Tamasha of Life

"Be yourself" seems to be the mantra of our age. Look around. Our advertisements are urging us to conquer our fears, live the life we dream, follow our passion, "BE YOU"...the world can adjust...essentially बाकी सब गए तेल लेने; or whatever else they are supposed to be doing while your are busy being "u". Look at Facebook, it just cant get enough of this "be you" "follow your passion" messages. Buddha, Rumi and all & sundry have said tons of this subject and thanks to Facebook we seem to have discovered hoards of their quotes. तो फिर क्या ...share, share & then share some more. And while we are basking in the glorious "be you" sunshine, why should Bollywood not take a dip in बहती Ganga and make hay?! Coming to the point, I am talking about the latest Bollywood offering Tamasha

हाँ तो भाइयो और बहनों ; कहानी कुछ ऐसी है ...अपनी heroine, Deepika, Tara, is stranded in Corsica without a passport & money, तो क्या ? तो अपना hero Ranbir Kapoor come to her rescue. Passport & money will take some time to come, till then they decide to explore Corsica together but with a promise to not know anything about each other. They both decide to not ask anything about each other...not even their real names. और फिर वो दिन आ ही गया when Deepika gets her new passport. Time to leave, with a promise to never meet each other.

लेकिन in true Bollywood style कहानी में twist तो बनता है boss; who life ही क्या जिसमे everything works according to plan? Tara (Deepika) comes back home to Kolkata and is shown moping around for 4 years...you guessed it right...she has fallen in love with Ranbir and now wants to reconnect with the happy-go-lucky bloke.

तो अब शुरू हुई the real कहानी. We are all different people of a holiday, aren't we not? No household chores, no office, no deadlines. In short a stress free couple of weeks before we leave the free spirited alter ego to get back to the grind.  So Ranbir AKA Ved is back to the रोटी-कपडा-और-मकान rigmarole. This is the "real" Ved. Not the happy-go-lucky Corsica dude. So when Tara meets Ved, the sparks don't fly, no दिल में बजी घन्टिया, the Corsica magic seems to have been left behind in Corsica. The thought of losing Tara makes Ved rethink his priorities. All of us want to be "different" but ironically everyone is trying so hard to fit in, blend it!

So Ved goes on a quest to connect with his soul, his real self. Hard questions need to be asked and answered. People need to be confronted & tough decisions need to be made. No one ever said following ones heart is a walk in the park. Many of us grapple with unhappy professions, suffocating relationships and a yearning for what could've been. Agreed that all of us cant just quit our jobs and pursue our "passion". But then passions don't need to die, don't have to be forgotten. We need to make an effort to accommodate them with our daily lives, to spare weekends for them.

Getting back to the movie, it takes time to grow on to you. For me a brilliant movie, with amazing music, Irshad Kamil तुस्सी great हो Sir जी and Ranbir at his best. Isn't he the most promising Kapoor of his generation? Deepika seems to be getting better with every movie.

Its wrong to compare this movie with Imtiaz's earlier ones. Now he cant be doing the same thing again & again & again.

Love the Tamasha of life, this movie portrays.