The Centennial of Indian cinema - 100 golden years and counting !!

For an industry/fraternity that has given so much to the culture, the heritage and the diaspora of Indian audiences across the world, the least she could do is write a few lines about it. Cinema (in India) is religion. She, like every typical Indian girl grew up watching, dreaming and fantasizing movies. While most of the international viewership is skeptical about the content of Indian movies and consider all of them to be musicals, only an Indian movie lover knows "the real world of Indian cinema". A world filled with dreams, hope and romance. A world that is full of color, grandeur and glory.

The fact is that this is one form of entertainment in India that is equally accessible to the poor and the mighty rich with no disparity except for which row seat they watch it from. The servants that worked in her house would skip a meal to save the 20 Rs to go watch a movie. Even on an empty stomach, the high that the  mystical, magical and marvellous world of cinema provided was unprecedented and unparalleled.

Indians worship their stars. They are heroes in every sense of the word. Everyone wants to grow up to be like them. Their stupendous success made people believe that if you reach for the stars -you'll have the night sky in the palm of your hand. It is one of the fastest growing industries with almost $17 billion in revenue and over 1000 films churned out each year(twice the volume of Hollywood). 

Evolving from song and dance sequences in movies to parallel cinema and now to the even better, intellectual cinema- catering to the young urban educated audiences, the film industry has sure come a long way. But what is constant and what she is most enamoured by- even to this day is the glamour, the glitz  and the flamboyance of Indian films. 

The silver screen where 'nothing is impossoble'. Every girl is wooed, worshiped and deeply loved. Every guy is strong, handsome and in control. What's not to love about Indian cinema? To name some magnificent masterpieces or contributions in over a 100 years would be next to impossible, so lets close out by saying this:

For a country that is disintegrated by caste, creed and religious diversity - the one common language that every Indian speaks and the one biding connection that all Indians share is their undying love and passion for Indian cinema. To the biggest and the best industry of all - Happy birthday....And See you at the movies.

Like Raj Kapoor once said 'The SHOW must go on'......

Dream Girl.....

She lay peacefully as the shimmering rays of sunlight streamed through the white lace curtains into a bedroom overlooking the deep blue sea. Her skin felt like silk on the 1500 thread count ivory Egyptian cotton sheets. Her hair had come undone and long black tendrils grazed her face. She seemed so at peace with herself and the rest of the world. He stood outside her window watching her sleep and told himself how he had never seen anything more exquisite or irresistible.

But she would always be a mirage. A longing that would never be fulfilled....He tried really hard to look away but her face was so mesmerizing that it kept him captivated. She always had that effect on people. In all the years he'd known her, she would walk into a room and it would instantly light up. She was energy, she was charisma, she was grace and she was joy. She was smart and witty and kind. But above all she was just a heartbeat away from being his for life.

On that thought, he heard a loud beeping noise and woke up to his alarm going off. Even though it wasn't meant to be, he woke up each morning wondering what it would have been like to wake up to her beautiful smile and know that she would be by his side.....She was a dream, she was a wish, she was a fantasy :)

-So long...

The days of the fountain pen.....

She is a journalist's daughter. Newspapers, white papers, ink written articles, type-writers and fountain pens were her entire life. Even when she recalled her school days, one of the most vivid memories was graduating from a pencil to a fountain pen in the fourth grade and then finally to a ball-point in high school. There was so much emphasis given to good hand-writing...it was almost like it was a reflection of who you are. She recalled her Dad's famous phrase in Malayalam that translated to "Your fate's writing will depend on your hand-writing". Less than 2 decades now and everything's changed.....Kids are born browsing the laptop and using touch phones. Her daughter started writing with a ball pen the first time she actually wrote on paper which was after her practice sessions on smart boards and leap frogs etc. Hard to believe.

Same with books...There was nothing like the smell of an old book. The touch, the smell and the feel of paper was as important as its content. But with the advent of ebooks, online reading and the wiki-world, the anticipation of waiting for a favorite author's book hitting the stands is extinct and so is the pleasure of pulling out an old book off the racks and finding a book mark with scribbles that kindle a fond memory from the past. Something the next generation of kids would possibly never know.

Same with music....From the days of cassettes/tapes to CDs to iPods and podcasts. The pride of owning a cassette that no one else did or passing on a box of tapes from one gen to the other will soon be unheard of. 

Also, letters. Yet another aspect of old school that was very close to her heart. She still remembered the days when her Dad would write to his Dad(in Kerala) in a blue envelope (they called it the inland letter). He would ask her to write the last few lines inquiring about his health and sign off. It took 7-10 days for the letter to reach Kerala and then the wait for his response began. She would wait for the post man after school everyday to see if her grand dad wrote back and had something nice to say. Finally, the letter would arrive but since it was addressed to her Dad she would wait until he got back from work to open it. Finally there it was, the handwritten text on the inland letter and not once would her Dad skip mentioning how impeccable her grandpa's hand-writing was, even at 70. Her daughter on the other hand skyped with her grandpa and it would be highly ambitious to hope that she would constantly correspond over email when she grows up. For all you know, she'll be face-booking him.

While technology is a great thing and internet is the biggest invention after the fire and the wheel and ironically it is her bread and butter, she couldn't help but think of the simpler times when life was as basic as it should be.....While technology claims to have made everything easy and simple, had it really?

A million-dollar question.........One that only a transitional generation(s) could answer....It baffled her to think how much change her grandma who was born and raised in the 1920s had seen. From days of the gramophone and radio (that she had to walk about 10 miles to listen to) to television and internet and email. From the hand-held phone (mouth piece separate from he ear piece) to land lines to cell phones to face-time....She'd seen it all....the evolution of man-kind to its pinnacle and the progress of a generation that was faster than the speed of light ....yet she stood poised and undeterred in the face of change. A moral/ethical standard and strength of character only someone from her generation is capable of projecting.

Of course accompanied by all the social changes. From a male dominated family setup, from fidelity and loyalty being the pillars of a sound marriage, from the girl child being a second-class citizen, her grandma had witnessed women empowerment in all its glory. While that sounds like a good thing and she was a strong proponent of equality for women, she couldn't help but wonder if the failings of the society on the social/moral front and the lapse of a generation's ability to choose right from wrong and the demise of character in young adults leading to drugs, premature sex and criminal tendencies had to do with the liberated woman syndrome. One that leads the woman to believe that the upbringing of a child is not her sole responsibility.....

Sad but isn't it true? Wish she had a time machine so she could travel back to those simpler, happier, more contended times and give her daughter a tour of the same. A glimpse into a glorious past that is now lost in the ramblings of a power driven, speed focused and ever-changing  society.

Turbulence

The most unnerving and unraveling moments in a person's life, she believed are coming face to face with a very powerful emotion - Sometimes its loss, sometimes its love, sometimes its dilemma, sometimes its disillusionment and sometimes its just realization. Like a storm plunging through the skies and pouring down.....it wipes away every sane thought and logic that crosses your mind.

Clarity is the key and that's exactly what one lacks in those moments. Life almost always presents choices. Some are clear based on your priorities, your values and principles and your life's experiences. Other times, the choices are murky. It takes an enormous amount of strength and will-power to do the right thing. It also depends on what you deem important in life.

Different people attributed significance to different things in life - power, wealth, success, relationships and so on. She had dealt with power and influence. She was born and raised in a family that had it all. Wealth was important but just to get by. Success was subjective. She did not believe in a common yardstick for success.

Relationships are what she thrived on. So, what she found most disarming was people not living up to their potential or what she believed was their potential. People disappointing to the extent that you've lowered your benchmarks for humaity as a whole. Relationships that matter but don't quite make it. Relationships that are promising but never get a head-start.

She struggled with these close encounters from time to time - she liked to call it emotional turbulence. She often wished there were a series of instructions to follow like "Fasten your seatbelt or walk to the nearest emegency exit in case of of an emergency landing" etc....Sadly, emotional turbulence came with no instruction booklet.

But then maybe not everyone experienced it in that magnitude. Maybe it was a girl thing. Or maybe one had to be capable of feeling every raw emotion to its absolute pinnacle. Not everyone was that gifted (or cursed). But her heart felt it -every whisper, every flutter, every tremor..... Most times, she felt alive because of it. Sometimes she wished she didnt feel so truly and deeply about everything. Because lets face it, most things didnt warrant or deserve that kinda ardent attention.

"You go with the flow" her heart would say "and when the tide is right, you steer your course to how you want to be"....Magic words ! She tried to repeat it in her head every single day !