flawed like all of us (Hum-Tum)

so me and piyush agreed to shell out 6 bucks apiece to watch the new bollywood flick - Hum Tum being screened just for a single show at Tower on 9th and 9th. the concept of watching a regular hindi movie on the big screen has always enchanted me and many a time i have caught myself falling in love with that concept rather than the actual movie itself. i even tend to praise the movie, just based on the experience i would have had being among 100s others all sitting with our focus trained towards the rectangular screen ahead of us, yet each of us in our own world and thoughts interpreting the scenes in our own personal sense. but inspite of that individulaity, all of us share that common social 'event' feeling, all of us gathered to watch something surreal, hoping for it to educate us, charm us, hypnotise us or even put us off maybe.

and then the happenings at such a gathering of people from the subcontinent is always an experience in culture studies for me. it indeed stands apart from the experiences i have had when watching hollywood movies at the common megaplexes. it is the culture - the stuff that comes with it - language, beahviors, mannerisms, food habits, dressing habits ( altho tht keeps varying with the median age of the audience on a given day), skin tones, body structures, hair color, eye color, car brands ( yea!) , movie tastes etc etc that i can relate to more. the more i attend such events while being in a foreign land ( ive been in salt lake city for the past 4 yrs now) , the more i learn about myself. i dont want to make an effort at classifying peoples based on race or nationality or any other such point. i just want to observe and get amazed each time. it is intriguing when sometimes i end up being able to predict certain mannerisms or actions of such a crowd, but i still would never generalise. and i have seen instances that have always surpirsed me ,pleasantly. thank god for that. else my social behavior classes would have come to a boring end long time ago. it is such an evolving process, this observation routine of mine. it is not judgement, mind you. i am in no position to do that, for that matter none of us are. yes, many of us do so for our personal database, so to say, but it very much ends at that for me. nobody cares for wht i think and i am no fool to go about announcing what would be on my mind either. so why spend valuable time and energy doing something so futile? might as well revel in the rare ocassion of being with so many people from your native land rather than try and stand away and keep smirking at their little traits. afterall, i am there to havea good time. period.

ok, digressing from the title or what i intended to say is a very simple folly i committ each time. by now i guess you would have percieved the randomness of my thinking. ok ok back to the movie.

simple story line with just a handful of characters, each of whom is beautifully potrayed by the alloted actor/actress. essentially a romance, a love story and a sentimental one at that. but before i get into more detials, im itching to give away the most striking ( for me) aspect of the film: rani mukherjee's ( the central heroine) character. i am dead sure the director and the writer( im afraid its kunal kohli who did both jobs) had a clear and precise character in mind. and reassuringly, the beauty of the final product is that the essence of that lady has been potrayed just about perfect, a combination of excellent acting my rani and good screenplay aka translation of ideas onto screen.

i wont go about narrating the story here but for me there were a few take home messages: some production notes, some emotinal ones, a few lessons in understanding women ( pheww, the list is long and i have more to go), movie moments that strike a chord and so on

to me rhea ( rani's character) comes across as a level headed indian woman, leaning on the conservative ( ok, now this is on my personal scale and i may be wrong but its such a subjective topic that its easy to get bogegd down in that). she comes from a well to do family and also has in the course of the movie a seemingly stable and auccessful career. and ya, she also seems to have found the perfect match for her: a decent loving educated and well to do man. she apparently chose him to be her beau. which means that he fit into her idea of a husband and vice versa. rhea is weaker than most would like her to be. she doesnt take unwanted risks and treads on a cautious path with her principles guiding ehr along. she would never digress too much , all in all she would always give herself a realty check. also she is slightly old world in the sense that although she is highly opinionated and can get her work done as well as protect herself, she expects the man to make the moves, atleast 7 out of 10 times, if not always. she doesnt seem to be the one who picks up from her past and moves along quite soon. no need to i would say. yet, when she starts building trust in the otherwise casanova karan (saif) , it is her slow moves towards him that are striking. ya she isnt that broad minded and is searching for a very particular breed of men, but then im confident there are millions out there who are like her. when it comes to choosing her life partner, she is like a testing center. she, internally, has observed and judged karan under so many circumstances ( many of which the bloke isnt even aware of) that after a while she places him up there and even goes as far as dreaming or visualising him as her life partner. although in this movie the karan character is not sure of his feelings towards her ( atleast in the life partner sense) , she having put so much into it ( in her head) , has become fragile and gets easily shattered at the first hint of a rejection from her love object. she isnt sure, she is cautious, she cannot find herself to live happily again, she expects the guy to make the move, she runs away the moment she sees rejection, she is nervous when the truth is right in front, she likes self pity, and ya she cries too. these apsects of her character make her just more humane.

wow, i myself am wondering as to the details im going into about just another movie. but then seldom do such movies happen where-in the roles played are of the more perceptible human kinds. saif's character is another story ( or blog) altogether, but i wont get into that.

just as a note, i am tempted to add that many of the ideas i put in the earlier paragraphs of as to why rhea was like that, what rhea did, what was her thinking etc etc are simply outpourings from a personal view point as well. lets just say i have had certain people in my life who in some way showed traits that rhea did. so in a way it was a perfect potrayal of certain aspects of certain individuals and the near perfect potrayal just drove some hitherto unsorted points home.

maybe the next time i get into something serious , i shall be in a better position to appreciate where the woman is coming from, why she is saying the things she does say.

alrite, i worte a lot here. so much for a 3 hour bollywood masala. but some moments and roles played on the silver screen are worht so much more than just being there. Rhea is definitely up there for me - among shahrukh in kabhi ha kabhi na, amitabh in namak haraam, rajesh khanna in safar, manisha koirala in 'bombay', madhuri in HAHK, the list can go on....