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..., 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.

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 romcom 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 Boladeakinbode. The filmmaker says she “had consultants from Nigeria as well as a lot of help from Bombay to get the Bollywood influence in.”

There have been Bollywoodnollywood 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.”

The Nifty Bank index did not register large gains on Thursday as anticipated by market experts on Wednesday, when the central government opened up its business to private banks. This because top names like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and Axis Bank already do business with the government, hence, the move might result in limited gains.

Billed as a move to enhance customer convenience, spur competition and set higher efficiency in customer service, the lifting of the embargo on grant of government business (including government agencies) to private sector is aimed at creating a level playing field among banks.

The timing of this announcement is interesting as it follows Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’S) diktat in August 2020 that if a bank has less than 10 per cent credit exposure to a borrower, it cannot enjoy a larger share of the borrower’s cash credit/overdraft accounts facility. The move was seen as being detrimental to the low-cost current account-savings account (CASA) business (an integral part of the float money) of private banks, given their reduced exposure to corporate debt in recent years. Therefore, opening of government business is an incremental positive.

“The float and fee income that can be garnered on tax, duties, goods and services tax collection, payment facilities, central/state pension plans, small savings schemes can add significant delta to revenues,” say analysts at ICICI Securities. According to the brokerage, this is a potential revenue opportunity of ~37 trillion in FY22.

However, analysts at Kotak Institutional Equities note that merely opening the doors won’t make it a cakewalk for private players. “Adding a bank to the government payment system is likely to be time-consuming and requires continuous interaction with the government and fee income streams have a higher probability of declining in the event of higher competition,” they note. Whether the float income would be large enough to offset likely pressures from lower fee margins (due to potential competition) is another monitorable.

One should also remember how as an aftermath of 2020’s YES Bank crisis, government agencies (including states) were quick to withdraw their business from private banks and shifted it to state-owned lenders.

During the lockdown, “transacting with public sector banks offered ease of doing business,” said a senior banker. The possibility of the government reversing the decision will keep banks on tenterhook. Therefore, beyond the initial euphoria, it remains to be seen if lifting the embargo on government business converts to earnings.