You belong to a rare species if you are 30 something and never tried to catch precious glimpses of Amitabh movies on your TV set via an aluminum antenna. You are even rarer if you remained ignorant (by choice or otherwise) to the growing Bollywood trends in the world cinema during the last couple of decades. Today consider yourself extinct of you cannot tell your Khans from Dutts. Being one of the survivors I am not sure if I am the last one to have resisted the Bollywood epidemic or there are others like me; viewing the inter/national movie scene like displaced dissenters hanging on to their last shreds of cinema perspicacity and common sense.
It was about 10 years ago when upon my friend’s insistence I brought myself to watch a few Indian movies: which were described by my friend in the terms, "you don’t know love if you haven’t seen them". Well I can’t say if I was able to have a deeper understanding of human affections but I did end up having a certain loathing towards popular Bollywood movies.
Discounting the generally mediocre, over the top acting, and the plot that mostly revolved around the boy meet girl scenario. Their presentation however did everything it could to repulse a new comer like me. Don’t get me wrong, as I was weaned on musicals and I still had some fading recollections of Sound of Music and Mary Poppins to help me ease into the experience. But these ones caught me off guard. I just wasn’t prepared for such ridiculous flights of fancy. While the lawn frolicking was there as expected, the sudden changing of the hero’s attire was just too difficult to forgive. He even appeared in an orange…yes an orange suit and tie, not unlike the one worn by Jim Carrey playing the human-cartoon in The Mask. And the girl was seemingly so attracted by his person that her dance movements reminisced a weird mating ritual of some prehistoric civilization, oddly coupled with western dance moves. And gestures that suggested nothing short of human worship. A male god in an orange suit and tie? I had seen enough. And enough to make me question, what message is being conveyed here? In a country with a population of teeming millions and threat of AIDS epidemic around the corner yet gratuitous reproduction is still encouraged?
To me it appeared strange that no women’s rights activists bat an eye to this large-screen public disgrace of women. But certainly the sight of a ‘pimped’ up half naked Khan (or the likes of) surrounded by a group of scantily clad girls in a lurid musical orgy was way too much to be overlooked. That is until I saw a similar scene with the roles changed. The latest hit song that is supposedly celebrating a girl’s ‘javani’ has the heroine clad in a bed sheet, surrounded by half dressed (read disgusting) extras. At this point I was totally convinced that perhaps the Indian society actually has become accommodatingly liberal. A society in which men and women respect each other’s rights and do what Bollywood shows them doing. Sadly, the Indian newspaper headlines tell a different story. And like Pakistan, stories of rape, public humiliation and battery are the order of the day. And by the way the ‘javani’ songs’ best bits turned out to be a rehash of an eighties Modern Talking number.
The argument here is not whether Hollywood is better than Bollywood or vice versa. The point of consideration here is that we as a nation have unquestioningly become addicted to all that is crass and subpar in entertainment. I am sure even Indian society must be suffering the dilemma of having a multi billion rupee entertainment industry in a poverty stricken country. Hence we see children from an early age being prepared to feed the ever hungry market instead of getting a proper education or perhaps maintaining some semblance of innocence in their lives. Sure, industry creates jobs but at what cost?
Upon asking a Bollywood movie fan regarding the afore mentioned song I got the reply, "When watching an Indian film we just shut our minds off and become a part of the on-screen fantasy". It appears that most of the movie audiences have no problem making themselves mentally challenged for the full two and a half hours. Four decades of inducement has to have some effect on their sensibilities. And regrettably has made them less resistant towards this disease of mental complacency. Unfortunately, I on the other hand, am not blessed with a superhuman-willing suspension of disbelief. And until the day I develop some, I gladly remain guilty of avoiding all things Bollywood.
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