Hero Worship
While writing and sharing anything in blogs, some readers (who don't know me closely) tend to look at the generalizations I make and seem to get offended. So, as a preface I would like to mention that all exceptions are acknowledged; no offense intended nor even thought of. Read them as just another point of view. My focus is mainly on the writing - a challenge on my ability to convey. Surrendering to the pen and the power of ideas......
Have stopped watching Indian movies for quite sometime now. The very idea of hero-heroine background irked me all of a sudden too much. I was thinking for sometime on this - where did the Indian movie makers catch the hero worship concept? And why has such movies had all the audience that they had and still have?
The seed has been sown long ago from the days of Ramayana and Mahabarata.
This is the story of a prince named Rama. He was the noblest, kindest, most handsome, etcetera etcetera amongst men !
There was a story of five brave princes called Pandavas who were renowned as best in their chosen field !
When these stories were/are passed down through generations, the original purpose of these stories were lost, as the transfer of knowledge depends on the level of the story teller and the audience. The stories were meant as morals on how to lead our daily lives. It's human nature not to listen to any advice or wise words from others instantly. Even aeons ago, there were smart people who were well aware of human psychology. They put together two great epics to illustrate all the nice qualities a human can possess. How to behave in adversity or when in power, how to interact with other people and deal with ourselves - name any scenario it will be there in Ramayana or Mahabarata. I wondered at one point how a sage (VedaVyasa) who renounced family life could come up with such beautiful plots in Mahabarata which are an indirect inspiration to this day for authors like Shoba De and producers like Ekta Kapoor !
As a child grows up hearing these stories, they are meant to get conditioned to only good values from childhood. But alas. What we seemed to have ended up is a whole lot of heroism worshippers. May be its another aspect of human psychology to distance ourselves from what is only a possibility. A country of billions has people at all levels of knowledge, education, maturity and exposure. The easiest means to reach a common man with decent or no education is cinema. The morals got sidelined. What remains are only the hero worship and the common man.
Of course, I am not meaning to say here that cinema should be used as a medium to educate or enlighten the audience. I look at it as a piece of sheer entertainment if you have the extra time. The highlight is on the hero worship themes behind majority of Indian movies. The hero has to be a good guy. There has to be a heroine supporting and loving him through all ups and downs. Don't forget the bad guy who has to be there for a villain. Very few think outside the box and become successful productions. My concern is why we still have an audience for hero worship themes. Our youth is much smarter than (or at least they seem to be) the average across the world. They do very good in science and software. But there are fans swarming like bees in orkut and facebook for clubs dedicated to movie stars !!
Rama and Ravana are two qualities within each of us, each at different levels. Two sides of a coin. May be two faces to a persona. The epics could be a brilliant figment of the authors' imagination or the plots in their entirety could be purely metaphysical . The aim is to drive home the point of moral values in an entertaining and easy to learn way. We seem to be fixated on the glamorous stuff alone. And are stuck with it.
(another blog to follow on an extended idea...Back To Vedanta)
Have stopped watching Indian movies for quite sometime now. The very idea of hero-heroine background irked me all of a sudden too much. I was thinking for sometime on this - where did the Indian movie makers catch the hero worship concept? And why has such movies had all the audience that they had and still have?
The seed has been sown long ago from the days of Ramayana and Mahabarata.
This is the story of a prince named Rama. He was the noblest, kindest, most handsome, etcetera etcetera amongst men !
There was a story of five brave princes called Pandavas who were renowned as best in their chosen field !
When these stories were/are passed down through generations, the original purpose of these stories were lost, as the transfer of knowledge depends on the level of the story teller and the audience. The stories were meant as morals on how to lead our daily lives. It's human nature not to listen to any advice or wise words from others instantly. Even aeons ago, there were smart people who were well aware of human psychology. They put together two great epics to illustrate all the nice qualities a human can possess. How to behave in adversity or when in power, how to interact with other people and deal with ourselves - name any scenario it will be there in Ramayana or Mahabarata. I wondered at one point how a sage (VedaVyasa) who renounced family life could come up with such beautiful plots in Mahabarata which are an indirect inspiration to this day for authors like Shoba De and producers like Ekta Kapoor !
As a child grows up hearing these stories, they are meant to get conditioned to only good values from childhood. But alas. What we seemed to have ended up is a whole lot of heroism worshippers. May be its another aspect of human psychology to distance ourselves from what is only a possibility. A country of billions has people at all levels of knowledge, education, maturity and exposure. The easiest means to reach a common man with decent or no education is cinema. The morals got sidelined. What remains are only the hero worship and the common man.
Of course, I am not meaning to say here that cinema should be used as a medium to educate or enlighten the audience. I look at it as a piece of sheer entertainment if you have the extra time. The highlight is on the hero worship themes behind majority of Indian movies. The hero has to be a good guy. There has to be a heroine supporting and loving him through all ups and downs. Don't forget the bad guy who has to be there for a villain. Very few think outside the box and become successful productions. My concern is why we still have an audience for hero worship themes. Our youth is much smarter than (or at least they seem to be) the average across the world. They do very good in science and software. But there are fans swarming like bees in orkut and facebook for clubs dedicated to movie stars !!
Rama and Ravana are two qualities within each of us, each at different levels. Two sides of a coin. May be two faces to a persona. The epics could be a brilliant figment of the authors' imagination or the plots in their entirety could be purely metaphysical . The aim is to drive home the point of moral values in an entertaining and easy to learn way. We seem to be fixated on the glamorous stuff alone. And are stuck with it.
(another blog to follow on an extended idea...Back To Vedanta)
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