Barjatya ka sapna vivah only

Sooraj Barjatya and Rajshri Productions are the upholders of Indian values, sanskriti, elaichi chai, kancheevarum sarees, colgate smiles and anything in that order. Their focus has been on that once sacred institution of marriage in India where two jawan ladka ladki dost nahi ho sakta hai, live in couple nahi ho sakte, activity partners nahi ho sakte hai. In fact one of my friends remarked that in his movies, the boy could even pray to the girls genitals before making love.
Well if thats the case please look at the new rush of websites like orkut, gazzag etc or visit youth hangouts of the metros. And do not think urban trends have not reached places like Sahranpur or Madhupor or places where characters played by Alok Nath in your movies exist. Look at the data of how many designer stuff is sold in these places. What separated them earlier was access and information. Now they have both thanks to 70% cable pentetration and the MNC sachet strategies. So much for a producer who has thought of distributing this film online also.
In most of his movies the decision making would be left to animals like dogs or pigeons since the humans in their movies are people who listen only to their heart. People who use their mind are usually the villains. The hero's favourite haunt would be balconies where he would either pontificate or dance to an old tune. No change in Vivah either, most songs and scenes happen in balconies.
Heroines would be trained in the art of being the desi bahu in the practice of cooking, looking and hooking vars with their ghoonghats on. They would go to college only for a mandatory chhed chhad scene. They have a common affliction known as the staircase foot. They will always fall from staircases in such a way that the question of having a family waaris becomes difficult to answer.
Then there would be a whole host of characters like muh-boli behen, an adopted son or daughter who is given more love , an ever faithful servant and so on.
Well Vivah is a last ditch attempt by Barjatya to show the world that his style of film-making is the preserver of Indian values like Ekta Kapoor's K serials. Both styles obfuscate the real issues either with extra doses of make-believe saccharine or extensive melodrama.
On top of that you have Ravindra Jain who churns out music that is so old-fashioned that even my grandmom wouldnt identify with it ( the last tune she enjoyed was 'mujhse bhi chahat ka ek raar karta' from Hum hain Rahi pyaar ke) .
I felt sorry for Shahid and Amrita. Big banner for them, wannabe youth icons after we stop lusting after 30+ (yes abhishek is) and 40+ heros. Amrita exuded charm in Main Hoon Naa, she is a pinjre ki chidiya in this movie. Shahid Kapoor, Shahrukh ya Salman to nahi banega but he is too uni-dimensional/cutie boyish to carry a movie on his shoulders. He should start looking at multi-starrers soon.
Old laurels and old wine do not make a movie. Aaju baju dekho nahi tu peechu rah jaaoge.

Comments

Saurav said…
I fully agree with what you said about the movie in your blog, however, i do not share your frustrations as I simply do not go to see such movies. The film industry also follows the principles of economics and markets. While "Vivah" may not be the true universal depiction of Indian culture, the continual creation of such films does reflect their demand. Had it been otherwise, the producer would have gone bankrupt after the first trash and we wouldnt have seen so many of these. I daresay, Mr. Barjatya has understood the industry and has segmented the market. Unfortunately, he is targeting a segment into which you do not fall. Hence your frustration. I am sure that you will agree there are thousands (probably hundreds of thousands) who would have seen memento (which you have liked) and recommended others against watching it. Simple because they do not count in its target segment. There are people in the "vivah" segment and hence money to be made, and Mr. Barjatya has figured that out.

I am not saying that movie makers research and segment markets like FMCGs do, but they would still have a broad gut feeling for the market. Till they get drunk on their success and keep churning 'em out one after another even though the market has moved on.
Anonymous said…
The truth is Indians primarily still believe in arranged marriages. Leave alone the metropolitan cities (I have known many guys who actually marry without even meeting the girl first and these guys are from Delhi). So, you might want to believe that India is what is depicted in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and its likes but if you have even been outside big cities you will know that this is totally untrue. Personally I cannot relate to Vivah but at the same time I have traveled a lot across India and I know for sure that outside the cities people still follow the traditional institution of marriage. No matter how one wants to deny it and wants to feel like we are getting closer to the west (there are a lot of west wannabes in big cities who will abhor the concept of Vivah, little do they know the white people don't watch Bollywood so these wannabes don't need to feel ashamed as noone but an Indian would watch a Bolly flick). The truth is that Vivah is closer to what Indian people are like, they strongly hold on to their traditional values( I am thankful for that otherwise all we would do is blindly ape the west). The new age films are no way a reflection of Indian society, they are more a reflection of the Bollywood social scenes. I have no love for Vivah or HAHK or MPK but if Vivah is bad then so is Race, KKHH, DDLJ (when do girls walk in Trafalgar square wearing micro minis in real life (even white girls don't do that), only trashy girls do that but that's exactly what was shown in DDLJ and it was fine with the so called critics). Atleast Vivah had a good message to give to small town and village folks, whereas all our movies are just dream and fantasy worlds!!