Things seemingly old are finding a new life in recent times, be it in vinyl records, retro dresses, or re-released films Bollywood from the Sixties, giving an intriguing glimpse of the consumers’ taste, observes Ranjita Biswas
Yesterday, I turned the things in my attic topsy-turvy looking for something. Yes, looking for something out of the past. Vinyl records! Once the LP records whirling on the turn-table was the highpoint of our musical entertainment. Then arrived, the cassette, CDs and now, music streaming in from online services opening a world of music, literally. But wonder of wonders, the vinyl record is back in ‘fashion’. Music aficionados are swearing by its sound quality, enjoying a feeling of ‘holding in hand object’, etc., as its renewed popularity.
The trend has been gathering momentum for a couple of years now. In the US, the lovers of vinyl records have even started a Record Store Day. In Kolkata, the old haunt of Free School Street is coming alive once again with customers looking for second-hand records, even newly minted ones in the vinyl form.
Spurred by these positive notes I frantically looked for my once beloved the records of Engel Humperdinck, Lata Mangeshkar’s greats, Jagjit Singh’s eternal ghazals in duet with Chitra Singh, et al, (though these are easily available on YouTube) that I had dumped amidst the junk in the attic.
Dumped? Yes, I did. Little knowing that in our younger days that in an effort to move on and be up-to- date, we often forget that things have a tendency to resurface unexpectedly. Take for example, the current trend of retro fashion. When I see today’s sharara-kameez suits in a bridal trousseau done by some eminent designer, I go back to Bollywood movies of the 60s (was the term in vogue then? Not sure. We called them Hindi movies) with Mumtaz, Rehana, etc., flaunting them elegantly.
Why only dresses? The recent flurry of re-releasing some of Bollywood’s evergreens from the 60s, even some not many decades old, tell a story of hankering for a slice from the past, call it nostalgia, or looking for something simpler. Classics like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Hum Aapke Hain Koun, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham and even recent blockbusters like Jab We Met, have seen the audience flocking to watch them again on the big screen after the re-release. Even the GenerationZ who had missed out on watching these movies are making a beeline to theatres, like their older relatives.
Sholay, that Bollywood-defining movie, has had a single re-screening at Regal Cinema in Mumbai recently to a packed audience that included writer-duo Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, and director Ramesh Sippy. I envied them remembering the waiting for weeks to get tickets to watch it at Jyoti cinema (now defunct) in central Kolkata in 1975. And I was blown over by the sheer story-telling and the panoramic landscape! Waiting wistfully now for its re-release in my city too.
Nostalgia, of course, is a part of the new interest. Post-pandemic, people are veering even more towards comfort- zones, sociologists say. The vaccine might have freed up people from a confined space but psychologically the lingering effect of Covid is still on, they add. Old Bollywood movies evoke a sense of normalcy, and of a simpler time, perhaps.
But another factor might be at work too. The lack of good scripts. But for a few exceptions, the recent crop of offerings from the biggest film-producing centre in the world has been, to speak mildly, pretty pathetic. Some have tried too hard to please all sections of the audience thus losing focus, or rehashed some old plots failing miserably to catch attention. Many in the creative teams seem to forget that story is the king no matter how many techno-innovations you bring in. Besides, today’s audience is exposed to meatier stories slickly produced and live-streamed by international service providers and shabby presentations don’t make the standard.
Is the Indian audience, then, tired of all the maara-maari, called ‘action’ movies, which are copied from movies of the same genre from abroad with little concession to the story-line. We tend to forget that in Hollywood or other filmdoms in the West, action movies come alongside films with good stories and emotional quotient.
Of course, sci-fi movies, thrillers, etc., have their own audience. But in our country movies came to be an extension of rural theatre and urban halls with an audience looking for family dramas, romance, comedy, etc., to be enjoyed together with friends and family members. You can bring in all the objects with supernatural overtones with heroes traversing the sky like Hanuman searching for the hill with joributi to revive Lakshman, but well, we have seen multiple scripts with the same way of projection and got bored.
So good stories, part nostalgic, part due to discerning taste would rather make the audience fall back on the old favourites.
Give me any day Munna Bhai M.B.B.S, or, 3 Idiots to all those so called action movies laced with mythological themes. That is, until Bollywood comes up with fresh ideas, not rehash of blockbusters from the South, or inane sequels of once-successful films. (TWF)
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