I love my Maa, and I believe she is larger than life. You know why? Because my Maa is CINE-MA!
As an introverted child, I spent most of my time glued to the TV, watching every single movie that aired. Most of my life lessons were picked up from those films.
Cinema helped me overcome the dejection of being mediocre during my high school days. It tore up all the logical and conventional explanations from my textbooks and made me realize that knowledge isn't just meant to be shared, but also bent, twisted, and broken.
Take physics, for instance. All the laws of physics have been defied by none other than Superstar Rajnikanth. In one of his films, I witnessed him deflecting a bullet with his palm, which then went straight up and killed a bird! Seeing such actions, some physicists considered giving up their careers, so my struggles in physics felt A-OK.
Now let's take the dreaded math. With Bollywood films titled "Ek Aur Ek Gyarah" (1+1=11), even the most renowned mathematicians were left confused. So, my inability to add up not just numbers but even alphabets became acceptable.
Apart from helping me with tougher subjects, cinema also gave me insights that no book ever could. Let me share a few:
Never marry a man named Robert, as he would eventually end up being a drunk or merely a sidekick to the goon.
What tires us humans is actually considered a source of energy for aliens—dhooop.
If you have two or more kids, tattoo them so you can find them if and when they get lost!
Additionally, have a family song to sing in order to find each other when lost in large crowds.
Maa also passed down some myths to me that I had a tough time overcoming. For instance, when two flowers came closer than expected, or when two birds stayed beak to beak for longer than expected, or when a boy and a girl got behind a tree as unexpected, all of these had the same repercussion as expected: ["Main tumhare bachche ki maa banne wali hoon."]
For the longest time, I also believed that all I had to do was deliver the baby, leave it aside, then sit on those large sewing machines with gigantic wheels at their side, and continuously stitch blouses for the entire neighborhood. In a snap, my child would be a full-grown adult. Of course, I grew out of those beliefs in time and found real, exciting ways of making a baby, but how I wish that children did grow up by the sewing machine technique. Life would have been so darn easy because my kids seem to be stuck in a time capsule.
Speaking of time, cinema has evolved from its goofy origins to showcasing more mature content, like Sunny’s films! Not Leone, I meant Deol. Remember Ghayal, Damini, and Border! It was so easy to feel righteous and patriotic just by watching his films. My favorite dialogue from one of his flicks was, "Doodh maangoge toh kheer denge, Kashmir maangoge toh cheer denge."
Cinema has dived into so many different genres that audiences are now spoilt for choice.
Cinema also catered to the lazy ones who refused to read about history by packing it into films like Bajirao Mastani and Jodhaa Akbar. For those slow in understanding literature, there was always Vishal Bhardwaj's adaptations like Omkara from Othello, Haider from Hamlet, and Maqbool from the Tragedy of Macbeth. For the ones unaware of current events, there were films inspired by true-life incidents like No One Killed Jessica, Parmanu and many more...
I could go on and on with examples, but all banter must stop somewhere, so I’ll leave it here.
Frankly speaking, cinema today is inspired by real life as much as our lives are inspired by cinema. Even though it’s not my way of life, it has kept me good company till now. For those who have yet to experience the magic of cinema, I can summarize three main life lessons you can pick up from any movie you watch:
Crime never pays.
There's always a happy ending.
If there isn't, then wait for the sequel.
-SuVi
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