Need for Change - Part 1

There are four basic classifications under which any movie made in India(bar Malayalam and Bengali) movie would fall into:

1.Love story (most obvious!): Has a lot of sub classifications based upon the theme: Triangular, Rectangular, Suicidal, Mutual, One sided , Sacrificial, Adoloescent, Perverse, Lecherous, Psychopathic,Tragic and/or the combinations of two or more of the above sub classifications. Two general categories under which all of them come under are melodramatic and illogical. Backdrops may vary.Village,City and College being the most common ones.

2.Cheap Horror: The likes of Kaal, Gauri, Darna mana Hai etc. Horrible background music (supposed to scare you but end up giving you headache), heroine with open hair, spirit of a dead girl(guy is a bit uncommon),an eerie house with cobwebs are a must. Do brisk business when people get bored of Classification 1 movies.

3.Gangster/Action/Hero oriented flicks : The third genre. Robin Hoods lauded on the screen. One girl would understand the scoail cause the hero is fighting for and would fall in love with the guy to get herself or her family killed.Sometimes the hero's family too might be blown up. The whole movie would rest upon the hero's shoulders and if you are lucky enough you might have a 2 line story!!

4.Forced comedies: The last genre. Movies like this would concentarate on just one thing. Making you laugh ! In the quest, they would overlook a ahundred things. Story, Logic and sometimes heroines too!!! Mainly hero and his gang based (all bachelors) with almost no scope for the heroine. Bizzare situations and incredible twists would be forcefully introduced to let director include all the jokes he(and probably we too!) had ever read in books/Internet . Dhamaal,Dhol,No entry etc are typicals!

You want to scream in desperation when one more of any of the above is released. You wonder why we refuse to give this media the respect it deserves. Or why the whole industry takes your logic for a ride or grossly underestimates the intelligence of an average movie goer like me. Is the industry lacking thinkers? Or the people to back them? Or is the audience at fault? Think how many movies have been released with any of the following as its subjetcs:

1. A troubled relationship between a husband and wife as normal boredom sets in after years of togetherness. And how they overcome/succumb to it.

2.How a small town winner goes for something big and realises that probabaly he is not what he was hailed to be back home. And how he overcomes the digust he develops towards himself and conquers what he wwants to. The theme being the battle within himself when his understanding of his abilities seem to fail badly.

3.How an insecure marriage creates a dominating mother who interferes with the childrens' lives crossing all thresholds and how the children are caught between the efforts to understand/sympathise with the mother and setting their lives right.

4.A bed-ridden blood relative and the family's ordeal.Or a mentally challenged adult son/daughter. The principal care taker wavering between love,guilt, anger and desperation. Caught between hopes of the patient's death and guilt for hoping so. Fade away of the all the happy memories spent with the patient which return back after death to haunt the care giver.

5.How home feels different for a someone trying to settle at home after a long stint abroad/away. How loneliness anchors itsef within the person making him view normal family obligations like having a meal together everyday, a burden.

6. A kid disovering for the first time that its parents are not as infallible as it thought them to be. How the kid's world falls apart when it comes to know something from the past like the affair his/her mother had before marrying its father. And how it lives with it till the right age when it realises that nobody is perfect.

7.Any science fiction with a believable story line. Not some aliens jumping on earth in prety much the same shape/size as we are.

8. Sibling rivalry between the children even after growing up.Circumstantaial actions of parents notwithstanding.

9.How a couple's life takes a turn when presented with situtions on which both have polarized views.Something like acceptance/non acceptance of bribe along totally practical/plausible terms. Not the moral sermons we are used to.

10.Short films describing something close to our hearts..Like a first painting a teeneger sells and the satisfaction of the experience. Or the first stage performance of a girl without facing hurdles. And the aftermath.I mean the normal day-to-day joy we all experience. Instead of everything coming your way after a struggle.

11.Historical/Mythological flicks portraying the characters in the real light. I mean showing the characters grey. Not either black or white. Grey the way each one of us is.

12.A collective effort pushing an organization to its peak. The differences and the co-operation without heroism where one is always the star.Basically an organization's story instead of an individual's.

13. The lives of a gifted and a slogger (ability wise). How both stay at the top but by differnet means. One slogs while the other uses his natural gifts. How the slogger takes in his stride the appreciation heaped ion the gifted even though the achievement of one is no less than the other. In other words realising self and be at peace with it while constantly aspiring for more.

14.A scoial worker's sufferings as family does not share the same conviations as he does. A normal fmaily and not the saas-bahu scheming family with pretty normal emotions and arguments.

Many of the above things might not make for a three hour movie, but who wants a mindless three hour fiction when you can have a sensible/sensitive one and a half hour treat! Just the story without imaginative songs in outrageous costumes in exotic locations. No Thanks! We would watch Travel & Living if this is what you are trying to do.I am desperate for meaningful cinema. All the more after coming to Bombay as Bollywood is thrust on me wherever I go !!