The Days Of Our Lives

Even though I'm quite bankrupt this month due to unavoidable reasons, I could not turn down a chance to go see the newly released and much hyped movie 'Rang De Basanti' mainly because of 2 reasons - primary reason being that I really loved the promos of the movie and secondly, because I recently realised that I've been watching very few Bollywood movies off late and I've decided to try and appreciate the genre more. So off we went, a group of 20 hostel mates to watch the night show of the movie.

Now coming to the movie; the movie is about the Indian youth. Story revolves around a British documentary maker who happens to be a descendant of some British officer who served his time in then-not-independent-India-under-British-rule. She becomes intrigued with his journal which features accounts of brave Indian freedom fighters and decides to shoot a documentary on the same in India. Finding the right faces and voices for her documentary proves a little difficult until she runs across this happy-go-lucky band of college students.

The college students represent the urban-metropolitan-Indian youth - they drink, they race about on their bikes and 4x4s, they don't listen to their parents much and they rate models on Fashion TV. :) Most present urban-Indian students would easily relate to them which makes the movie connect instantaneously.

What I found particularly interesting was this character of Aslam, a Muslim in this group of urban hippies. Although the new-age Generation X sees no bias between religions, which is quite true in my opinion (atleast in the Indian metros), Aslam's orthodox parents mind his Hindu companions and try and instill this fear of communalism within him which he quite rigidly rejects. Bravo!!

Ok, coming back to the plot, the first half of the movie involves a lot of flashbacks relating to times of the freedom fighters but they are so well cinematized that they hardly seem boring. Definitely much better than any history text book I would say. At this point of time, the movie tries to show the lifestyles of the urban youth - chic clothing, rebellious attitude and the anything for friends outlook. Then in this perfect world of these college students, all of a sudden, things go wrong - tragedy strikes, as is typical in most almost-happy-perfect-storied movies. The twist makes the movie quite serious at times. In my personal opinion, the latter plot became a little too unbelievable at times but then again this is, after all, cinema. The whole concept of "It is not the people who should be afraid of their government but the govenment who should be afraid of its people" forms the base, with the icing being corruption within the Indian government, and bits and pieces of anarchism and fascism thrown on top. Storytelling at its best I thought; make the connection and then make the audience think!

Anyway, no more talk about the plot as I don't like giving away the stories of movies. I personally believe that the lesser one knows about a movie, the more one enjoys it. The picturization was brilliant, the music lively and the acting was fantastic. I implore the people reading this, especially the Indian youth, to go see the movie. Its quite nice. Long live this fresh whiff of Indian cinema I say. :)

P.S.: Someone please tell me why Saif Ali Khan was in the movie with a wig on?? :P

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