CHEAT CODE

How fiction turns into reality which in turn turns into inspiration which through functionality turns into plagiarism

God tussi great ho, Kyunki mein jhoot nahin bolta, Aryan, partner, kaante, sarkar, ram gopal varma ki aag, hum tum, agnisakshi.

Even today after 50 years of his first debut cellulolid experience, the enigma of the great Guru dutt and his masterpieces fill the memories of all those people seeking the magic which was created by the golden years of Indian cinema. Surprisingly even my classmate in college who swears by the mention of the coppolas and scorseses is awed by the classics created by the Master Guru Dutt himself. What is it which people admire so much, how is it that a director whose movie has not hit the stands since the Vietnam war is still remembered with such grandiose. Some say it was the emotions he created in his movies, some beg to differ and try to shift all the greatness to the writing and the well- scripted dialogues, the actors in the movie is resonated by few and some just try to end the argument by saying it was his flawless direction. But it was this one reason which stuck by me since the day I saw this montage being presented on as news channel about the man himself, ORIGINALITY.

Classics of the yesteryears such as Do Bigha Zameen, Guide, Teesri Manzil, Waqt, Anand, Trishul, Deewar truly represented the above stated concept. From the scene of Balraj Sahni persistently pulling the manual rickshaw in Do Bigha Zameen to Rajesh Khanna teaches his doctor how eternal optimism fills life in Anand to finally the magnum showdown of Deewar when the two brothers face each other for the last time. These were scenes which the audiences had never seen before and subsequently became legends.

Now, coming to the anti-thesis of this whole concept. For many years producers and directors in Bollywood (the Indian counterpart of Hollywood) would feel that filmmaking in India was primarily based on a concept called the FORMULA. Now don’t confuse this with some high level algorithm but just think of it as this 3 part storyline which was emulated by all the directors in the industry. The producers would advocate their position by citing that this is what the Indian audiences demand and especially from the producer’s perspective, the parameter of success only constituted a movie being a box office hit. So what happened when the formula started wearing out, the audiences started demanding something new, fresh, a concept which was not explored before.

That very time after constant brainstorming sessions of various directors with their respective writers, a potential idea was developed. The concept of taking inspiration from a Hollywood movie, indianinzing it and localizing it to suit the needs of the audience and finally churning it out as an original storyline became the new mantra. This first began in the 70’s when the classic Godfather released in the west. The huge success of the movie led many Indian directors, including Feroz Khan, make Indian versions of the great masterpiece. To give it a better understandable context, there were some Indian movies which atleast attempted to do some justice to their original creators but some were just outright incomprehensible for even the lenient Indian audiences. Some of the next movies to get inspired in Bollywood were the 90’s Agnisakshi, Yaarana and Dararr which were all a copy of the Julia Roberts starrer Sleeping with the enemy with the main male protagonist playing the role of the psychotic husband. The millennium saw the Sanjay gupta multi starrer Kaante hitting the screen, which was clearly based on the Tarantino crime thriller Reservoir Dogs. Another movie to be part of the cut copy race was Kyun Ki main jhoot nahi bolta which was taken from the Jin carrey starrer Liar Liar.

Hum tum though a well made movie and even won Saif Ali Khan his first national award for acting, was primarily adopted from the 1989 Meg ryan and Billy crystal starrer When harry met sally. Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar is a Indian version of 1972 classic Godfather. John Abraham and Tara Sharma starrer Saaya is a copy of Dragon Sky.

And the list is never ending...

The question that arises is-When, India gave Art to the world, then why is originality so dead today???