God Bless Internet. For a movie
lover like me, not watching a movie for almost 3 years on the Big Screen is
almost suicidal. During my pregnancy, I went on to watch Gravity in 3D and my
mother was mad about it… ‘how can you go
and watch a 3D movie with all that loud noise? It might affect the baby’…
The only affect that my baby has is that she is a full time drama queen,
nothing else. Post-delivery, the only movie that I have watched in a theatre is
Dil Dhadakne Do. Apart from other factors adding to my frustration level, this
too played a major role. So, what did I do?
Vowed to myself that I will take
out some time for myself. I will groom myself, write for my blog, play with my
daughter, sleep on time whenever I can, come back home on time whenever I can
AND watch the good movies online… Yes. No, not the pirated versions or
anything. Watch available good movies on authorized online channels. Of course,
I am going to miss the whole fun of a multiplex visit but the end result is
achieved – watch the movie.
Fortunately or unfortunately for
me, the first two movies which I watched online made me cry and cringe at the
same time – PINK and Neerja.
PINK – have written it umpteen number of times but every
time I think about a rape or molestation and the helplessness of a woman or
rather the victim, I cry. This movie too made me cry. So many hard hitting
dialogues and sequences. You are a Woman – we can touch you, feel you, own you
anytime we want and you should not retort. That fellow who was not even there
on the crime scene was excited about taking the revenge just for fun – mazaa aayega. Mazaa aayega?? To rob a woman of her modesty, to make a woman stand
alone in this world, to make her cry for what she did in her self-defense, to
lose her job… Just for his fun. And the reason I could so believe in this movie
and this lame character is that I have seen such perverts in my life. And it is
always going to be so difficult to fight these people. That kind of mentality
is deep rooted. My mother and sister does not drink – they belong to the
esteemed family. Though, all the men drink. She drinks alcohol that means she
does not belong to a good family. When I got married, it was a mild cultural
shock to see the ladies of my new family enjoying hard drinks since in my family,
drinking alcohol is only for male members but they all are lovely people, doing
pretty well with their lives, successful in their own ways, have given strong
character and values to their kids and are loved by all. But they drink
alcohol. So what? But guess what. I had a mild cultural shock since I had
already seen girls drinking and smoking in my college but it was so difficult
for my mother to digest that. So, somewhere, even some of my family members
still has that mental block. And so does many other families.
Not supporting or debating on
alcohol is good or bad but only that same thing consumed by different genders
give different impressions to people. Which is unbelievable. Hats off to the
entire cast of the movie. Perfectly portrayed what the girls go through, how
the pervert minds think, the anger boiling in within us, the helplessness and
pain of the victims… Made me think for so long after watching the movie. Such
crimes are committed around us every day, just that we don’t know about them.
When we come to know about them, we are too quick to pass our own judgement.
The girls must be characterless to have gone through this. Why should girls go
out for drinks? What is the need of girls to come back home so late at night?
Girls should be married off quickly, what’s the point of having a job which
needs them to stay so late in office… But guess, it’s difficult to change the
mindset of 1.2 Billion strong population… Unless, government makes it mandatory for EVERYONE to watch this and all other sensible movies made on the subject.
NEERJA – Probably one of the very few movies which did not
show the hard-outside-and-soft-inside
terrorists. Harsh and heartless – that’s what terrorists are about and that’s
what they showed and by far the only movie where I loved Sonam Kapoor’s acting.
Though I won’t say that she was the perfect choice for the role and no one else
could have pulled it off but glad that she got this movie her way and she
accepted to do it. Everyone, again like PINK, played their role so perfectly.
You never know what can be going on the minds of those terrorists. When will
they open fire? When will they stab someone? When will they listen to anyone?
Tricky situation. The people trapped inside trying to escape the situation
cautiously with no injuries without knowing what is going outside and the
people outside making strategies and bargaining for more time without knowing
what is going inside. I could not sleep for at least two nights after watching
NEERJA. The final scene of the aircraft when the terrorists opened fire and started
killing any and every one coming their way – men, women, kids… painful to even
think about what those people might have gone through. Shabana Azmi was
effortless in her character. She is an institute of acting in herself. Nobody
could have portrayed the role of Neerja’s mother. The man who played the role
of Khalil was scary. Neerja's father was so strong, all throughout. That’s how
fathers are. Glad that the film did not have lot of unnecessary drama or songs
but got straight to the point pretty soon.
I can watch both these movies all
over again for all the great performances, screenplay and dialogues but dare I
watch them again. Hats off to the people who still believes in good cinema,
rather than making a movie with songs from the likes of Yo Yo Honey Singh or
Badshah…
