Indias Star Mascot For New Zealand

Hrithik Roshan's fab-abs ripple under a see-through shirt in a nightclub in, presumably, Wellington, New Zealand's capital, and the audience goes wild. That nightclub was probably just a set, but as the star's debut making film rushes through New Zealand, tourism from the subcontinent has begun to boom for the island hidden down under Down Under.

The light-eyed star is the best thing to have happened to New Zealand. The second half of the film, shot in the scenic splendour of Hindi filmdom's newest locale, has driven visa-seekers to the doorstep of the New Zealand high commission in droves. "We're issuing more visas post Kaho Na Pyar Hai than ever before," says a beaming Peter Healy, trade commissioner in New Delhi. "The high commission used to process an average of 600 tourist visas per month. Last month, the figure jumped up to 900 and this month we should be issuing 1,200 visas."

 

Plans are afoot to construct a separate wing at the high commission to process the rush of visas. "We're thinking of making Hrithik Roshan the unofficial ambassador to New Zealand," says Healy in his best dead-pan voice. Film hero Jackie Shroff was another "virtual ambassador to New Zealand", having shot a couple of films there. Like everyone from tinsel town, Shroff too was impressed by the country and said so at public fora. "The water there is certified as being 98 per cent pure," was one such memorable, if breathless, phrase. Making a change from the 2 per cent purity most stars expect in amchi Mumbai.

If Healy's to be believed, it's not only Indians from India who are making a beeline for New Zealand's pristine forests, beaches and mountains, but the diaspora from places as disparate as Fiji, Canada and the UK as well, for which exact figures are currently unavailable. This is interesting on two counts. Firstly, it means that young Hrithik's appeal is to all people of Indian origin, no matter where they live, which makes him something of a worldwide phenomenon. Literally. Secondly, art (if potboilers from Mumbai can be called that) has hitherto tended to imitate life. Thus, women in Hindi cinema were portrayed as downtrodden because that was the fate of their real-life sorority. Suddenly, life mimics art inasmuch as film locations have become the hottest holiday destinations for movie goers.

It's the first time that such a phenomenon has taken place, and so visibly. Uptil the early eighties, Kashmir did double-duty as the most-favoured movie location as well as one of the most visited holiday destinations in the country. When gunshots rang out in the valley, movie makers shifted their focus towards Ooty, Mauritius, South Africa and Switzerland, not necessarily in that order. Holiday-makers too, turned their attention elsewhere. In the recent past, other films have been shot in New Zealand, but they haven't translated to a lemming-like rush there by tourists from India. Till Hrithik set the island ablaze with his sexy dance numbers.

Comments Haike Manning, deputy high commissioner in the capital, "New Zealand offers a vast scale of scenery in a small country. There are isolated islands, snow clad mountains, beaches and rain forests. You could quite easily go sun-bathing and skiing on the same day. I think that is what makes it such an attractive proposition." Comparatively, India offers just as many location possibilities, but is nowhere as easy to commute between locations.

The high commission in New Delhi has also grown accustomed to its new role as a post office. It receives several frantic e-mail messages from people in New Zealand begging for posters of Hrithik Roshan. Hardly surprising that every so often, the diplomatic bag routinely gets filled with Hrithik posters showing the star with his pumped up biceps posing like every teenage girl's dream-come-true. But who are the takers? Try the 45,000 settlers of Indian origin back in New Zealand, for starters.

Nothing succeeds like excess, however, and it's certain that before long, every hill and dale featured in Kaho Na Pyar Hai will make it to New Zealand's most popular picnic spots for persons of Indian origin.