There is a specific flavor to the taste that most of us Indians have. We want things quick and easy, spicy and succulent, more bang for the buck, and as long as it’s cheap, we don’t mind inferior quality. Now don’t start complaining that I am talking about “us” in a very negative outlook! There are the positives to be had from such an outlook. But let’s look at the finer things that matter to us in the “now”!

Today, when we go out to look for cars in the market, we see a glorious range of options available to us! We start off with the basic car, the Maruti 800. We take a couple of steps up the ladder, and we reach the Tata Indica and the Maruti Alto. Here’s the ultimate case in point! With all due respect to Tata Motors, whenever I sit in an Indica, I feel like I’m perched in a glorified Tractor! I don’t know what it is… there are just too many things to point as failures! Is it the complete lack of refinement? The total absence of quality? The poor transmission? I just can’t seem to rank these and many others in the order of preference (or the lack of it)! But inspite of all that, the Indica today is the largest selling car in the market? Why is that? Quite frankly, it’s largely because of the “Indian mindset”. We like to have, as I mentioned before, the maximum for the minimum. The Indica, is undoubtedly the largest size car in the same segment as the humble Alto. Above all, it comes with a diesel engine, which almost guarantees frugality inspite of being harsh and unwieldy!

The same idiosyncrasy seems to have permeated into the kind of entertainment we seek. Do you think that we would have many pictures like “Murder”, “Sheesha” or even the complete C-grade flick like “Fun”, if we were seeking wholesome entertainment?!! By wholesome I don’t point to family films and comedy films! The entire plot in those movies has been run over and over and over again for the umpteenth time! even those minimalist diversions from the final goal seem to lead to the same ultimate destination! God, commercialism is not a bad thing, but when overdone, it certainly is very very bad!

And then there comes a set of fresh outlooks and ideas! Enter “Lagaan”, “Shwaas”, “Swades” and “Black”! Lagaan did contribute to the commercialism, but just a little bit, and it proved to be worth it’s salt when it went probably closest to the International Film Award at the Oscars than most other films in recent times! A film about how determination & dedication can overcome the small problem of being low-tech, and downtrodden to beat those from the upper realms of society. A struggle depicted in the form of natives of India beating the British in their own game in pre-independence India. It’s all about Patriotism, and will power! A good lesson to be learnt for the youth of today.

Shwaas, although I haven’t seen the movie, but the very fact that so many people, Maharashtrians or not, have raved about the movie and the emotions it churns out of you, is proof enough for me to know that this is probably one of those rare movies from a largely overlooked and cash-starved sections of Indian regional cinema that should in reality, be able to push those financiers into pumping in more cash for the growth of these sections!

Swades, and Black! What can you say about them? Both are masterpieces! I would never have expected such movies to come out of Bollywood. Not because the producers, actors etc were incapable, but because I never expected them to take this kind of a plunge into an almost art-like movie and then launch them commercially! Some people complain that the movies tend to slow down a bit in the middle. That the tempo is inconsistent. Well, all they need to know, is that these aren’t your typical commercial films. They need to pull the tempo down in order to grind you through the plethora of emotions that would rarely be felt inside the confines of a cinema hall. This is not an action adventure, not a thriller, not a laugh riot! It is pure, unadulterated cinema! There’s no two ways of looking at it! The connections established with the characters of the movie, and not just the protagonists, is deep! It’s like watching Marathi theatre, which can mix comedy with tragedy and move from one to the other so seamlessly, that in those 2-3 hours in the theatre, you would be left experiencing more emotions than you would if you fell in love, lost your lover, and gained him/her back again!!

So, can we say that Indian Cinema has grown up? Well, yes and no! Yes, because some films like Black and Swades keep popping up every now and then. But then, it’s way too rare to be considered as a permanent paradigm shift! No, because immediately after Black, came movies like “Fun”!! Now, how many people actually would be interested in going in for movies that cater to the carnatic desires of a man or a woman (as in the case of Fun), after having watched an emotional rollercoaster like Black, is doubtful! But the Indian market is just so huge, that after two weeks, Fun is still in theatres! Then there are movies like, Sins, Sheesha, and the lot, that promote more sex and orgy than deep intellectual thought!

Have we matured as a society? I think we are still in the adolescence stage, so to speak. I believe that we can link our current state with the Society of the US in the 1970s! During this period in the US, no movie was complete without some sort of skin-show or sexual display. But that didn’t limit them from producing some masterpieces. Same is the case today, with Bollywood, and Indian society as a whole. The US didn’t get through that stage then and come up today as probably a pretty mature society by restricting people with censors and all. They allowed what was happening until people themselves became sick with too much exposure, too many times. Should we follow the same policy? I have no idea really! Indian society is very different from the American ideologies. Like with cooking, if two people are given the exact same ingredients, they probably will not make the exact same kind of dish as the other!

I say, let things move the way they are right now. Concentrate on the basic policies of education and development. The more the education proliferation in the country, lower will be the possibility of people going in for non- intellectual scenarios. We need to grow as a people, but more importantly, we need to grow as Intellectuals!