Niagara Falls in winter
People in India are fascinated by Niagara Falls
This weekend I am in Niagara Falls on a Jaunt. Whenever I travel in India and tell people I’m from Canada, I often hear, “Oh, I would love to go to Niagara Falls!” It’s always been a bit strange to me, as I grew up within driving distance of “the Falls” and never took them all that seriously. I thought the place was silly. So to hear people in a far-off country — a country that I always deemed to be the height of “exotic” — say they long to visit Niagara Falls seemed bizarre. But of course perspective is everything.
When asked exactly why they were interested in seeing Niagara Falls, some Indian people said that they believed the site to be as famous as the Taj Mahal in India; others said that they believed it to be a symbol of the New World. Most people agreed that the Falls were “what you thought of” when you thought of Canada as well as one of the most beautiful natural sites in the world. Some people also discussed the prominence of Niagara Falls in Bollywood.
Bollywood and Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls has made it’s way into several Bollywood Films, going at least as far back as 1967. An Evening in Paris, with Bollywood greats Sharmila Tagore and Shammi Kapoor, “taps into a certain ‘occidentalism,’ an Indian fetishization of the west that is the mirror reflection of the west’s orientalist exoticization and fetishization of the east. It is a whirlwind tour of romantic locales – strolling along the Seine, skiing on the Jungfrau, water-skiing at a posh resort in Beirut, and spinning to a dramatic climax in the swirling rush of Niagara Falls,” according to FilmiGeek, who notes: “Unfortunately, as is often the case with masala thrillers, the film gets bumpier when the plot, such as it is, gets going in the second half – but the dramatic climax at Niagara Falls is worth hanging on for.”
More recent films shot in Niagara Falls include Taal (1999) with Aishwarya Rai and Anil Kapoor; and Thank You (2011) with Sonam Kapoor and Akshay Kumar — who, by the way, is an honourary Canadian. The film Kismat Konnection (2008) with Shahid Kapoor and Vidya Balan was actually based in Toronto, but the location for this song, below, is downtown Niagara Falls.
Mariellen Ward is a freelance travel writer whose personal style is informed by a background in journalism, a dedication to yoga and a passion for sharing the beauty of India’s culture and wisdom with the world. She has traveled for about a year altogether in India and publishes an India travel blog, Breathedreamgo.com. Mariellen also writes for magazines and newspapers.
