Boy-Meets-Girl Part II

Some anonymous visitor to my site felt so strongly about the movie 7G Rainbow Colony, he stressed the same point repeatedly, exactly six times. Well, that's the problem with the comments posting feature in the blog. When you post a comment and click submit, it defaults to 'Page Not Found' error. But actually the comment entry is accepted. The error is a deception. From now on, those who want to post a comment, type in your entry in the comment section, simply click Submit and rest assured that it's been entered.

Coming to the topic, I want to continue my commentary on the movies front. One of the avid Tamil films supporter has commented that 'Kadhal' (Love) is about the prevailing casteism in our society. Those who watched Kadhal and praised it, never bothered to tell me about the 'caste-is-bad' message the movie allegedly carried! What's the story of this movie? A mechanic boy meets rich-businessman's school going daughter. Her parents oppose, and...and? You guessed it! They elope. They are hunted and brought back by the businessman's thugs and the girl is forcefully remarried and and...? You guessed it again! The boy turns lunatic!

I'm not against love and love (or failure) being portrayed in our movies. But how many times? Those who wanted to see how love failure and sacrifice is powerfully portrayed I strongly recommend Nenjil Ore Alayam or Dil Ek Mandir. I bet anyone making a better movie about failing in love and sacrificing for your ex-love. Watch Kalyana Parisu, I don't know if it was made in Hindi. And for brooding, hopeless one-sided love, watch Oru Thalai Ragam.

My point is we have made enough movies about the boy meeting the girl. Some are real classics. So why not explore other issues? Are girls-ditching-guys-and-guys-turning-looneys are the the only problem our country is facing right now? I don't think so. For a sample, I would like to look at the following:

- Terrorism
- Political Anarchy in Bihar, UP, etc. (Read William Darlymple, 'Age of Kali')
- One million people being uprooted and thrown out due to Narmada dam
- Religious Fundamentalism
- The pretentions and the hypocracy of the IT community in India
- Starvation deaths happening near FDI godowns
- Horrendous Traffic due to failed RTO offices all over the country
- The depressing state of government offices

If Hollywood was here, they would have made a movie on these topics. Well, these are the topics that are close to my heart. Perhaps you have a totally different list. Never mind that. It's quite saddening for me to think that a mass medium like cinema has not explored even the surface of the issues of our country. A successful society is where the cinema reflects its contemporary culture and lifestyle.

For fun, our mainstream cinema rubs those fatty navals and saggy cleavages in your face and for melancholy, presents a lower-class dark loser's mental disturbances due to his failed love with a fair marvari girl.

We certainly deserve a much better treatment.