What’s
Your Dope?
The
recent spurt in the graph of biopics in Indian cinema points towards a few
things. Firstly, it is evident that fame and popularity scores over content and
work. That is why notorious Charles Shobhraj can boast of a biopic made upon
his wayward life and not Kailash Sathyarthi or such people who have put delinquent
and painful lives back to track, who have gathered pieces together to make many
a life worth living again. The recent biopic made in Hollywood upon the great
Indian mathematician Ramanujan indicates how short sighted we have become when
it comes to choosing subjects for this genre. Secondly, it is as if we have run
out of new ideas, and people’s lives, no matter how banal they have been, are being
turned into money grosser movies. I do not think some celebs whose lives have
been captured on the wide screen deserve that much. No one has yet bothered to
make a biopic on Hockey Wizard Dhyan Chand who impressed even Hitler first with
his game and then with his loyalty towards his country. The next biopic, I read
somewhere, is going to be on Late Kamala Das, the great Indian writer, and
Vidya Balan is going to portray her feminist and enigmatic life. This is fine;
she can motivate many women but still, there have been celebs who clearly did
not deserve even a short docu-drama. We need to think and be more creative with
story lines and plots and yes, music as well.
When
I saw the first look of ‘The Xpose’, I felt like laughing out loud on Mr.
Reshammiya’s copied style. I do not understand why he is hell bent on torturing
the audience with his hero-panti antics. Soon to be released ‘The Xpose’
that also stars Yo Yo Honey Singh, whose spiritual sermons are a must have in
every pervert’s collection, has tried to present Himess-bhai very
much like the magnetic Jay Gatsby portrayed by Leonardo Di Caprio in the 2013 movie ‘The Great Gatsby’. Be it settings, background or choreography, everything
is just so similar! However, Himess-bhai, with
a dead serious expression, looks too ordinary compared to the charismatic Leo in the toast raising
scene (against the backdrop of the sky). This made me ponder over another serious thing- why we are so short of imagination
and creativity? Why do we not create our own styles, settings and themes? We take pride in our culture, art, music and blah blah blah but
if looked closely, most of the filmy music and even the choreography are straight
lifted from Hollywood. 
Take
the scenes from the hit ‘Barfi’ for instance. From Charlie Chaplin’s b&w
movies to various Hollywood hits like ‘Notebook’, Barfi is more of a collection
of copied scenes, translated and presented with a desi tadka. Also, the choreography of the latest hit
‘Baby Doll’ too, has been copied in parts from a music video by Jennifer Lopez.
The cinema and television are the mirrors of the society together with its changes. Take for example the humble, illiterate ‘ma’ of the Hindi movies of 60’s and 70’s till 80’. The ‘ma’, who burned the midnight oil to stitch clothes to afford two meals and to pay for the hero’s BA degree, has slowl
The heroine, the simple homely girl got fast replaced by this superwoman, educated, bold and confident about her sexuality. The hero, transformed from the chocolate heroes of the past who fell in love with a innocent- in- the- extremes and uneducated gaon-ki-gori, has now got replaced by a simple boy next door with no palaces to live in, with human capabilities, similar aspirations and lots of guts. The result is that the audience can now easily relate with the lead characters of the film. Both girls and boys now carry huge aspirations and confidence to turn them into realities.
Children now are far from being innocent. According to a report girls now reach puberty at the age of 11 years. Unlike in the older movies wherein children were shown to be innocent and obedient, today’s IT era kids are smart and have a mind of their own. Most of them are precocious with all the material comforts and parents who spoil and pamper them a lot. Increased pocket money to spend as and when they wish, full access to the latest gizmos and least interference in their personal lives are some perks given by the modern urban parents to compensate for the lesser and lesser time they can now spare for their kids, thanks to the double incomes. In the recent movie ‘Partner’, the character played by the ex-Miss Universe Lara Dutta was that of a single mother who has a son and is a journalist and is mostly outstation because of work but still manages the home beautifully. In the same movie the character played by actor Salman khan was that of a bachelor playboy who has no qualms accepting the mother along with the son. This change points towards the ever expanding modernity of relations that is to some point good as well, and has its own positive aspects as it provides womenfolk with a freedom and independence that their earlier generations could only dream of.
These aspects are not difficult to find in the real life and if you peep into the life of any urban young thing or a simple city household, such events, characters and situations do exist though their intensity differs from SEC to SEC (socio economic classification: a system of classification based on the education and income levels) and city to city. Women of today are much more confident and bold as compared to those of 80’s and earlier. Though according to a research only 23% women in Delhi are working, still given we are a huge population, that’s still too much. People, especially in the smaller towns are now keen to send their girls to schools and mothers do not want their daughters suffer the same fate of dependency as they did. This attitude is getting wider generation after generation. I happened to speak to people in a remote area of Gujarat. The person I was talking to was a poor weaver, just hand to mouth but to my surprise, was far too sensible than most of the proud urbanites. He had only two children, a boy and a girl and both were studying. He wanted them to become doctor and engineer and was equally ambitious without even a trace of partiality between the sexes. His wife, I noticed carefully, carried an expression of contentment on her small face, shrunk by poverty but with her small eyes glowing because of, may be satisfaction of a good household, a sensible husband, obedient children or whatever. Now, in how many urban homes do we find this? Most of the housewives are either bored, or are sick of spying on their spouses, have children who are usually out of control and juggle jobs and home irritatingly. In spite of having a lot of material comforts they are far from being satisfied. The increasing white collar crime rate is one depressing but a real evidence of this. The villagers too are now depicted as educated and modern often carrying more business sense than paid managers of big corporate houses. They drive big cars and wear designer clothes. They have fields spread over acres and homes full of state-of-the-art luxuries, their children studying in big cities, and not being conscious of their small town labels. Such situations too exist, with most north Indian villages having much more per capita income that most urbanites who usually look down upon them.
Cinema and movies, I believe are the true reflections of the society and what we see in movies, usually those jaw dropping scenes actually happen, otherwise where do these film wallas get their inspiration from? Movies now portray live-in relationships, girlfriends and boyfriends, pre-marital sex, corruption and every member of the family having a life of their own without wanting anyone’s interference; parents are shown to be very liberal, colleges are depicted like dating parties and professors like friends. Though no points for saying it’s exaggerated but the core idea has come from the society itself, obviously blown up to form a motion picture with drama, suspense and comedy, to attract the spectators.
The entire society is changing and these changes are echoed in the cinema. The change is faster every year but is slow, it’s a mix and is very confusing: most of the girls though bold and brash still carry good old ‘sanskars’ that are automatically activated when they get married. Modern and educated boys still look for innocent and, as far as possible, virgin brides. This double nature of Indian youth is very difficult to understand and decode but is happening in front of our eyes we have all the proofs and we cannot deny it.
But there is a different aspect as well; cinema itself can herald changes in the society. For instance, inspiring the fashion (mostly in the form of aping the actors) and crimes inspired by the movies. But, there are some better changes too like the recent change in the old policy of CBSE as a result of ‘Tare Zameen Par’: it is now giving extra exam writing time to the dyslexic students in the Board exams. Similarly, renewed public interest in hockey is clearly visible after the hit ‘Chak De’.
We should accept the change, for we do not have any choice except to accept, and flow with it.
