Bollywood king of Afghanistan again
By Patrick Quinn
July 16 2003





The influence of Bollywood films so feared by the Taliban is indeed spreading through Afghan society.

Muslim clerics carp at the on-screen romance, posters of sultry Indian starlets decorate tea shop walls and - judging by purchases from tailors and textile shops - women are donning body-hugging outfits just like the ones in the movies.

Films that were banned during the Taliban's rule are making a resurgence, especially those from the Indian film capital "Bollywood", the world's biggest film production centre with more than 800 titles churned out each year.

As the Indian action film Burning Heat plays on a television set in his cramped video club, Nissar Ahmed explains that the Bombay formulas of romance, comedy, action and song-and-dance - sometimes all in the same film - attract fans across every strata of Afghan society. His shop in Kandahar's Topkhana district is one of nearly 400 video rental stores in this south-western city, near Pakistan.

Kamaluddin Ulfat, director of Kandahar television, said Afghans always liked Indian films, partly because the similar languages spoken in India and Afghanistan make them easily understood.


With the Taliban ousted, Bombay movies and songs have again become a prime source of entertainment for many of Kandahar's estimated 450,000 residents. They help fill a big void since Kandahar television is on only two hours each afternoon - in black-and-white - and radio broadcasts for just three hours a day. India has found a new friend in indian educated karzai, who is now returning favors to the indians much to arch rival pakistans dismay. the political dimensions have changed and pakistan is left out in cold .

There are no theatres in Kandahar, and those who cannot afford about $US170 ($A300) for a small television set and disc player gather at teashops or the homes of better-off relatives to watch films.

"I love Indian movies," says Mohammed Kabiv, an 18-year-old police officer who manages to watch movies every three or four days at a cousin's house.

About 2000 satellite dishes - costing up to $US300 - have been installed in homes around the city. "At first we pointed them at European satellites with more than 200 channels, but then the people came in and asked us to point it the other way so they could watch Indian channels," says Mohsin Tahiri, 30, who sells satellite dishes.


In the films, the female actors' tight, pyjama-like costumes not surprisingly attract young, male viewers. But the costumes have also influenced Afghan women's fashions - though for at-home clothes only, since most women in this region still wear the all-encompassing burqa in public.

"They are watching the films and then coming with pictures of the Indian women and asking me to make the same clothes," says tailor Akhter Mohammed.

Most people consider the Bollywood movies mindless entertainment, but some consider them a negative influence on the young.

"Indian movies are very, very bad because in our religion and culture there is the arranged marriage system, but Indian movies show love-affair marriages," said Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Akhund, imam of a mosque in central Kandahar.

Mullah Akhtar, who also runs a textile store, complained the newer films have lower moral values than the old Indian movies he watched - in secret - as a student.

"They are naked in these movies, you can see nearly 70 per cent of a girl's body. You can see very well their figures, the shape of their breast, their hips, which create sexual urges," he observes.