Yesterday, I was having coffee during one of my breaks; I had few of my friends joining me. They were talking something already, and the topic was of course Movies. So sad, we have nothing else to talk these days. This time about the latest movie “Agent Vinod”. One of them was saying that a song in the movie was copied from an Iranian band. The other friend was opposing the “copying” act but said it could be an inspiration or purely a coincidence. I was not sure, what they were talking about as I do not have an appetite for watching Bollywood movies these days. Not wanting to feel left out, I joined the party. The discussion swayed over several subjects bordering the title "Duplication Vs Inspiration".
This topic we discussed is not new to us; we had discussed this sometime back also. I was saying the original ideas for the present day cinema ceased to exist, particularly with bollywood movies. They have gone the western way totally. Not just in bollywood movies, the most of the Indian cinema is obsessed with the American or the European style of making and feel it as original. It’s a plague. It’s a disease. Yes, the technology of cinema is not Indian please take it from them, but should you not have your own stories and screenplays at-least? Violin is a western musical instrument, that doesn't mean that one shouldn’t play an Annamayya or Thayagaraja in it. If you take a leaf out of something and create a subject for a movie out if it, that’s inspiration. However, you take several leaves from several movies and make one; it’s too far from being considered inspirational and definitely not original.
Few years back, I remember Mr Narayana Murthy, saying that we lack "original thinkers" in an interview for The Hindu. How true that is!! Its understood that being original and at the same time creative is extremely difficult. Even the olden day movies like “Maya bazaar” and “Pathala Bhairavi” are the stories from the Indian folklore. But their presentation content is totally original. This is where Maniratham stands apart from the other directors. Most of his movies are an inspiration, not completely original. Nowadays, the so called Indian creators or directors don’t even care about such things. They don’t want to look into our life system. They wanted only gain without pain. They leave our very own folklore to die. With theater plays not attracting crowd nowadays, these movie makers have a moral responsibility to save it. But these guys are busy elsewhere. I don’t have to watch Agent Vinod when Tomorrow never dies comes up time and again in HBO. I don’t want a 'bond' or even a 'bond like' Indian movie.
To all creators who are copycats, Eat pizzas in India, but try to sell masala dosa or an Aloo parata to an Italian not an Indian Pizza.
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