inspired

R and i were heading towards K’s place. catching up on life in the past 5 days…and planning the evening ahead. its rare that i listen to music in the car when with her…! but had burnt a new CD and (i dont know if someone else has it) there is this unusual excitement as to which will be the next song. cause you really dont remember when you had put them in an order…to be written…

kaise tujhko dikhaun yahaan hai kya
Maine jharne se paani maa
tod ke piya hai
Guchcha guchcha kai khwabon ka
uchal ke chuwa hai
Chaaya liya bhali dhoop yahaan hai
Naya naya sa hai roop yahan
Yahaan sab kuch hai maa phir bhi
lage bin tere mujhko akela

i kept drivin…she kept looking out her window…there was no talk…
…and we looked at each other…and we had tears in our eyes…


unfortunately i have never really credited cinema with much. i know that SRK has a lot to do with this…but seriously…’bollywood/hollywod/crapwook’ never held any value for me except for pure viewing pleasure. it was rarely that i came out of a screening all shaken up…contemplating…thinking about what just struck me…! there are only a few movies that went that far…

1. Pi
2. The Shawshank Redemption
3. A Clockwork Orange
4. Requim for a dream
5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
6. City of God
7. Motorcycle Diaries
8. American History X
9. The Matrix
10.The Fight Club
11.Schindler’s List

And no…i am not an angrez who swears by hollywood…! there have been quite a few (unfortunately…a few) movies in hindi that still have me in awe. Anand, 3 deewarein (shit…i really have to think hard here..!)

However, 2 movies lately have fascinated me…

and that…finally…is the theme of today’s entry..

Rang De Basanti

The movie made me feel pathetic…about my life. I figured that no matter what MG says…at somepoint of time i will have to stand infront of the mirror and be hard on myself. at somepoint of time i will have to question my very existence…and my purpose. its surely not to sit infront of a laptop and churn our excel sheets. its certainly not to get married and see my kids become the finest kids ever..! and its surely surely not to get that bloody hasselblad of my last post.

And this movie…made me question all of that. it got so hard on me…that each time i spend lavishly on something…there is a certain guilt that takes over. and that guilt doesnt easily go when i sign that monthly check to CRY. infact it gets only bigger. it only reminds me that as an individual i feel that offering money is my excuse to exist. i dont even know where the money is going…!!

this movie made me realize the power of cinema. the reservation protests…the opening of the priyadarshini mattoo case…the retrial of the jessica lal case…were as if retakes of the same movie. it literally reawakened an entire generation…

and i am not far behind….


Lage raho Munnabhai

Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant. It made me laugh…made me cry…made me think…and more importantly…left a message so powerful…and in such a subtle manner…that it was only later that i reazlied what a stroke of genius this was.

i personally never really had a strong opinion on Gandhi. ofcourse…it takes a lot to move an entire nation and i dont know how many of us are capable of doing so…(and no…mallika sherawat is not what i am talking about…!)..! so the respect is there. but apart from that…i used to feel…what if we had resorted to violence…wud we have gotten our independence a decade earlier…?

but what the movie made me realize was that i at my own small level have been practising the same thing..! i am not the agressive sorts…rarely will i raise my voice…and if i think about it…my way of dealing with things has truly helped me. dont know if it would work with someone else…but for me…the main idea is that if the other person is wrong…make him feel guilty about it…so so guilty about it that he never does it again. but do it in a manner that he himself realizes it…and is not forced upon by society and laws. its hard…cause it takes a lot of time…but it works…works wonderfully..!

silence…is the best weapon…! i love this in me…narcissistic or whatever…tht silence coms naturally to me. people think that simply slapping someone is the best form of retaliation…however…silence is the cruelist..!

gandhigiri…or whatever you may want to call it…found itself redefined through the movie.


contrast
RDB shoke me…munnabhai amused me.
RDB made me feel horrible within…munnabhai consoled me of my potential
RDB was shock therapy…munnabhai was ‘Patch Adams’

2 movies…almost the same message…almost diametrically opposite ways of treating…

~a

PS: help me with hindi movies that can create the same effect.