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Monsoon Wedding
Diversity and Conflicts in
Love and Families
in Modern Dehli
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Outline
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General Introduction: the Director Mira Nair
Starting Questions
Monsoon Wedding: main idea
Love in Modern India
Punjabi Families
Wedding and Sensual Enjoyment of Life
City, Race and Class
The film’s connections with “Gainda” and
“Her Mother”
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Mira Nair
 Born in Orissa, went to Dehli
U. and Harvard
 11 years in Uganda, now in
New York.
 Started with documentaries
（記錄片）;
 Salaam Bombay! 早安孟買 －
－ Camera d‘Or at Cannes坎城金
棕櫚大獎 in 1988 and an Academy
Award nomination
 Mississippi Masala: America
Note: masala為重口味香料;
Bollywood film is called masala film
as a big Masala, conflicts
between the two specific
group of diaspora(離散族群),3
Afro-Americans and Indians.
Mira Nair (2)
Vanity Fair (2004) (浮華世界)
Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996)
性典 –very controversial
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Mira Nair (3) and Deepa Mehta
The Namesake (2006) Amelia (2009)
Deepa Mehta – Earth, Water, Fire
The Republic of Love (2003)
Heaven on Earth (2008)
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Nair on Monsoon Wedding
 dedicates “Monsoon Wedding,” to her Punjabi family
in New Delhi (新德里),
 "We Punjabi are the butt of many jokes, for we are an
aggressive, loud people, peasant people, known for
our lusty appetite for life. The Punjabis are to India
what the Italians are to Europe. The film is an
homage to major vulgarity," she laughed.
 獻給Punjabi家人。Punjabi 積極、聲音大、土包子，
對生命的胃口很大。
 (source: http://www.mirabaifilms.com/articles.html )
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Nair on Monsoon Wedding
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hand-held camera; 手持攝影機，以呈現印度的多樣性。
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“Mostly to achieve mobility（活動性） and fluidity（流動性）
that would link the multiplicity of Indian life, the hybridity（雜多）
that is in our music, our location and our languages. India is a
fantastic place because we have opened our doors to people from
all over the world - before the British, after the British - and now,
with American globalization. We absorb, we borrow, we assimilate,
we plagiarize and we steal, and somehow twist it all to make
something that is inimitably Indian.
"This is the mood I wanted to capture in the multilayered stories,
and this kind of camera can take us fluidly from a five-star hotel to
the crowded streets of old Delhi; it's a way to link the family's
intimate drama to the world.“
(source: ( http://www.mirabaifilms.com/articles.html )
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Monsoon Wedding --trivia
 Exhausting 30-day heat and dust schedule.
 20-day workshop (with Yoga in the morning), 10-day
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shooting, with professional actors, starting actors
mixed with non-professionals and relatives.
About four scenes were damaged at the customs by
X-Ray. Only one (the dancing scene) was restored at
a very large price (paid by the insurance). The other
three were re-shot. When re-shooting the scenes, she
got more of Dehli street scenes into her film.
Her family participated by delivering home cooking to
the set each day.
A lot of paintings, costumes, furniture were on loan
from the family.
Lalit—modeled after her brother. Varun—her cousin.
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The Characters
 The Bride’s family:
 The Groom: Mohan Rai &
Saroj Rai  Hemant Rai
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Verma family
Tej
Old
neighbor
Sashi
& C.L.
Lalit &
Pimmi
Aditi
Varun
Older Brother
who died
Sona,
Uday
Veena
Ria
Ayesha
Aliya
Chadha
Rahul
& Umang
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Starting Questions
 It’s an enjoyable film, isn’t it? What do you like best
about the film? Is there anything you don’t like?
 Love & Arranged Marriage: Undoubtedly this is a
comedy, but why are there troublesome, sad,
dangerous and even sinister elements lurking here
and there in it? How many kinds of love are there in
the film?
 Singing and the Sensual Enjoyment of Life: The
singing and dancing is quite enjoyable, too. Have
you noticed how many people sing in this film and the
occasions in which they do so?
 Customs and Class: What do you think about the
wedding, which lasts for many days? Would you like
to be in the bride’s position?
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Monsoon Wedding:
presents
a comic version of
• Love of many kinds,
• Indian families of different cultures
• sensual pleasures
•and contradictions and possible dangers
in life and society.
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Monsoon Wedding
 威尼斯影展金獅獎
 Plot: The wedding of Aditi Verma, the result of
arranged marriage, concerns everyone in the family,
but not Aditi herself, who cannot separate herself
from her ex-lover.
 The main characters:
five women with their
families and the men
connected with them.
From Left to Right:
Aditi, Ria, Ayesha, Alyia, Alice
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Theme I: Love of many kinds
 The beginning scenes--Lalit’s nervous arrangement
of the wedding and Aditi’s going to a TV studio--sets
the tone of the film: that in modern India, different
people hold different views on love. (Arranged
marriage is still popular, but pornography, adult films
[A 片] and extra-marital affairs are, too.)
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Love (1): Aditi Verma,
Hemant Rai, Vikram Mehta
 A good match:
 with dangerous moves:
-- A beautiful girl in Dehli, -- arranged marriage;
matched with a
-- meeting her ex-lover the night
handsome computer
before wedding;
engineer from Houston, -- Police investigation Vikram,
Texas.
actually does not want to give
-- Hemant is able to
up his marriage at all.
understand her hurt
feelings and that
marriage is a risk,
whether arranged or not.
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The Ironies
1. After the parents
expressed their love for
the children (at night),
2. While the mother
prepares dowry (sari
and silver forks and
spoons) for Aditi,
1. Aditi goes out; Ayesha
tries to seduce Rahul.
2. The bride and groom talk
about breaking up.
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Love (2): Alice (the maid) &
P.K.Dubey (tent contractor)
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A good match -- Presented With difficultes
as Romantic and Miraculous:  Alice thought of as a thief.
1. Marigold (金盞橘) --both like
(chap 4—44:30)
to eat it—Dubey eats it whole,  Neither of them knows how
and Alice, its heart. (see next
to express their love—until
page)
at the end Dubey performs
2. The slow motion (*chap 1—
his romantic act. –unreal?
11:30)
3. Exchanges – water, names
and name card.
Note: Marigold--古埃及人認為它有醫療上的價值；印度人用它來裝飾廟宇；
波斯和希臘人用它增加食物的色澤和風味；在美國內戰時，戰地醫師曾用
它的葉片來治療傷口。在歐美的沙拉中，它也扮演了增色的效果。
可幫助女性生理期間擁有清爽自由的心情，與其他花茶或茶類搭配，
可增加花色燦爛的觀感 。
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Dubey and Alice –Flower
31:20
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Love (2): Alice & P.K.Dubey—
The Contradictory or Humorous
 When Alice serves
water, Dubey cannot
show his emotion
among his co-workers.
In Gender Relation—
性別關係
 Alice appears to be
brighter when she helps
Dubey fixes the wire.
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Love (2): Alice & P.K.Dubey—
The Contradictory or Humorous
Dubey the practical
 – a man on the move, very
practical when it comes to
money. (10:20; 38:26)
 -- quite coarse; smelling the
flowers with their plastic
covers on.
 Dubey –the most
romantic way
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Love (3): the contradictory
Ayesha Verma
 Ayesha -- sexy and
seductive in
approaching Rahul
Chadha (from Australia)
 With pride in her self
and her culture. When
Rahul finally dances
energetically to the
Bhangra music, she
says,
“We‘ve finally made an
Indian of you.”
 Why does she leave at
the point of love-making?
 To be tantalizing （吊胃
口） or self-restraining?
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Love (4, 5): Ria Verma,
Aliya Verma & Tej Puri
The dangerous element exposed —
Tej, who appears to be a respectable gentleman.
 The danger gets revealed by and by
1. Ria looks surprised and uneasy when first seeing Tej;
2. Ria does not thank Tej upon hearing his offer to pay
for her studies;
3. Ria interrupts Tej’s feeding Aliya;
4. Aliya’s talking about kissing;
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Love (4, 5): Ria Verma,
Aliya Verma & Tej Puri
A tragedy of sexual abuse could have happened—
had Ria not stopped it by revealing her own
traumatic experience. (Who’s to blame, the
adults’ negligence? The wedding?)
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The Other Couples:
Lalit Verma & Pimmi Verma
 Old-Shoe love: argument, little sex, but a lot
of mutual comfort and understanding.
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Theme (2)
The Upper Class Families
 Different degree of westernization – golf, rockyoli
(?whisky on the rocks)
 “Bollywood goes to upper class families”
Tej
Old
neighbor
Sashi
& C.L.
Rai
Verma family
Lalit &
Pimmi
Aditi
Varun
Older Brother
who died
Sonia,
Uday
Veena
Ria
Ayesha
Aliya
Chadha
Rahul
& Umang
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The Families (1): Punjabi family
 Close-Knit but spread in many places;
 Patriarchal (male-centered), but with strong women.
 Family meeting (24:06) shows a Punjabi family and
their traditional values:
 Supportive of (or intervening into) Ria’s decision,
which should be her personal business;
 Marriage more important than having a career;
 materialistic (winning Booker Prize 英國的布克獎
means getting a million dollars).
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The Family Members: (1) Lalit
Lalit as a patriarchal –
loving, critical, bossy, seeming to be in command of
everything. (e.g. calls Rahul “idiot” all the time;
blames his brother for being late, scolds Varun, too);
Traditional– does not like Varun’s interest in
cooking and dancing. “Why don’t you play some
crickets?”
Cares a lot about his family, but has to re-define
‘family togetherness’ by ejecting Tej (another
patriarch) out of respect for his niece’s feelings.
(chap 9)
Weak inside –worried about money; blame his wife
for his own upsetting Varun (“Why don’t you say
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something?”)
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1.
2.
3.
4.
The Family Members(2):
C.L.Chadha & Shashi Chadha
 Unhappy about Lalit’s
scolding Rahul.
 Come back from
Middle-East, so in
gaudy dress.
 Rahul –in Australia;
Umang in the U.S.
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The Family Members (3):
 The wild and a bit coarse:
 Uxorious (怕太太的) 
 The British and the
elegant:
luxorious, 應該是
luxurious.
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Theme (3): Wedding -Formalities & the sensual pleasures
Wedding:
 Negative:
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Time consuming and expensive (as Lalit has to loan
money from his friends)
Nerve-wrecking. (With Lalit shouting at Dubey all the
time, and Pimmi smoking in the restroom to ease her
tension.)
In all the tiring rituals, sometimes the bride and
bridegroom look a bit like puppets (傀儡). Hemann
says he is asked to ‘eat’ all the time, and Aditi says
she only wants to sleep. The bride, especially, gets
burdened with jewelry on the day of the wedding.
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Wedding –
The Elaborate Ceremony
1. Gift-Exchange, meeting the elderly and
wearing jewelry
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Wedding –
The Elaborate Ceremony
2. Eating something sweet,
3. Preparation: buying sari,
setting up the tent for
an outdoor wedding
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Wedding –
The Elaborate Ceremony
 The bridegroom’s riding a horse, with the guests
throwing marigold at the procession;
 The wedding garland
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Wedding –
The Elaborate Ceremony
 Fire for purification and praying for felicity.
Tying a knot:
連理
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Theme (3):
Wedding & the sensual pleasures
Wedding:
 Positive:
 an occasion for family reunion,
photo-taking, paying respect to
the dead.
 Beautiful singing (53:33)
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Hand painting ceremony (mehindi)
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A song about a bride’s leaving.
 Other occasions for singing:
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Singing at the dinner table of the family reunion;
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The tent-workers sing to tease Dubey.
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Wedding –
The Communal Celebration
* chap 5 – please pay attention to
1. The color arrangement of this group of women;
2. How they sing happily with a song and tell jokes
with sexual connotations;
3. How Alice, as a maid, cannot join or enjoy the
singing.
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Wedding: the Sensual Enjoyment
of Life
 Sangeet: a night of dancing and singing (till
early morning)  potential danger
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Wedding: the Sensual Enjoyment
of Life
 The wedding procession and the guests dancing in
the rain, seemingly breaking the class boundaries.
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Theme (4):
City, Class and Race
 The film is an expression of love for Dehli as
a postcolonial global city, as we can see from
the many city scenes in it.
 However, we should not ignore the possible
problems regarding gender, class and race
lurking beneath its apparent merriness.
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Gender –discussed, arranged marriage and
sexual abuse.
Class and Race: Dubey and Alice as
examples.
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Dehli as
A Postcolonial Global City
 “postcolonial” –partition and the migration of
Lalit family to Dehli, cricket
 “global” migration – children back from
Melbourne, US; and Chadha family to the
Middle East
 Signs of the postmodern – a TV show with
explicit sex talk, cell phone and email,
(Note: reflecting “the social and cultural transformation
India has undergone since 1991, when a new
economic policy eliminated the bureaucratic red tape
restricting imports and foreign investment [Sharpe 58])
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Dehli –
An Interesting Mess like Taipei?
 The Crowd, polluted air,
electric wire and cows
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Street Scenes--Diversity
 The traditional (market place, bicycle rickshaws)
 and the new (boulevard)
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Street Scenes--Diversity
 The traditional (old Dehli, the kite festival, women carrying
sand baskets)
 and the new (golf park in New Dehli)
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Street Scenes--Diversity
Two kinds of bulletin
board: Bollywood
(Indian) and Modern
(International)
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Street Scenes--Diversity
The spiritual
(meditator), the cute
(kid), as well as the
disturbing (sexist).
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Class and Race:
Dubey–his Social Mobility
Event
management
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Dubey–his Confinement
(1: 15:56) Framed:
By the walls, the
gate and his
mother’s nagging.
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Dubey and Alice:
Still Confined to their Class
 The mirror scene: framed by male gaze
With all the dignity and intelligence, Alice is
always confined—by her class and by her
gender. (chap 4—44:30) e.g. gaze at the
mirror, peeped at by the other men.
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Dubey and Alice:
Still Confined to their Class
 Geographical, Class and
Religious differences:
The cross (with
marigold) in her
room.
Alice: a Christian from
Bihar
Dubey: a Hindi
He has an Hindi
name—very long.
Note: Bihar -- most underdeveloped state with the lowest per
capita income in the nation (Sharpe 75)
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Dubey and Alice:
Still Confined to their Class
 The final scene—Lalit
embracing Dubey and dancing
with Alice
too good to be true?
 post-1990s Indian films –
emphasizes “the gloss”
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“The rural exists in the post1990s films not as a
geographical location so much
as a signifier for a simpler way
of life prior to globalization”
(Sharpe 60).
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The film’s connections with
“Gainda” “Her Mother” and Us
 Family relations, women’s position  both “Gainda”
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and “Her Mother”
The life of a maid servant, wedding and love beyond
one’s class identity  “Gainda”
The relationship between oversea Indians and their
parents  “Her Mother.”
How is the film related to us?
Besides getting to know the diversity and possible
conflicts in modern India, we can turn around and
examine the wedding ceremonies, family structures,
racial conflicts in our cities and society. Do our
Filipino maids get as much dignity as Alice in the film?
Are there elements in our wedding ceremonies and
marriages which can energize and enrich our lives,
instead of being just tedious rituals and endless
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eating?
Work Cited
Sharpe, Jenny. “Gender, Nation, and
Globalization in Monsoon Wedding and
Dilwale Dulhania.” Le Jayenge Meridians:
feminism, race, transnationalism 2005, vol. 6,
no. 1, pp. 58–81.
Dupont, Joan. “Mira Nair Peels Back Layers Of
Punjabi Society.”
http://www.mirabaifilms.com/articles_23.html
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Next Week:
“Gatsby” from Reading Lolita in
Tehran
Turtle Can Fly
Enjoy Learning!
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