Mysore, Karnataka, India – We woke up in the late morning and had tea and the newspaper delivered to the room. It was Sunday, so we skipped visiting the doctors and just went walking around the city instead.
We decided to have an easy day, so we went to an Indian movie called Pandian. This was a movie in the Tamil language, starring two of India’s famous actors. Insert script from guide and some other woman. When the macho hero appeared on the screen, everyone in the theater started screaming their approval.
The plot reminded me of Greece and that it is about this macho dude who beats up boys and also does song and dance routines every once in a while. He and his buddies go to this nice hotel and start partying when this bitchy woman complete with her 20-chick entourage comes in and challenges the hero to a song and dance competition. The do a couple of numbers, which really reminded me of “summer loving” from the movie Grease, and she loses the dance contest more due to bad acting than bad dancing. The hero and the bitch play practical jokes on each other for two hours or so, complete with intermittent song and dance routines before the bitch finally breaks down and falls in love with the hero. Another musical number ensued in which everyone was dancing on no less than nine sailboats cruising around the Madras harbor. I have no idea how that related to the rest of the story line, but everyone except us seemed to like it.
Finally, it was intermission and time for the three westerners to make their exit. I do not know how long Indian movies run but I would consider it some kind of cruel and unusual punishment if someone made me sit through an entire Tamil movie. It was dark or dusk rather when we left. So we headed over to the Maharaja’s Palace in the city center to check it out. The palace is only lit from like 7 to 8 on Saturday nights. So, we figured we’d have a look. No one told us it would look exactly like London’s Harrods. Hundred’s of little white light bulbs all over the palace – tacky.