Bollywood Zone in NY

The waxwork of Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan in the Bollywood Zone at Madame Tussauds, New York -Pic Srirekha

NEW YORK: Bollywood moved a notch deeper into American pop culture last week when New York City’s landmark attraction Madame Tussauds waxwork museum at Times Square, launched a ‘Bollywood Zone’ with none other than legendary actor Amitabh Bachchan’s wax likeness standing tall to welcome visitors.

The Bachchan wax statue, standing with a Moghul motif and the Taj Mahal in the background, sports his current style of a white goatee, trademark hairstyle and a somewhat tacky black sherwani outfit in the area designated as the Bollywood Zone on the same floor of the museum that features a gamut of Hollywood glitterati and American media celebrities.

It is the first figure to be part of the museum’s Bollywood Zone, which was created after numerous visitor requests. The glitzy, brightly-colored, fully-interactive area includes a replica of the Taj Mahal, video of Indian dancers and a photo area where visitors can pose as Bollywood stars – all designed to re-create the experience of being on a Bollywood film set with Bachchan.

Needless to say, the Slumdog Millionaire influence was predominant at the event of the Bachchan statue unveiling on May 21 as a group of dancers from New York based ‘Bollywood Axion’ dance school run by Pooja Narang, performed in front of the statue to the tunes of the anthemic ‘Jai Ho’.

Carrying the Bollywood awareness effort further, and adding to the Bollywood Bash, Madame Tussauds brought in 25 middle school students from New York City’s P.S. 111 for a quick lesson by Narang in shaking a leg -- Bollywood style -- and got the kids to perform for the cameras with less than five minutes of training.

The Bollywood Bash was in celebration of Asian American Heritage Month although Madame Tussauds intends to keep the Bollywood Zone going by adding wax statues of more Bollywood actors in future based on visitor demands.

Bachchan, in fact is the second Bollywood celebrity to grace Madame Tussauds in New York, the first being Aishwarya Rai, whose statue was borrowed from the London museum on a temporary basis two years ago.

“Bollywood culture is being embraced by Americans and the success of Slumdog Millionaire certainly helped,” said Rosemary Del Prado, Director, Marketing at Madame Tussauds, speaking to India Post.

Things fell into place when NYC & Company – New York City’s official marketing company -- opened a tourist office in Mumbai last year, which added to the popularity of Bollywood celebrity statues at Madame Tussauds in London and guest demands at the New York museum, for creating the Bollywood Zone.

However, for the vast majority of Americans who may still not be clued into what Bollywood is all about, Madame Tussauds plans to create an interactive website to educate them about the glamorous world of Bombay’s film industry.

On choosing to go with the Bachchan statue and not a younger actor from Bollywood, Del Prado said “After great research we found that Bachchan was indeed legendary and iconic and transcends pop culture. That is why we chose to have Amitabh Bachchan.”

Bachchan himself is currently traveling and hence was not able to attend the unveiling of his statue, Del Prado said. “We have invited him and hope he can visit us soon,” she said.

India Post News Service