Back to the FuTuRe....

The year which marked a decade of the new millennium is a few days shy of slipping into the past. Looking back, I realize that this year was different and not so different from the others .There were “Ahh ..My life is Awesome !!” moments and there were “What???? “ moments in all our lives. Yet we found time to create a Facebook account and I am sure most of us have managed to upload albums with the names ‘I, Me,Myself’ , ‘Fun times’ or know at least one person who did. We pondered the dismal skills of India during the Common Wealth games and what it would take for the nation to tap its true potential. We watched with horror the damage we did to the ecology in the name of technology with the BP oil spill. We managed to watch movies with strokes of brilliance like ‘The Inception’,’The Social Network ‘and also the ones which made us want to change our profession and enlighten the film fraternity. No matter how the grave or how silly it was, life still went on and before we knew it, it was already the end of the 2010.Do you happen to remember your last year's resolution ? I know I don't ..

It’s a New year folks. Making a resolution is such a passé. Your life is as meaningful as you make it. This year allow yourself savor things you shied away from. Renew things you always did but somehow let them take a back seat in this eternally busy life. Grab those bags and go on a world tour,go bungee jumping, go back to your books, paint the beautiful face you always admired, write the song you wanted to play with your guitar. This time of the year is often to go back reminiscing the year that was. But this year lets go back to our dreams , our future.So what’s your 2011 going to be?

MindBlowing Movies !!

When I was 15 I participated in a debate about how serious and sensible the movies should be .I argued that the movies should be made with a sense of social responsibility. As expected, I lost the debate. I am 26 now and still cannot get used to the fact that movies are entitled to show us an imaginary and unreal world where everything is sweet and the hero bashes up the 7 feet villains ,who apparently look like they know kick boxing /kung fu / at least street fighting .All he has to do is tap on his thigh or remind them that he eats Indian green chillies.I wondered if the movie makers were allowed to take the liberty to show us the gory lives of the underworld with a pretext of making real cinema without considering its impact on the young minds .All this has been written about the movies for a long time now . However I noticed a new form of storytelling among the so-called new age movies and I should admit they manage to tell a story which isn’t remotely around.

I happened to watch the movie “Break ke Baad” last week and wondered if the Indian society was really ready for this kind of cinema as it was claiming to be. There has been an outburst of such movies in the recent years and still the movie makers seem to be struggling to actually drive the idea of casual relationships home without resorting to lectures on Indian ethics and values in the end. BKB is a movie which deals with a couple Abhay and Aaliya wanting different things out of life. Aliya wants to take up a mass communications course in Australia while she is still in a relationship and Abhay wants to get married. She goes away to explore new things in Australia with a promise to maintain the relationship. Meanwhile the guy gets insecure and feels left out of her life and goes to Australia to be lectured by the girl about the need of space in a relationship which leads to an eventual break up. What follows is how the guy finds himself while trying survive in an alien country(without even a legal immigrant status ) and befriends his love again eventually making her realize that she loves him and wants to get married to him.

It appeared as if the director tried too hard to make the girl look rebellious by making her puff a cigar, wear skimpy outfits even at an Indian wedding and announce when she lost her virginity. Why does she have to smoke to come across as level headed? If she is, then why does she scream and yell like a little girl even in a serious situation like a break up? And since when is chasing the girl to the other end of the world even if she isn’t interested in you cool? How does claiming to not let go of the girl because you made a promise fit into the modern ideology of the plot? Looks like the movie makers are either lost in figuring out what exactly is the “GenX” about or they have been watching their own movies to churn out the same thing with different lead actors.Agreed that love stories resemble each other at some point but don’t you think DDLJ differed from Hum aapke hain kaun ? I am not trying to establish these movies as a standard to measure others against but they were the beginnings of the so-called big budget feel good movies all the film makers claim to look up to.

I miss the movies like “Mirch masala” where the female lead did not have to ape the west to come across as a woman of substance. She could still belong to a poor rural family to stand up to her values and question the exploitation of the Subedar. She could look like she came out of the coal mines as long as she looked convincing in the character and brought life to it. The locations did not have to be splendid and breathtaking to keep the audience hooked to the movie. The costumes did not have to be taken out of a fashion magazine for the characters to be noticed. All it took was a sound storyline and actors who knew what they were doing .Trust me I spent three quarters of my time In BKB looking at the locales and the costumes and the remaining trying to figure out the story. A simple love story like “Katha “could leave you feeling all mushy and positive for life even without a skimpily clad girl, a boy looking like a chiseled statue or both with an accented English.

Sometimes I wonder if it is us who have given into the fake world that these movies offer to live a life we know is not possible for us. Why else are we ok with shelling out $15 for a movie which shows nothing but confused yelling youngsters or murderous factionists or characters too young to even mention the words true love? High time the movie makers made changes to the thought process that they claim to put in to making a movie and put to use the creative liberties that we have generously allowed them to take so as to relieve us from our real life stress and anxieties.