Paul Merton in India Episode 5 -Final Episode
The final episode in this travel series has Paul starting out in Chennai – on Asia’s longest beach. He stumbles upon a training session of Future Bollywood stars and stuntmen. They put on a little show for him
and then he moves on to a Laughter (Yoga) Exercise Group – my goodness they look crazy I have to say, and you can see Paul thinks so too – the group believes fake laughter is the best form of exercise.
Next is Mumbai where Paul meets children living in a train station and on the platforms. He meets a man who from 5 years old spent 15 years living in what is basically a drain pipe. The children make 100 rupees per day recycling water bottles and newspapers, collecting them off of the trains – but because of filming they get beaten with night sticks by the guards (who don’t want this filmed). Most of these children come here in hopes of breaking into Bollywood Films.
Then Paul travels to Malegaon see a "Mollywood" Film being made – total cost of movie 250 pounds. It is a James Bond spoof and actually quite funny.
Then back to Mumbai for a look at a fan group of PG Wodehouse. After this Paul goes through a past life regression to see if he can find the root of his vertigo. Episode ends with Paul kicking a man in the groin 15 times – the man is the world record holder having 18 concrete blocks smashed on his groin with a sledgehammer. His other record is being kicked in the groin in one session – 43 times.
The footage in this episode again shows how poor parts of India are, with the exception of the Fan Group who meet in a modern, updated apartment, all others live in small, one room closet sized dwellings. The segment with the children living under the train tracks made me tear up.
I know that suffering is a part of life, but when pregnant – being bombarded with it is harder.
I give this episode 4 out of 7
