As rightly said, one takes a hard look in the mirror to see what he desires to become, desire to achieve. For every person who comes to Mumbai, also referred to as the City of Dreams, is charmed by the rich and comfortable life offered by Bollywood.
Its generally said that Bollywood reflects Indian society because people relate to it. It defines one version of reality.
People usually resemble stars of Bollywood as there hero’s, their role models. They are someone who they worship and follow. They are the trendsetters. However, this has changed recently. Due to the Coronavirus, our doctors, nurses, cleaning workers, police have become the real heroes. They have been working 24*7 risking there lives to keep every patient alive.
Films always have influenced the audience in one way or other and some films did that on a large scale. Films like URI and Lakshya are the examples I would like to use.
URI picks on recent events (2015-16), which was still fresh in the minds of the audience. Not since Lakshya (2004) have we had a war film that looks gritty and real. Ronnie Screwvala had said, “we have war, action, and strategy based on a true story”.
If Lakshya (based on Kargil war) gave us a peek into the lives of armed forces personnel, URI completely focuses on their work.
In the URI, Paresh Rawal’s character mouths a dialogue: “Hindustan ab chup Nahin baithega, yeh naya Hindustan hai…yeh Ghar mein ghusega bhi, aur maarega bhi”. It found an echo with the audience. A patriotic flavor and this daring effort were lapped up by the audience.
This patriotism that the film focused on is the key to this article. This film resulted in changing the mindset of people towards the Indian army, the things they sacrifice, the hardships they carry.
The release of this film created an aura of patriotism in the heart of every Indian. People took this to the streets. They started celebrating their heroes (soldiers). In fact, people started demanding action for every wrongful thing that had ever happened to soldiers who are protecting our borders.
This predawn raid on the army camp in the Kashmiri town of Uri was the worst attack against the Indian army in the region in years, 18 soldiers were killed that day. The response to this was what covered in the film.
Its usually said, the things we see and the things we feel changes our outlook. This change in outlook is the need of the hour. As ‘Unlock 1.0’ came into effect on June 1st, Prime Minister Narendra Modi linked it to the “start of getting growth back.”
Under ‘Unlock 1.0’, the government allowed religious places, hotels, restaurants, and shopping malls to reopen from 8 June. Offices are allowed to be run with 100% staff. All religious places outside the containment zone are allowed to be open. Restaurants, hotels, and malls are allowed to open.
This will definitely give a boom to the economy but at the same time, it has made people believe that Corona is not something to be afraid of. Many people think it doesn’t exist now.
Things have started to go out of hand now. Cases are on their record spikes in many areas. Also, new cases are being detected in greens cities like Goa.
India is now the sixth most-affected nation in the global COVID-19 tally, with over 2.35 lakh cases and 6348 deaths.
There have been mishaps happening around the whole country as people have lost seriousness. For eg :
1. Goa ministers claim 6 test positive while official claimed.
2. Non-compliance with social distancing norms by BSF personnel leads to 163 cases in Tripura.
3. Hotspot cities – Mumbai, Pune Ahmedabad, etc are recording daily spikes in the number of cases.
PM Modi urged the nation to be more careful from now on as a large part of the economy has opened up. Modi said self-reliant India is the only way to get out of this crisis. Though the nation is moving towards gradual and staggered opening up, the threats have not mitigated and hence the precautions of social distancing must be maintained as before.
However, the irony of this is some people take it seriously while others not.
So in a country like India where people follow what is shown in the movies there a movie based on the CORONA would work in the best way. People don’t believe what politicians say but they do believe and understand when the same thing is said by celebrity. This is one of the reasons why celebrities are offered tickets. They are able to influence the mass very easily. So a movie based on Corona might work in this scenario. This the reason why all these songs and special ads are being made.
Just as URI and Lakshya re-introduced a sense of patriotism in every Indian citizen, maybe this too would make people serious about Corona and it’s harmful effects. After all its the masala we Indian crave for.
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