After a long time, i enjoyed watching a Kannada movie made
with original story. In fact, last week has been lucky for me with regard to
the kind of movies i watched. All have entertained me upto my level of
expectation.
There is a reason why we indians are so much attached to
movies. Well, i'm not going to discuss about those fanatics who build temples
for their movie stars or do milk abhisheka of their stars cut outs on the day
of release. for that matter, i should not have even made a mention of them in
the above lines also.
TZP, Lagaan, Ghajini (ok ok, i dont want to be branded as
AK's fan) most recently Desi boyz, and namma Vishnuvardhana., if we consider
all these famous movies, there is some element or factor which makes us get
connected with the movie instantly. We love it. Though we dont admit it, there
is something in these movies which connects with some elment of our past, in
the back of our mind, in sub concious. Or may be conciously itself. And why we
like them?
Not long back, i was watching the people connect program
that the renowed director of kannada serials, Mr. T.N Seetaram used to conduct
at various parts of the state, when his serial Muktha was getting telecast.
Anyone who has watched the serials being made by him will first remember the
court cases in them. A lawyer by profession himself, his serials used to have
atleast two court cases in it. All of them, made to look as indigenous as
possible with the witness trials, cross examinations, defence etc., used to
have happy ending, with the director, who always used to be the lawyer for
unfortunate victims, winning the case. During one such connect programs in
Mysore, a person asked him how come there is always a happy ending for the
court cases in the serials, and always he will win. He justified it so
beautifully saying, all of us know how tedious the court cases are in our
country. many a times, the victim may never get the justice due to the delay [Our
courts love to send out the message "justice delayed is justice
denied" with frequent examples]. This has ensured that none of us have any
faith in judiciary. In the serials, contrary to the true case, the justice is
delivered to the victim at the end of the legal battle. And watching it happen,
we all feel happy. we feel happy because we see ourselves in the victim,
thereby feeling victorious ourselves. This ensures that we get connected with
the serial!! what we dont get in reality, we love to see that happen in screen.
But if we look out of movies, the other place where we can
see this kind of connection with reality was (I use the word "was" here
for a reason which i explain later) in Cricket. Rahul Dravid recently delivered
a speech at Don Bradman oration thus becoming first non-aussie to do the same. The
speech brought out the several interesting facts about cricket and history that
the two nations share. India's association with the Australia started as long
back as world war, when the two countries were british colonies, fighting for
the common enemy. Thus Sir Don Bradman easily became the favorite among Indian
cricket fans. At the peak of freedom struggle, each innings that Don bradman played against England was
like a war against them for Indians. The slaughter of Gora's bowling attack
bought joy and smile in our face.
Coming back to movies, there are several examples of
Movie-real life in southern part of our country. Tamil Nadu has seen a temple
being built for each of their movie star, at any available gap in the crowded
chennai city. This Blog will be highly incomplete if i miss to mention the
superstar of Indian cinema, the one and only Rajnikant. Shivajirao gaekwad, as
he was called before getting renamed by his debut movie director, Rajnikant
came up from grass root level without any godfather support. We indians condemn
racism when it happens on us in foreign countries like UK, US and Australia.
But back home, it is daily practise of Northis, who are comparatively fairer
than southis. This has ensured a complete dominance of fair skinned northis in
Bollywood. Thus, when a black guy came up in the industry, there was immense
support for him from people. As my colleague puts it, people saw themselves in
Rajnikant. Most of his movies are about fighting against oppression on black(ugly),
downtrodden, poor people ,which got instantly connected with the masses. he
reinforced the lost hopes in millions of poor people. The another reason for
his immense popularity was the fact that he never broke his connection with the
people, even at the peak of popularity. He made it a point to keep in touch
with common man thru several social works like building kalyana mantap etc.
There has been several examples where people indeed worshipped him like a god
in their homes, not because he was a superstar, but they were all beneficiaries
of his social service.
During 1950's and 60's, when the nation was tired after the
freedom struggle and trying to cope with new challenges, the new lover boy of Bollywood Dev Anand offered a
fresh set of romantic movies to then younger gen. People enjoyed by immersing
themselves into the romantic chartbusters churned out one after another by Dev
Saheb. But when the different social crisis like unemployment, socialism vs.
capitalism etc started to reach peak during 70's and 80's, people's taste
started to change. Enter Angry Young man - Mr. Amitabh. Labour unrest was at
peak during that period, and movies that sympathized with the labour class like
coolie were instant hits. Thus for those two or three decades, movies talking
on the National issues(against the usual trend of rom-coms) were also coming
out, which no longer is relevant now (except for one or two movies like peepli
live, no one killed jessica, etc.)
Taking my own example(no, i'm not a movie star), a couple of
days back when i was returning home by car after attending a function, there
was a minor accident. I was coming straight on my lane when a car that was
standing still on the left lane(to my left), suddenly took to its right and
brazed mine. The honest me didnt wanted to stop the car right in the middle of
road and block it. So i moved to left side, got down and checked the damaged
side. By the time i did this, the scoundrel fled the scene in his car. I
managed to note the number. But in that hullaballo, i forgot to write it down
on paper and eventually forgot also. I was clueless what next to do. I couldnt
even find him anywhere later. I was so helpless, i wanted to find that guy and
hit him black n blue (not sure if I would've really done that). I felt so
ashamed of myself. A surge of emotion, anger, helplessness started to cause so
much trouble inside. That time I realized how good it feels watching a hero
tackling a situation like this in movie. If it was a telugu movie, after the
scoundrel flees the scene and reaches his home gate (feeling how lucky he was),
he will see the hero standing at the gate waiting for him. A few punch
line-dialog from the hero and the dishum dishum starts. The scoundrel learns
his lesson.
Tailpiece : I always get comments from my friend that my
blogs ends very abruptly. Well, all i can say is that people get so engrossed
reading my blog that they hate it when it ends :)
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