I am sure that none of us likes to get advice on how to lead our life from random people. Even if they are our parents or best friends, if they keep on preaching us to do this and don’t do that, behave like this and chose this, we might get pissed off at one point of time, if not bored.
We perceive movies in many ways. For a few, they are a source of entertainment and stress busters, and for others, they are interesting. Each genre has a respective fan base. Lately, there is a new branch of a genre born in Indian cinema, Social Message with a pinch of commercial shit, and the pioneers of this genre are Superstar Mahesh Babu and Ilayathalapathy Vijay.
I was a fan of these great actors (heroes) since my childhood, and still, I am. In the past decade, I never missed watching their films on the first day of their release. Lately, I started to not care about their movies, because I find no logic in their social messages and I have other priorities to spend time. They have become too preachy without any substance to look into. Starting from Thuppakki, Kaththi, Srimanthudu, Mersal, Bharath Ane Nenu, Sarkar and to the latest Maharshi, I am done with their lessons on society. Really? Was there any legitimate social message?
Farmers, Politics and Medicare. These issues are beaten to death. Social media is always flooded with emotional quotes and statistics. Whatsapp messages and status updates have turned into movie dialogues and vice versa. You can see ‘Naa Vyavasayi pulla da!’ (I am a farmer’s child) written behind autos and cabs. Courtesy: Vijay and Mahesh Babu.
I was 19 when I watched Thuppakki and 21 during Kaththi. I was too young for maturity back then, and my mind was vulnerable to manipulation. So, I got easily connected to the farmers’ issues, and I have even shed tears while watching. Many movies came later, and my tears eventually stopped. Last year’s Sarkar was too much to digest, and this week’s Maharshi was utterly distasteful and devoid of logic to whatever farmers’ plights are depicted.
Enough of social messages, please. Frankly, they are not sincere social messages anymore because they don’t have any logic. This space is not enough to explain the lack of convincing logic and don’t ask me for that. These so-called social message movies never show the whole picture of the issue. I agree that three hours isn’t enough. Cherry picking the points and serving them with half baked truths is not a healthy dish. The reality is more different than we ever imagine it to be. There are many variables in the equations to solve and very fewer constants which are not affordable to ignore.
Any lessons learnt will be forgotten and any tears shed will disappear once you step outside the theater. The business continues to be as usual after watching the movie. Last year, Vijay in Sarkar taught us the value of the vote, and Mahesh Babu in Bharat Ane Nenu taught about the accountability of a citizen. Just wait and get ready to witness the fruits of these lessons on May 23rd 2019. We’d never fail to prove our hypocrisy.
Every one of us has flaws. We are living in a flawed society, with many impoverished people striving hard to meet their ends at any cost. They range from farmers to manual scavengers, technicians to software architects, teachers to doctorates, security personnel to commando officers. Every living human has problems in life. We all know that we were born and brought up in those families. So, I feel there is no need to spend 150rs and three hours to attend those lectures.
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