Subhajit

Post my foray into the world cinema and understanding of it, what I realized is that our tendency of comparing the level of our cinema with any other part of world is always one-dimensional. We always have got few yardsticks to measure and draw conclusions. For us, a Titanic is better mainly because of the size of the ship or the way it sank. A Fast & Furious is great because the car-chase sequences were pretty neat and breathtaking. We need to blame our distributors for this as well. As we traditionally bring in movies of action or horror genre. Distributors complained of lukewarm response to any other genres. Yet, today I do not find J. Edgar releasing in three of the biggest multiplex chains near to my home in New Bombay. But there are three versions of Underworld (English 3D, Hindi 3D and Hindi) releasing all over. Now, I am not complaining against any specific genre but till when we will continue to treat the audience with genres that has almost got nothing else to offer...

I wonder how a large chunk of people very smartly but conveniently portray an image of a citizen very much concerned about the real rural India, the aam junta aka ‘mango people’ and show the connection they have with them. They also are the ones who seldom travelled through different parts of the country apart from some luxurious beaches and selected hill stations. They avidly read the ‘internet’ editions of the newspapers to ‘connect’ with the people! And they visit the sports websites to know about the most irrelevant matches & upcoming cricket teams around the world, including teams from countries even historians won’t recognize. They love to visit the best of the restobars to have a go at a premium scotch with the best of the chicken delicacy and then suddenly jump into discussing about the rotting grains. Nothing wrong in discussing about your own country sitting in a cozy pub, but thinking that you only know everything, you only understand the country and you have seen enough...