwarya Rai poster in her bedroom when she needs to confide in someone, and learns the moves of all her favourite movie dance sequences, determined to go to Mumbai with her friend Sunita and become a star. When her father announces that the family will move to Sydney in a week, she is distraught and tries to run away – to Mumbai, of course, where Sunita’s uncle has connections in Bollywood and has a part ready for her.
India is forced to go to Australia with her family, and consequently is determined to hate everything about it. The rest of the book is about her trying to make sense of a new country, a new culture and gradually finding her way in it and growing to like it. Not surprisingly her penchant for dance and music – albeit Indian music and dance – land her a role in the school band and consequently ease her way to finding acceptance in the school community. The defining moment however, is her mother’s decision to stand up for her children against their autocratic and overbearing father.
There are some beautiful moments that Fitzgerald captures in the book: Jesse’s sense of loss at the realisation that her children have not inherited her tradition: a morally weak Kim who abandons her cousin in the face of bullying, despite being quite a decent person at other times: India’s mother’s quiet confidence born out of the knowledge that what she does through her needlework changes lives back in Darjeeling.
There are several insights in Bollywood Dreams for parents and children from a migrant background. Getting the balance right between letting go and holding on is a very tricky thing and has to be negotiated on almost a daily basis by families and there are no easy formulas!
Wendy Fitzgerald is a Sydney based author and teacher who enjoys writing about cross cultural themes. She has captured the ambience of an Indian extended family as well as the angst and passion of a teenager, and written a credible story.
To her credit, the translated lyrics of hit songs from Dil go Pagal Hai, K3G, Kal Ho Na Ho et al read well and she knows her Bollywood – including the actors, story lines and music. A great read for all Australian teenagers!
Bollywood Dreams Short Stop Press 2009.
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Review from Fiction Focus Vol 23 No 3 2009
A reviewing journal by Dep of Education & Training WA.
by Lesley White
Realistic. Age 12+ Bollywood Dreams is about a girl following her dream despite parental resistance, cultural barriers and physical deterrents.
The story starts in India then moves to Australia. India in 2009 is a combination of old and new; tradition and 21st century; turbans and DVD players; saris and Bollywood; east and west. Sixteen-year-old India Singh is going to be a bollywood star. She can dance, she can sing and she can capture an audience. Her father is not part of that admiring audience. He is old school and he will not allow his daughter any freedom. Her ‘cavorting’ and ‘gyrating’ represent a threat to his values. A battle of wills ensues.
The family are going to Australia for two years. India has no intention of going and attempts to run away to Mumbai, the Hollywood of Indian film production. Kicking and screaming she is caught and brought back home. The family then go to Australia. India is determined to hate Australia and return to her beloved India to pursue her career but AUstralia the ‘land of golden opportunity’ wins her over. India finds a new audience to wow. Even her father sways to the music.
Bollywood Dreams is a light, good fun read. IT is fast paced and will appeal to a lower school girl audience. It is chick-lit with substance. Many girls will be able to relate to the conflicting demands of parents, ambitions and personal fulfilment, though most girls are not fortunate enough to have the charm and influence that India possesses. Bollywood Dreams is suitable for the use in Year Eight or Nine English or Society and Environment classes.
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Review in Reading Time by Elspeth Cameron Nov 1 2009
India Singh moves with her family from Darjeeling to Sydney. She has dreamed of becoming a Bollywood star in Mumbai, so, at 16 is very unwilling to live in Australia. The author narrates her story so that India’s dream life, greatly influenced by famous Bollywood movies, affects her aspirations and reactions in the real life situations, at home with her family and at school. Her discontent increases when she has to adjust to life in Australia where she is at first disconcerted by the liberty her Sydney cousins automatically take for granted. A hopeful resolution presents itself through India’s musical and dancing ability and the friendship of a talented red headed neighbour, Will and his band. This novel successfully reveals the pleasant and unpleasant cultural forces affecting the lives of young people living in either India or Australia. Some suspense is generated but the implied possibilities of tragedy. The author also conveys a depth of insight and knowledge which adds to the convincing and enjoyable quality of the novel.
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