Turning 30….
Nathan Bradford taught me to never start a Query letter with a rhetoric question and now I am implementing his suggestion nearly everywhere, so even when I wanted to start this post with a question…I ended up writing three lines of nonsense… So what the heck… here it goes…
· At what age, do we start drawing parallels in our lives, while watching cinema?
I mean seriously, it started with “Aisha” continued to “Break ke Baad” and now “Turning 30”. Another Question:
· Is Indian Cinema finally catching up with the pulse of modern, urban India or am I searching for an escape?
So why the parallels? Aisha is a story of 2 close gfs and one thinks she can rule over the life of other, as if she is the know-all, until Banker Richie Rich Abhay Deol puts sense into her! (Ahem… Ahem!! ) Anyway, finally she apologises to her friend and alls well. (I am still waiting for my apology BTW).
“Break ke Baad” had an unconventional Deepika seeing a conventional Imraan. I identify with Deepika, minus the Imraan.
And Turning 30, well in d first plc it has a single Indian woman on the wrong side of 25. And she has 2 close gfs again, and then she gets published ;-)! That’s about it. When I caught the promos on TV, I was only impressed by Gul Panag, I really like that girl, apart from her, nothing caught my attention, not the trying-to-be-hip-but-totally-not dialogues, not the music, not the pink. But still like a true movie buff I went and I enjoyed.
So what exactly was the plot:
In one line : Indian SATC, somehow Bollywood lacks creativity when it comes to chicklit.
Aisha was a chick flick copied from Jane Austen, and 30, in an effort to modernise, targets SATC, so you’ve a lead character turning 30, who openly smokes and drinks (when did addiction started being a sign of urbanisation?), her 2 frds, out of which one is a lesbian (what creativity!) and a married lady who gets pregnant because her husband is cheating on her (Some logic!). Coming back to the lead character, she gets dumped by her spineless bf in the first half, as he decides to go for an arranged marriage to settle the troubles of his parents! And then its Panag’s lone journey “in discovering herself” which she does, by getting published!
Simple Plot with everything thrown in the right amount and a final “Will you marry me” scene for the tadka of old fashioned.
Before I lose the plot, everyone has to find oneself, and everyone does sooner or later, U meet some, u lose some, U get hurt and U move on. Everyone thinks my life is unique, but everyone discovers, it’s the same old story sooner or later. As I discovered, during the bonding sessions I had with an old (I mean not old in age, but old in the sense, my old job) colleague, during Lunch. It’s the same old story. Period.
What matters at the end of the day, is the thoughts one gets between the time u hit the sack and the time sleep engulfs u. If the thoughts are happy, it’s a happy life. If not, find the reason and act! (ok I need to stop sounding Chopraish!) But seriously, the saddest existence is when U cry yourself to sleep and then there are different gradients to that lowest point and the moment that starts to happen, its time to change your life for better..as SRK said.. “Hum ek hi baar jeete hein…” So point is, U cannot fool yourself, so start living life where u turn back at each passing day feeling happy! So yeah, the parallels stop after the 3 hrs in theatre after that it’s a big U turn and a straight road, turning many times to reach home where reality is waiting (hehe.. I just described the route from Esquare to my home ;-))
And that reality you gotta face with a smile :-)
