Wow! Hindi Films*

BY Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

Hindi features films have been widely popular not only in South Asia but also in the middle east and other countries of Asia. People even not understanding the Hindi language can watch and enjoy the Hindi films because of their beautiful scenes, fine songs, thrilling fight scenes and the high quality pictures, and sound and colors. People get hooked to the Hindi films despite the fact that themes of almost all of the films are romance although they successfully depict corruption of politicians and police, smuggling, robbery and other social evils in the midst of romance. The success of Hindi feature films lies on making the unreal things look like real and making people believe in them. They can make anyone a celebrity and a super star and a fabulously rich person in the world; in addition, Hindi films are tailored to the taste of almost everybody in the society of South Asia. Actors and performers live in the different world than they act.

The main theme of Hindi feature films usually is the romance; to making them entertaining they add thrilling fight scenes, sweet and sometimes sad songs, beautiful natural scenes, lavish living style and sometimes poor living conditions in urban and rural areas to this theme. An inquisitive mind finds almost all Hindi films have almost the same theme. They change names, scenes, songs, actors and performers and fight scenes and so on but the main story remains the same. Hence, anyone watching a Hindi film does not need to wait for a long time to find how the film ends. However, all Hindi films are highly entertaining; hence, people are hooked to watching Hindi feature films despite the fact that they can guess what will happen in the end.

Romance usually shown in Hindi feature films is before the marriage that rarely happens in the real lives of all of the people of the similar culture living in the sub continent of South Asia because majority of the marriages are arranged by parents. However, such romance gets significance when the story of real or imaginary couples such as Dushyant and Sakuntala, Romeo and Juliet, Salim and Anarkali and the sacrifice of not only their comfort but also even their lives they make for the sake of love they cherish so much becomes almost real. Then, their love affairs become the living story. They inspire the future generations to be loyal to the love partners. The reality is many love partners do not respect the love they once have demonstrated and easily break off their relationship.

The lavish living style often shown in the Hindi feature films is reserved only for a few incredibly rich people. Majority of people enjoy such life style just watching the films. The middle class people not to mention the people in general cannot afford even to dream of such a life style. Therefore, scenes of the living style are quite unreal to the majority of the people; however, they enjoy watching such life style without envying it in the films.

Every feature films needed to have several fight scenes otherwise people would not enjoy the films. Although almost all fight scenes are far from reality cine-goers enjoy watching such scenes. Those fight scenes are often borrowed from the wrestling games. People enjoy all such unreal things because they have been conditioned by almost all unreal things as real ones. Hence, Hindi feature films cannot do away the fight scenes although those scenes are expensive in making.

The success of Hindi feature films lies in creating emotion in the minds of the people watching films. There are many such emotional dialogues, songs and even scenes that hit hard in the minds of cine-goers. People like to watch such emotional pictures although they suffer mentally from the emotion successfully created by obviously artificial love affairs, brother-sister’s relations, mother-son’s relations and the sacrifices they make for each other.

Hindi feature films show unique beautiful scenes. Nature lovers can enjoy natural scenes simply watching the beautiful scenes often accompanied by heart-touching songs and melody. The color and pictures qualities are so good that sometimes one might think whether there are other beautiful pictorial scenes that match them. The cinematographers deserve appreciation for their high quality work.

Hindi feature films have successfully exposed corrupt practices of politicians. Hence, the reputation of such people among the people has been diminished drastically. People in general think that politicians are crook. They have one thing in mind speak another and do something else. Those materials are often enough for lawmakers if they like to formulate laws that will prevent such undesirable practices in the society.

Many Hindi films depict sincere and corrupt police simultaneously at work. Often sincere police win the game. However, it is rarely the case in the real life. Almost all the time dishonest police remain in office whereas honest police need to quit because often the high-ranking police officers act behind the scenes to keep the corrupt police in office. Hence, police in the lower ranks cannot function sincerely despite their efforts to do so. They need to quit the job to remain sincere.

Hindi feature films have been not only gradually unnoticeably changing their culture but also have become the catalytic agents of changing culture of the people, too. They have assimilated western culture in music, dance and even in love scenes forgetting the rich culture that has been prevailing in the South Asia since millennium. Therefore, Hindi feature films have been contributing overwhelmingly to the culture distortion in the sub-continent. People will not be able to defend themselves from the onslaught of the Hindi feature films on the culture. Most of the people of the new generation regard the heroes and heroines of the Hindi films as their role model. So, the future generation might forget the rich cultural heritage. Thus, our cultural heritage might be obliterated by the cultural attacks of Hindi feature films in a not distant future.

All the actors and performers in Hindi films live in different world than they act for films. All of them speak only English in real life whereas when they act in Hindi films, speak in Hindi and live in the oriental culture. But they eat, drink and live in the real western way of life. Therefore, it is hard to know whether their lives are unreal or their acting is unreal. So, it is not difficult for them to make real scenes of unreal story.

Hindi feature films make actors and performers rich. Films can shoot stars to unbelievable fame overnight and then superbly rich. They get fame wealth and social prestige. Obviously, their richness and fame become enviable to most of the people. However, most of the people do not know how much efforts they need to put to be successful in acting. Sometimes, they are at the mercy of film directors and producers. They get a chance of being famous due to directors and producers. No matter how good they are in acting if the directors sand producers do not favor them they become dead planets instead of shining stars.

Hindi feature films have been the most entertaining means for many people in South Asia and other Asian and Arabic countries. At the same time they have been the tools in bringing the cultural change in the lives of the people in South Asia. Although the Hindi feature films enrich the lives of the people, their cultural values have been deteriorating due to the unnoticeable cultural change brought by these films. Perhaps, producers cannot do away with those things because of their commercial motives. Probably, consumers demand that way. Producers will not be able to sell their motion pictures if they want to strengthen and preserve the cultural heritage of the people. Hence, they need to go beyond the wholesomeness and make films to the tune of the taste of viewers.

* It was first published in ‘The Sunday Post’: a weekly magazine of ‘The Kathmandu Post’ on Sunday, July 26, 1998.