It seem's like a topic for a school essay. For a fifth grader at that. Seriously! With 40 decades behind me, why would I spend mind space contemplating the " Effects of Bollywood in my life". I do have a life, though all around me seem to think I don't. It is something that is very troubling though, this effect the B world has on me.
If I look back and see my life, it becomes all the more puzzling. I was born in a decent Bengali family which took it's "culture" pretty seriously. My house looked like a library that had other furniture fitted in, to make it livable. Alternately, it could also pass off as a hangout for musicians. Harmonium, tabla, guitar, sitar, three years of training in Indian classical music, I was handed it all.
We didn't watch Hindi movies. For the heroes "jumped around like monkeys" and the heroines wore loud clothes and louder make-up, bad influence on young minds. I remember the disgusted shake of head and tut tutting. We did watch a few "Bangla bhalo boi"(read Bengali movie), classics, which failed to interest me at that age. Not that I was remotely interested, in the breaking into song & dance (Rabindrasangeet), at social dos, or "sahitya charcha"( discussion on literature)either.
It all changed with the entry of the box in our drawing room. It was a Sunday evening, we gathered around excitedly around the newest member of my family, a TV with shutter doors. After a lot of swinging the antennae around, we could hear the movie but couldn't really see anything. Everyone gave up, except me.I sat and stared at the screen, devouring the "ghost pictures" and listening to "jal bina machli nritya bina bijli". I was sold.
My life started revolving around "Chitrahar" and the Sunday evening movie. I wonder if anyone was as influenced as me. I do have a younger cousin sister who was equally mad about the movies. She is one person I have seen in my life, who watches her movies with full sincerity, fully engrossed, taking in each detail, from the color of the dresses to furniture to the extras dancing at the back. If you have seen Shammi Kapoor dancing in "baar baar dekho" and noticed the dancer next to him making faces and abusing him, you would know what I am talking about.
So, my relationship with Bollywood started with the telly. With each latest technology and clearer picture quality, my bonding grew stronger. I did see a few landmark movies on the big screen and they did haunt me for days later but, then the numbers were very few, I guess just about six or seven for the first 16 years of my life. Thankfully my love for reading survived the onslaught of visual media. So, though the Bollywood drama queen in me had taken birth, the sophisticated and suave protagonists of Jane Austen and Bronte Sisters kept me socially correct. So even if my tears welled up at the drop of a hat, I had enough of Elizabeth Bennet in me to let them flow.
The drama princess turned into a queen when I left home to live in a hostel. For five years, from XIth to graduation, even without parental guidance,I was always first...first day first show audience I mean. Belting out songs and dancing to all hit numbers was perhaps still okay as everyone else did that. But, I didn't even realize, when my mind started playing background score to whatever I was facing at any moment. Like, I was unconsciously running to "Chariots of fire", when being chased by friends for some prank; watching a senior in the kitchen two floors below to "tu kal chala jayega"; "tere jaise yaar kahaan", when Shalu, my bestest friend, would treat me with her pocket money; or the mother of all, "dukhi man mere", walking out of my room after the numerous showdowns!
Not just background score, my dialogues, monologues to be more precise, would have outshone all of Ekta Kapoors serials put together. My best,or maybe it was my worst, was the one I had given my warden at hostel, during graduation final year, only for the poor woman had dared to say, that she could hear my voice above all the din my entire class was creating one evening to click a group picture. No, I can never make myself repeat those words. That she left the room wiping her tears with her anchal (God!What drama!) is a testimony of how mean I had been. I am immensely grateful to our media that back then they hadn't started the 3 gongs with 3 same shots, different angles and heroine going "Kya! Kya! Kya!. I get the jitters worrying how I could have managed that!
Leaving hostel and coming back home saw me leaving more than my dear friends and the best period of my life. My affair with Bollywood was over.I was back to reading classics. I got admitted to a university to pursue Masters. I was among my race. Life again was about the Bard, his works, breaking into songs and witnessing seniors and classmates disappearing behind the "bansh bon" during breaks and emerging disheveled. Basically, there was enough drama around me under the disguise of pseudo intellectualism and incestuous love (yeah!loads address their beau as dada) to suppress the drama queen in me.
Marriage and motherhood followed. The roles of daughter,wife, daughter-in-law, mother all entangled and pushed me out of my reach for a few years. As soon as my daughter grew a little I successfully converted my family into movie buffs. The multiplexes, the corporatization had changed the face of Hindi movies. Gone were the days of loud dialogues and raunchy item numbers and 30 plus heroes playing college goers or heroines heaving their padded bosoms in front of forty fat extras. I laud the movies that run without heroines and songs and dance. Yet, as much as I appreciate the Anurag Kashyaps and Dibakar Banerjees holding up to the Yashrajs and KJos...the drama in me is still alive. Pure, unadulterated, background score with tear jerking dialogues and running full house bollywood,still ticks inside me.
Realized it only recently. In a lightning flashing, revolving camera moment at that. So,my instructor and another friend,buddies from my fitness class met after a long gap due to my pal being sick, to zumba together. Zumba. the love of their tarantism afflicted lives. As they swayed happily to the loud, incomprehensible cumbian music, right in front of me, I was suddenly aware of my purple devil face, hovering an inch over my head, smirking and singing..."ye bandhan to-o-o pyar ka bandhan hai, janmon ka sangam hai"... ... ...!!! I was shocked. Yes, with the 3 gongs,3 camera angles,same shot my mind going Kyon! Kyon! Kyon!
They say it is easy to get rid of mental clutter if you can reach the root cause. That,my friends is the reason I am trying to discern how and when this happened. I need to get those files deleted from my memory that push drama in me. As I pen this...my mind is playing, "ye kya hua, kaise hua..."
