Namaste Wahala, a new Netflix release, brings together India and Nigeria

Two of the world's biggest film industries, Bollywood and Nollywood have collaborated in the past as well

Indian audiences, accustomed to racist and anti-Black messaging in Hindi films, have a new cultural product vying for their eyeballs. Namaste Wahala, the big Valentine’s Day release on Netflix, is an Indo-Nigerian film that employs talent from Bollywood and Nollywood – two of the biggest film industries in the world.

This inter-racial romantic comedy has been written, directed and produced by Hamisha Daryani Ahuja, who also plays the role of Leila in the film. Namaste Wahala marks her debut.

“I am an Indian living in Nigeria. The majority of Nigerians here, and the Nollywood industry (as the Nigerian film industry is called), have grown up on a Bollywood diet,” says Ahuja. “Shammi Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Hema Malini are staple household names. We always have Indian movies coming in, especially dubbed ones, thanks to Zee World,” adds Ahuja who has a certificate in acting from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

In a publication titled “Nigeria’s Film Industry: Nollywood Looks to Expand Globally” (2014) by the United States International Trade Commission, Erick Oh from the Office of Industries notes that Nollywood produces “about 50 movies per week, second only to India’s Bollywood and ahead of Hollwyood.” Oh adds, “Although its revenues trail those of Bollywood or Hollywood at the global box office ($1.6 billion and $9.8 billion in 2012, respectively), officially Nollywood still generates, on average, $600 million annually for the Nigerian economy.” Nollywood, apparently, is Nigeria’s largest employer after agriculture.

Ruslaan Mumtaz from Bollywood and Ini-Dima Okojie from Nollywood play the young romantic leads – Raj and Chidinma aka Didi – who fall in love at first sight on a beach in Lagos. Raj is an Indian investment banker who lives in Nigeria, and is in regular contact with his parents back in India. Didi is a Nigerian lawyer who works closely with an NGO headed by Leila. Her father Ernest (Richard Mofe-Damijo) has his own law firm but she takes pro bono cases providing legal support to women facing domestic violence and sexual assault. The film was scheduled for a theatrical release in April 2020 but was delayed due to Covid-19.

Namaste Wahala was shot in Nigeria, and the post-production was done in India. “The two cultures depicted in the film are very close to my heart because they are my own. As much as I have grown up in an Indian household, Nigeria is my home,” says the filmmaker. “What better way to show conflict than with a love story where traditions and elders get involved?” adds Ahuja, who has also founded Forever 7 Entertainment, a production company that deals in filmmaking and content development in both the Nollywood and the Bollywood industries.

In an essay titled “Itineraries of Indian Cinema: African Videos, Bollywood, and Global Media” (2003), Brian Larkin, an anthropology professor at Barnard College in New York, writes, “In Nigeria, Indian films offer ways of being modern and traditional that create a template for exploring the tensions of postcoloniality.” According to him, these films present a way of being modern that does not necessarily mean “being Western” or imitating Americans.

The other characters with a significant presence in Namaste Wahala are Raj’s mother Meera (Sujata Sehgal), Didi’s mother Shola (Joke Silva), Didi’s friend Angie (Anee Icha) and Ernest’s employee Somto (Ibrahim Suleiman). Ernest wants Didi to marry the lawyer Somto, who seems an ideal suitor to carry on his professional legacy. It takes Ernest a long time to realize that Didi is well-qualified to take on that responsibility. He does not want Didi to marry an Indian man. Meera disapproves of Didi because she wants Raj to marry an Indian woman.

Bernard Dayo, the Lagos-based critic and scriptwriter who writes on identity, culture and cinema, points out that the film’s title means “Hello Trouble” and is “a hybrid of both Indian and Nigerian languages.” In his article “Netflix’s rom-com Namaste Wahala breaks new ground” for British entertainment website Digital Spy, Dayo laments that the film “hardly props up Nigerian language, except a few times where Igbo (spoken in Nigeria’s south east) is chipped in at the end of an English sentence by Didi’s father.”

Shola, Didi’s mother, “doesn't say anything in Yoruba as much as Raj's mother communicates in Hindi.” According to Dayo, “This is the movie's shortcoming, its characters – Nigerian characters really – disproportionately speaking English in a movie that should revel in the country's slew of languages.” Indian audiences, familiar with plots revolving around inter-faith, inter-caste and North-South clashes, will easily relate to the fact that Shola and Ernest too had to fight to be together since they belong to different communities in Nigeria.

The screenplay has been written by Diche Enuwa and Temitope Bolade-Akinbode. The filmmaker calls it “a pure passion project” that she treated “like a baby.” She says, “I had consultants from Nigeria as well as a lot of help from Bombay to get the Bollywood influence in.” Namaste Wahala is packed with gorgeous locations, emotional drama, fashionable costumes, songs with recall value, and shirtless footage of the charming investment banker.

There have been Bollywood-Nollywood collaborations before Namaste Wahala came onto the scene. In an article titled “Move Over India: How Bollywood Conquered Nigeria” (2018), Jeremy Luedi, who edits a digital portal called Asia By Africa, writes, “A few years prior, the 2012 film J.U.D.E. became the first co-production between Nigeria and India, with Chukwuma Osakwe directing, and Parveen Kurma as assistant director. Set in Lagos and Chandigarh, Punjab the movie deals with love, race, religion, visa denials from western countries and the challenges faced by young people in emerging economies; in short, the same cross-cultural themes that made Bollywood such a hit in Nigeria in the first place.”