Film on Silicon Valley NRIs Quirky, Poignant

By ASHFAQUE SWAPAN, Special to India-West

BUGABOO. Directed by Sujit Saraf. Screenplay by Sujit Saraf and Sanjay Rajagopalan. Photography: Tony Sehgal. Music: Kris Falk. Starring: Sujit Saraf, Maheshwar Umashankar, Amit Nanavati and Rajiv Nema. Produced by Naatak Films and Pygmy Mammoth Productions.

In the growing world of expatriate Indians, surely the most noteworthy development in recent years has been the influx of Indian software professionals in the Silicon Valley. 

Even a cursory look at the South Bay shows signs of a significant demographic shift, causing what economists call a "multiplier effect." As more and more Indian professionals come to work and live here -- ranging from high-priced homes to apartments tucked in one of those bewildering rabbit-warren complexes -- so have Indian restaurants, groceries and cinemas mushroomed. Cricket matches now flourish on weekends and basmati rice and desi TV dinners are beginning to make an occasional appearance even in mainstream grocery stores. 

Yet what is it actually like being here? The story of the software professional in the Silicon Valley El Dorado has, to date, escaped the scrutiny of film makers. 

Mainstream Hollywood cinema -- driven by profits and its obsession for pleasing the highest number most of the time -- fears to tread this ethnic cul de sac, while Bollywood has not taken it up either. This is what Sujit Saraf`s Bugaboo makes so unique and special. It is far from a flawless film, but it takes a wry yet affecting look at life in the Silicon Valley with a priceless attribute: The ring of truth. 

Saraf, who wrote the screenplay and directed the film, has a Ph.D. from Berkeley and has worked in the South Bay -- so he has an insider`s view of life and the hilarious cultural contretemps that result when Indians come to live in the Silicon Valley. 

Mohandas Battu, whom his friends call Bapu, is the protagonist of the film. A man in his late 20s, he has it made: a decent job, stock markets going up and along with it his net worth. 

But he is not a happy man. A strange malaise afflicts his soul. Bapu has developed an almost Luddite aversion to hi tech; he calls Silicon Valley "lunatic asylum.com -- a madhouse full of the clack of keyboards and screech of printers. And each lunatic has the same symptom: They all think they are going to be millionaires." 

He employs his engineer`s skill to tackle his ennui. On a board at home, he scribbles Venn diagrams, graphs of the Dow Jones (going up) and his sense of well-being (going down), but for once his problem-solving skills don`t get him anywhere. 

Keshav Khudanpur, and Arvind Patwardhan, two of Bapu`s friends and colleagues, have their problems, too, but overall they love what Silicon Valley offers them. 

Arvind has a Caucasian live-in girlfriend, and horror of horrors, dear mom is giving him a visit -- so he is frantically engineering a ruse to keep his relationship a secret. Newly-married Keshav`s problem is more delicate: He is having a hard time making an amorous connection with his wife whom he has just brought with him after a recently arranged marriage in India. 

Saraf now adds a quirky surreal element to the film: Jeevan Ullaas -- "a life randomizer," a heavily accented computer-toting pandit who dabbles in the strange and occult, and who advises expatriates on how to rid themselves of ennui. 

Ullaas` bizarre advice to Bapu results in a hilarious sequence of events as the timid Bapu tries to overcome his deep-rooted aversion to rocking the boat -- and finally the film concludes, following a denouement during a hiking trip of the three friends. 

The film`s strength lies in managing to give a genuine feel of life in the Silicon Valley: Scenes of wide roads lined by the shiny chrome-and-glass edifices of Silcon Valley companies, the claustrophobic cubbyholes in the workplace, and photography of spectacular vistas of the Silicon Valley and the Golden Gate Bridge provide the convincing setting, and the many humorous and witty dialogues build on that. 

At a desi party you find one Silicon Valley pro offering this gem of advice to another entrepreneur: "If you want an internet IPO, you have to sell everything at a loss. That`s the only way to push up your stock price. Just concentrate on revenue, forget profits. If you are making a profit, you`re finished." 

A proud mother coos at her baby, and confides to a friend that she has already registered her daughter`s website --- www.manisha.com -- while other guests chat animatedly about green cards and the problems of difficult-to-please visiting parents. Bapu quips later that there could be a website: www.visitingparents.com. -- "Complete FAQ on everything you can show visiting parents. Costs, availability, phone numbers, websites. Comprehensive survey and feedback, newsgroups, discussion groups, support groups." 

Where the film falls short, however, is on technical values. The film was built on an impossible shoe-string budget of $21,000, and it shows. Even Indian viewers have now a sophisticated eye for film -- this film`s photography is just too static and monotonous a lot of the time. 

The film camera is a very ruthless, keen eye: It tends to magnify every small flaw. The film shows the acting in the film to be what it is: a bit too theatrical at times, with the performances often failing to achieve the easy life-like ambiance that good film acting should. Rajiv Nema`s Jeevan Ullaas, in particular, is sometimes excruciatingly slapstick. 

The real problem is that the film acts at cross purposes with itself. 

The film`s emphatic message -- to stand up and to be human, to have the guts and the gumption to take risks and assert one`s individuality -- is engaging, powerful and relevant, but it gets buried in all that humor -- particularly the slapstick variety, an example of which is the egregious glutton at the scene of the party. The characters are all a shade too funny and ridiculous for us to take any of them seriously. 

However, with a minimal budget and no prior film making experience, the people who made this film have shown Bollywood that there is a fascinating, rich story waiting to be told. 

Any Bollywood buff will tell you how Hindi cinema has gone more international these days - in addition to cavorting nymphets in the picturesque vales of Switzerland or with the Sydney Opera House in the backdrop, you actually have films that have stories set in foreign lands - Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and Aa Ab Laut Chalen come to mind. 

Yet what is lacking in all these potboilers is any sense of the actual joys and sorrows that affect real people who come to distant shores from India. 

With a minuscule budget, braving a lot of hurdles, Bugaboo tries to do that with honesty, wit and sensitivity. That alone makes this film a valuable if imperfect document of the expatriate experience, and a must-see film. 

Interested readers can call Lalitha Rajagopalan at (408) 732-8546 or visit the film`s site at www.shrieks.com/bugaboo for more information. 30-5-1 with 14 pt ital SET 2 TIMES: