Mass Vs Class : The Bollywood Story

            I read a catchphrase on a T-shirt ‘There are 10 types of people, people who understand Binary and others who don’t’. We all love to classify things and people- the most important classification in Arts/Entertainment, per me, is the Mass and the Class. Most of what is done is for one of these two types. Be it books or movies. Chetan Bhagat for example, is a writer for the masses whereas Kiran Desai's works are for, the class. No, I do not intend to look down upon people who read the books written by Chetan Bhagat but let’s face it, he writes movie scripts and not books. Anyway, this article is not a description about books or writers. but about my favorite subject ‘ BOLLYWOOD’. I love Bollywood so much that If I was paid to write about it, then I would choose to rent a room in the ‘Antilla’ (The mansion of the Business Tycoon Ambani)!


           Bollywood movies that are generally filmed for the masses have a few exceptions these days that cater to a certain class of people. Here, I would be talking about two movies - Race2 and Bombay Talkies -. The former being a recent release and the latter which is relatively new. And no, I did not watch them just now. But since the article might have a few spoilers that leaks the stories of the movies, I preferred to wait a few weeks

              For the uninitiated, ‘Bombay Talkies’ is a movie with 4 stories from 4 different Directors (Karan Johar, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar and Anurag Kashyap). Each Director was given a budget of Rs. 1.5 crore and was asked to direct a 25-minute short film. The movie was made to celebrate 100 years of Indian Cinema. This movie was one of the classics that I recently watched. It not only focuses on the Indian Society, but also due to budgetary restraints, relies on the 'goodwill' of big stars and the acting caliber of the theater artists.

              The movie also goes on to show why Anurag Kashyap is the best among the four and that Karan Johar would never actually make a movie that is close to reality. It also portrays Zoya Akhtar's apparent inefficiency to direct without her brother Farhan Akhtar and that Dibakar Banerjee has a lot to learn about film making. It’s one of the 'must-watch' movies released of late. , Since the movie is for the class audience and has no 'item songs' or larger-than-life characters, it did not make as much money as those movies that had an item number performed by Sunny Leone. But for anybody, who loves to get a pinch of salt with the food, please hurry yourselves up and rush to the cine to watch this movie.

               Race2, on the other hand, made a lot of money. It's a movie made for the masses in which the hero excels at almost everything, including a few Olympic sports. Only if such people would have been real, we would have got more medals in Olympics! The movie also has stunts akin to the ones performed in the Hollywood movies. A few scenes have been ‘inspired’ from the movies of the West and the characters, seemingly, had unlimited amount of money and brains that work faster and better than the beloved Indian comic character Chacha CHoudhary. And of course, there is no mention of any kind of department that is made for maintaining law and order in the society. I did have this feeling ( of where are the cops?) after watching ‘Rajneeti too’, but after the recently conducted polls in one of our neighboring countries, I was convinced that this is plausible.

               The movie has heroines, who are dressed in skimpy skin clutching clothes and they dance in a way that would embarrass even a few bar girls of Mumbai. It has something for everybody. There is a fight scene between two brawny and well-oiled hunks to woo the women in the audience. The song ‘Mujhe toh teri Lat Lag gayi’ (translates to I am Addicted to You) in the film has the new entrant heroine dancing with a step that perhaps will not be replicated on the floor cause of its cheapness, and if some still want to, may not cause it will spoil the lip-gloss or lip liner ;). Still the lyrics fascinated some women so much that they decided to dedicate the song on their Facebook pages for their husbands. Really? As If you had a choice.

                To summarize, I do not have anything against this kind of cinema. But the problem lies among the masses who love such films, thereby, forcing the film makers to make such movies rather than classics. It is almost like we start believing in such lifestyles which may prove to be detrimental to society. It is OK if Bollywood wants to walk down the Hollywood way, but then the latter also comes up with movies like ‘Lincoln’ and ‘Argo’ that bags all the Academy awards. We just have Aamir Khan and Kamala Hassan to pin our hopes on when it comes to classy cinema.

               A lot can be said about the Indian Cinema, just like Kashyap’s story in ‘Bombay Talkies’. But I would like to stop myself from going beyond these 2 movies. Woh Kya hai na..I don’t really get paid. ;-)

Cheers!

Women : Nature's Wonder or Nature Wonders...

            

             So, we all know the story on how GOD made the earth, the plants and everything beautiful around. Then one day He created Man. As a reward to this purple patch, He decided to take things easy and set up a factory in China for mass production of men. Faster, easier and cheaper. Now since it’s a production assembly line, they were all the same, except for looks. Like all Chinese made products, Men also had variations in terms of quality. Some worked wonders while others were defective. But the basic functionality and features remain the same.

            Then, He rested and after what seemed to be a conspicuous 'lull before the storm', He created Woman. Now since he was done building the world and all, He decided not to set up a factory but prepared each piece himself. Changed and experimented several times. He did not realize that down there, on earth, what a hard time this will be for Men trying to understand Women. This is also why women mystify us every time we know one. They are just so different.          

              I would have loved citing examples but then space and words would be a constraint to get it all here. So don’t be amazed if the shy quiet girl sitting in the corner is a kick ass writer or if the bold looking female is actually a wimp. From reaching the space to acting like a space shuttle in our life. She has done it all. Just like my Mom who admits to not understanding technology but can be seen playing games on her tablet or surfing matrimonial sites finding a girl for me in her spare time. Wonder what she would have done, had she known Technology. Build a robotic daughter-in-lay maybe?

              The problem is we Men are like Porn movies. You see one you have seen them all. It’s the same. Women on the other hand are like Kamala Hassan or Amir Khan movies. Each movie is different and has a lot of efforts behind the making. Now just like the movies, some may flop while some may be super hit. We try to understand women all our lives. Initially we try to understand our mother/sister, as soon as we get close to knowing what they actually mean or want, we get our wife/gf , who is a different women altogether.

              We like to attribute our lack of understanding of women to PMS in general. The PMS that lasts for 30 days a month.What we fail to realize is the person up in the sky never wanted us to solve this mystery. Love them, adore them, compliment them, listen to them but do not try to understand them. And for those who have tried it all and failed, please remember that SOME women are hard to please, others are just impossible. The mystic about Women is almost like he-who-must-not-be-named ‘s nose. The more you think about it the more you fail to understand why couldn’t’ he fix his nose with all the magical powers in his wand.

              The world will be so boring without them .Just like some great guy said, we can’t live with them, we cannot live without them. And just as I proofread this, I realize that my words do not do justice to the Wonders of Women.

Cheers!

FaceBook - You Ruined my Life ;-)

              The other day, one of my friends came rushing to me and said, “You know that hot chick that was dating a loser? They just broke off. Now is my time to woo her and I shall do it before people even know about the break up”. I answered with a big grin, “Dude, we all know about it. It’s on her Facebook page. And in the last 24 hours, she has accepted 28 friend requests. You are very late.”

               I wondered about life before Facebook. It was so nice and calm. Being nosy was an art. It required efforts to know about people’s ‘personal’ business. Something like interfering in other’s life and expect a ‘meddle’ for it. I have seen the pride when people gossiped about what they found out. To know about someone’s personal life, you either had to be inquisitive or had to be a very good friend. These days it is just with a click of the mouse. All we have to do is add that person on FB and there, we might even get his/her horoscope lying abandoned on the Wall. Seriously, there is more than enough drama happening on Facebook every day that it negates the need of having reality shows.

                I used to wonder what it was like to read people’s minds but now that I too have a Facebook account I’m over it. It tells me about personal conversations between married couples. It talks about how much somebody loves his/her parents. It tells me all the places people have been to. What they have been drinking, eating, worshipping, ignoring or even playing. It has saved some from a terrifying ‘keeping-my-thoughts-to-myself’ addiction as well. It also provides visual aids. I don’t even have to go out of my house anymore to ogle at beautiful women. I do it all on my phone or laptop. I have started to worry about my physical stamina because I’m wondering when was the last time I ran to catch a bus just cause there was a hot chick in it. ;-)

               And I am sure Mark Zuckerberg did not see it coming too. He made a social network to be circulated among the nerds of the university. Among people who lacked the conviction and capability to chat up with people or the time to visit an old friend. He did not realize that there is a nerd among all of us. There was a time when my interactions were required by other guys too. Now they rely on Facebook because they think it’s like the voices in my head are being put on a speakerphone.

               And Mark you sure had no clue that with the advent of your website, we would be entering an age of too much information and that it would also act as a big morale booster for women and also be responsible for gender inequality. A morale booster for women, yes ofcourse Where else do you see a girl being so appreciated other than her FB picture. What they fail to understand is that there is a distribution pattern among those likes. 15% likes come from people who ‘Like’ everything. 35% likes come from female friends cause they hope that you would like her pic back.40% Likes come from Guys who would Like everything you put cause they feel with that they have a chance to woo you. Remaining 10% are the people who genuinely Love you and will Like everything you put. The rest from those women who feign the ‘Like’. ;-)

                In short, to do everything that required people skills, can now be done through FB. This sure is not good news for me. I mean come-on if you do not have to do anything special to know stuff , it levels the playing field and I hate it.

Oh Facebook. I hate you so much. J