Sridevi's Hawa Hawai references

Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay! presented ‘Hawa Hawai’ as a symbol for mass culture, its hyper-feminine iconography soon made it a drag favourite. That gilded gown and the bright features would even turn Sridevi into an art deco icon. She shows the influence of big-budget Hindi movies on the characters through their constant parodying of popular songs, the references to "Mr. India" (a hugely popular film at the time that "Salaam Bombay!" was being made) and the young boys´ lewd jokes about Mandakini and Sridevi. Interestingly, this film is totally opposite to the potboiler movies that are mentioned... Gritty realism and bold display of issues affecting people is something that is rare in a 1980´s Bollywood motion picture. A scene shows a boy peeing while singing "Bijli ki rani main hoon aayi, kehte hain mujhko...". In effect, "Salaam Bombay!" takes Bollywood conventions and pees on it.

Sukanya Verma says: "Often filmmakers tend to romanticize abject destitution to procure compassionate moments on screen. But while, Nair too aims for fanciful visuals (by cinematographer Sandi Sissel), there’s visible honesty in her approach, a genuine appreciation for her unfeigned protagonists and their wholehearted acknowledgement of life as it is. It leads to some memorable imagery especially the influence and value cinema holds for the children. The animated response inside the theatre to Sridevi’s vibrant dance in Mr India’s Hawa Hawaai is alone worth the price of admission."

TV Guide reviews "Like Satyajit Ray's early work, it is heavily indebted to the Italian neo-realist tradition and implicitly contemptuous of mainstream Indian cinema. Nair uses her characters' devotion to Bombay musicals to make a rather tired point about the contrast between their squalid lives and the fantasies purveyed by commercial cinema. In one place, this strategy notably backfires: when the protagonist and his friends visit the cinema, the clip we see them viewing--a comic dance number from MR. INDIA performed by Indian megastar Sridevi--is far more arresting than anything in Salaam Bombay! Nair's film received the prestigious Camera d'Or for best first feature at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival."

Behind The Woods reviewed "In Mira Nair’s 1988 movie Salaam Bombay, a girl in a brothel dances to the tunes of Sridevi’s iconic dance number Hawa Hawai from Mr India. On a conclusive knock, that made Sridevi a superstar; to instil dreams into dreamless minds, to fill empty hearts with the joy of living, to give form to our amorphous desires, to love for the loveless, and live the lost lives of a million of men and women onscreen. With sheer bravery and determination, she delved into unknown terrains and languages only to surface with a handful of cinematic dreams, or rather, memories. Adieu!"