I had a chance to see the much talked about movie Bride and Prejudice yesterday.. and it just strengthened my belief about really how much unwanted attention we are giving to some foreign based puppet directors and their films instead of taking our home cinema to better quality and backing them for their forays abroad .
It seems Talent or creativity doesn’t seem to be the litmus for a director and cinema aesthetics, screenplay, lyrics and subject handling the corresponding for the film anymore..
Here is what I think Bride and Prejudice represents in Indian Cinema,
Who really is the Bride ?
The current Mississippi Masala cult of directors who are in the profession of doling out Indian –touch foreign cinema, who claim to be capturing India as it is.. but really cater to showing foreign audiences what they expect and want to view India and its culture as...
Mira Nair, Gurinder Chadha to name a few. Some Bollywood colleagues do dream of joining the league, they do the hanky-panky and dabble around with the East Meets West funda, but the coffers haven’t been ringing for them as yet. Entrée…. Big Banners like Karan Johar and Subhash Ghai
So what Constitutes a Nair -Chadha movie?
Some very basic things.
a) The Punjabi Family or the Punjabi guy
A Punjabi family and its culture is always what constitutes the whole of India... 4 basic essential ingredients. It has to have Bhangra.. and the Karva Chauth.. and the sugarcane field and the Sarson ka Saag..
The only time when it can't be a Punjabi family is when its a Gujrati family.. but the condition is that the Garba is done everyday...
b) Marriage
Marriage and Dowry are the only pillars of the Indian Culture... They keep marrying their daughters and haggling for the price.. They keep arranging marriages where the groom is always the scum of the earth.. its either the vain and contemptuous Apoorva of Pardes, or Killer Khalsa the fat greedy wrestler who can give the father in law a business deal in Bollywood Hollywood, or Mr. Kohli of BnP who flaunts his mannerisms at the dinner table.. The bride groom always has to be bad, sloppy , old, a jackass, (Mira Nair doesn’t spare even kings in this regard) Its just to keep reminding .. “The Indian father in law will still give his daughter” and that’s how blind arranged marriages are... .. Father in Laws keep asking other people for money, they keep salivating over NRIs , stooping as low as they can for that cause..
And they can marry off their daughters to as weird a person.. only if he is from the states or from the UK.
c) The imposing issue
There is always a Indian who has been wronged in the film.. He is the victim of racist abuses in England but stayed on to the Foreign land and fought for his honor, or the American Dreams care-a-damn-for-my-country brat.. or the old lady of Canada who has lived her age , and remembered the sugarcane fields and Vedic texts with all the time.
Or more importantly, she is the sexually molested child that always seems to be commonplace in our homes.. Or if not the above, there is always the sexually debauched woman .
d) The East meets west culture
What if??
The Western fantasy pasted tastelessly on the Indian .. Lets see some of the topics that these films have tried to depict.
Lesbianism in the Temple City of our Country (Fire)
Circumcision and Muslim Brit ( East meets East)
The Love with the Western Guy refuting the ongoing attempts for an arranged marriage (B and P, BILB, East meets East)
These are the issues directors like these produce.. film after film , year after year..
Do you think they reflect the persona of our culture? Or the way its evolving.. ?
No..
The are exactly the kind of shit , that would appeal to the outsider to cater to his own beliefs.. to make sure, he is self assured in his position, that his culture is right, he is going the right way and that the older historic civilizations are also paying heed to his way of living.. they are taking to his ways.. cos that’s cool ..
And Who are the prejudiced?
The Indian audiences themselves.. they keep salivating on Gurinder Chadha... and her likes...
"they are the different ones.. Look how Mira Nair was bold to do KamaSutra.. or Fire.. "
" And its actually a western director.. and look how she is really showing how an indian family is like there...or how they like to keep their traditions " or
"this is exactly what happens in a Punjabi family.. This is how they show off.. .. "
I heard a friend come up and say.. . look at how She portrays Ash doing the America bashing… how “Lalita” handles the high nosed Yankee, She gives him a mouthful ... shows him how their perceptions of India are totally wrong.. That Darcy guy is sposed to have realized how Indians really are.. and that you cant be hippocrites , and blah and blah
Madam, its you who is at fault.. Thinking an American will see this movie.. Just search for a review for this at any of the web papers of America.. There is none.. except one.. and look at the disdain and the number of lines at which the movie review has been finished.
Is it really the Populist Sentiment?
We fail to realize that all creative effort is always confined to the handful of showpiece skits that these directors shell out time and time again All the above films and the handful of ideas they cater to are exactly similar to what we now term the Bollywood formula of Separated brothers or ReinCarnation or the Rich Guy Poor Girl themes.
Yes. The above points ARE the formulae of these Mississipi Masala Cult for making a successful Indian film to be marketed in Hollywood or UK . And they don’t have to have the talent of a Manmohan Desai or a Yash Chopra for success. Only Financial Strategy is what is needed. No wonder you see a scum of a film in the Top 10 charts of the UK right now. And that’s exactly the mass these people plan to cater
a) The High nosed brit ever eager for pointing the finger at the Indian Diaspora , cos now apart from doing his menial jobs, these dark skins are staking claim at the very jobs he owns cos they are better equipped and more intelligent.
And ??
b) The immigrated Indians.. who are the most sizeable business population especially the Gujraties and the Punjabis, technologists, ppl from all over India, And maybe is a self realization, a self assurance of these expatriates as well.. who left their communities and roots a long back.. Those people who grew up and were made capable by the milk and grain of this homeland.. but are servile workers to econo-social welfare and leisure of the others.. . Its them who are barely sure of their roots.. have forgotten their culture.. have their kids fooling around in all directions.. and they themselves.. have never been accepted in the same pedestal ever in the country they are servicing .. are still racially abused and looked down upon,, it pains them to come back to their country,, cos they wont be able to adjust here as well., They keep reminding themselves.. “We are still sure of our culture”, “India is facing the same cultural degradation back home as well” .. This is exactly the sentiments you can find in any NRI .. Go to any of their houses… or just in any of the transit airports.. Their talk reeks of their unsurety, about their discomfiture when they see people staying closer and actually caring for their elders back in India, and still being extremely successful and walking tall and servicing in THEIR own society , living their own life. With Pride.
"First Impressions" was the original name of this legendary Jane Austen English classic. It took Jane Austen 15 long years to and a considerable revision to bring it to the classic as we know it today..
Bride and Prejudice has nothing creative, nothing intellectual and nothing thought provoking. Its not even an proper transfiguration of the classic to an Indian setting, take aside editorial efforts. What could you expect from a copy cat anyways…
Sometimes I feel, that even as these self-styled torch-bearers of Indian culture to the outside world cry hoarse at every small provocation and comments at their work and swear to fight by their birthright of the freedom of speech, commercial mainstream cinema should still warrant a basic censuring of quality in films, and should be guided by certain laid down rules by eminent and knowledgable persons in this artistic line, to set certain boundaries which you shouldn’t cross, and more importantly exhibit a bit social responsibility. As the citizens of a nation where films are the generally only way to fantasize, to leisure about, for the poor who can barely make ends meet.. , Our Censor Board should do lot more to guard gullible minds against .. this ridicule of our culture.. Don’t block the freedom to express.. but then don’t take such a blasphemous distortion of our culture lying down. The KamaSutra is a scientific treatise, not a 3rd grade porn flick, Lesbianism is not a product of our society and therefore cant be imposed as commonplace.. Our Girls Don’t Fall for Foreign People at the first sight and NO
We don’t wed our daughters to any Bald Fat Americanized expat.,
Not Anymore.
Me is back to my old workplace... back to Bangalore City... it feels good to be back at my desk.. Everyone says I have put on weight.. and that US has been bad on my health.. perhaps its the frequent chicken nuggets at Bojangles..... or the daily dose of butter I used to have ... or the lack of exercise... or maybe they all are the culprits .. But I desperately plan to get back into shape... I have the will, hope I can get the discipline.
I will play cricket... jog a lot.. do some stomach crunches, and build on the free-hands slowly, many such things on the checklist.. but at present I am just happy to be back home..
Ciao.
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