What power Hindi cinema has. I'm not much of a Hindi movie buff though I do like watching an occasional one. We saw 'Rab ne banadi jodi', a Shah Rukh Khan starrer. Wow! the impact the man has - the minute he made his first appearance, the whole hall erupted in cheers. Kajol got a similar ovation when she appeared briefly in a song and dance sequence. Of late I'd watched Shah Rukh Khan on TV talking about the Mumbai blasts, on Islam and on terrorism. He spoke so much sense. For an icon, he is remarkably down-to-earth. I realized that he, through his movies is guiding the thinking, behaviour, and values of generations of people - young and old. I realized that many of the scenes that I would give a pass to were necessary to get a point across. Even today, 60 years of independance notwithstanding, we are still guided by all kinds of old thinking. Thinking which we can do away with, and which we must do away with. The girl is to be married, her betrothed is killed in an accident on the wedding day, and the question that has the father in a panic is who will now marry his daughter. A pall of superstition descends on the family and the father requests Shah Rukh to marry her, which of course he does. Then is the conflict in the girl's mind, and finally, of course, everything works out and the story ends happily ever after. I do believe that the boundaries of a woman's life are totally defined by the men in her life - her father, brother, and importantly, her husband. Very bright women have been reduced to almost zombies because of un-understanding spouses, and how many women are encouraged to fully realize their latent wishes and do what they want to? And, yet, thoughtfulness to a woman, caring about her likes and dislikes, allaying her fears and creating the environment for her to grow in, can bring about a happy change in her life...
While watching 'Rab ne',my mind went back to 'Amu'. This was a Bengali/ English film and so totally different. Here, it is a grave social injustice that was made into a story, bringing to light a political situation that had become ugly, and how finally it is the common man who bore the brunt. Our government moves in an orbit that I feel does not really touch our everyday lives. We create our own little world and make it as comfortable as we can. We bravely try to cope with our hardships and create our oases of happy moments. A powerful, thoughtful film - again a lesson taught to the common man who would otherwise not have had either the opportunity or chance to know about these things. Sometimes I thought it was even cathartic...
Truly, it is our films that shape our thinking and define our lives, and our actors who become our role models......