Desi Train

Published on Passion For Cinema

It’s out of control. Everyone is on the streets waving their laptops and desktops, furiously typing in their next blog to kick ass. Every Friday with every new movie. It’s as if all the frustrations and anger and whatever acid they pour in their morning cup of tea, coffee or brewery - all of it comes out in a yellowish to red puke form on the reviews of the latest movie.

I tell ya. It’s out of control. Bloggers? HA! My foot!!! What do these itsy bitsy tiny minnows know about bad movies? These post Gen X midgets who call themselves film fanatics… what do they know about bad movie and the horrendous torture? They can’t suffer more than 20 minutes into a movie and are writing their next blog over Old Monk and coke with spicy seeng-dana even before the movie inside has reached it’s Interval point.

All of these are puny, have it easy kind of life. Air conditioned theaters, best munches and drinks right outside the theater and above all the Internet to vent their anger out.

Does this entitle them to anything? Can they last beyond 20 minutes or three hours of torture?

Good for nothings who claim they are “tortured” by bad movies. Well I’ll tell them what… kiss my ass.

You’ve seen nothing, borne nothing, the torture you claim is fact of the matter ticklish compared to what us Gen X and pre Gens had to go through.

From the late 1970s to the 1980s to the late 90s and beyond - more than 20 years of torture. Which was secretly planned by Bollywood and any other intelligence agency (including Indias) to see that people’s brains were fried bit by bit, 3 hour by 3 hours, Friday by Friday. Until they would either die or bow down to the powers that be and say I’VE HAD ENOUGH… KICK MY ASS FUCK ME UP… I’LL DO ANYTHING YOU WANT.

And the results are for all of you post GenX to see. We are a badly scarred to the bone generation. Do you think you little sensitive souls could take more than 20 years of torture every Friday? HA YOU FOOLS!!! Only the Brave survive and survive we did. In non A/C theaters, Samosas that sent you to the bathroom rather than the post interval session, bed bugs that would bit your ass and when you reached home you wondered “Where the hell did I forget my ass?”, Black Marketers, 4 hours lines for Advance Bookings and so much more.

And I wonder why would anyone be so spiteful inspite of getting the best comforts and luxuries in this day and age.

You wouldn’t last a single day of the 80s, you blogging punkers!!! Take That! Stop Wailing…

Last night God appeared in my dream and offered me Moksha. Then like God always does… he put a condition. That I have to spread the torture me and my generation of brothers and sisters suffered through movies from the 80s. Once the present generation has suffered enough and cries for help… God shall appear, and give me angel wings, though HE won’t be able to do much for my ass that has has been beaten and tortured by the movies of the 80s and which now shits pancakes.

MEHNDI RANG LAYEGI (1982)

It was 1982. I was still in my half chaddis (Hinglish: half pants).

Jeetendra in his career of ups and downs was again back in business doing anything and everything that came his way. 1982 saw him as many as 13 movies. I don’t remember if his produced disaster “Deedar A Yaar” had released by the time we saw Mehndi Rang Layegi.

DAY and Star were the two big releases - probably the most expensive films of that year. Both flopped miserably. Biddu who made Star went back to where he came from (England, Mars, wherever). Kumar Gaurav after Star lost his star status. And Jeetendra was again like many times in his career, in doldrums. But in one year Jeetendra’s life would change. And we gullible people did not know what disaster lay ahead for us poor film lovers. Himmatwala was to come in 1983, become a super duper hit, and we for many many years would be shedding tears of blood thereafter.

Mehndi Rang Layegi (MRL), was directed by Dasari Narayana Rao who made tear jerkers in the South and for some odd reason had begun to do the same in Bollywood. Those were the days when I think the legend Lata Mangeshkar, may have seriously thought of visiting a psychiatrist to help her depression, considering the number of songs she sung that had her crying in it.

So the song “Mehndi toh Mehndi hain rang layegi”… is the song that was the title track of this movie.

The film also had Rekha and Anita Raaj. Rekha by this time had perfected her gracefully stern on screen personality while Anita Raaj would secretly go ahead and join the Public-ko-Torture-Karo Club (PKTK), and torture us for another 10 odd years.

Jeetendra with no relation to Rekha, stays at Rekha’s house. Who of course has a big palatial bunglow facing the ocean and has a rich dad (not sugardaddy please). Now I don’t remember what Jeetendra end up staying at Rekha’s place. I’m guessing it was either to teach Rekha singing, or doing jhadu-katka in the the house. Anyways it’s not important.

What is important is Jeetendra and Rekha love each other but do not express it to each other. Meaning Jeetendra doesn’t know Rekha loves him. Rekha doesn’t know Jeetendra loves her. If it happened today, the whole world would know courtesy MMS. But it doesn’t. It’s 1982 and cellphones will take another 15 years to enter our glorious country.

So one thing leads to another and Jeetendra decides to talk proposal to Rekha’s dad. No DAMMIT. He doesn’t want to propose to Rekha’s dad. He wants to propose his marriage to Rekha to Rekha’s dad. Since it is the 80s, some achcha bachchas (Hinglish: good diaper wearing boys) still existed in those days.

But Heylo!!! The heros of the 70s and 80s suffered from “I do not talk first” syndrome. So Rekha’s dad speaks first. And talks about Rekha’s proposed marriage to another man. Jeetu-ji silently cries keeps quiet and leaves.

Enter Anita Raaj who falls in love with Jeetu-ji. Then after some snoring and snaring, Anita and Jeetendra get married. Shubh Vivaah. Wait a minute. They were about to get married… hell I don’t remember. But it’s not important.

What’s important is Anita Raaj realizes the past love of Jeetendra and Rekha. She fills guilty. Enter Tik20. Suicide Attempt. Anita-ji taken to hospital, which HEYLO!!! belongs to Rekha-ji who is a doctor and saves her life.

All’s well that ends well. Rekha-ji becomes a doctor-sanyasin, says she will never marry. Anita-ji and Jeetendra live happily ever after.

If you think you have seen such similar stories a 1000 times before… please let me assure you that in 1982 I had watched similar movies 500 times before this one and saw the other 500 after this when they released which you claim to have watched today.

If you think Singh is Kinng is a bad movie and wonder how it is such a massive hit… try or atleast make a decent attempt to walk to your video store and ask them for a copy of MRL. The shows on Sunday of the week of it’s release were houseful. We had to buy tickets in advance to be able to watch this movie.

My family gave up watching movies after this while I was tied, gagged and bound like the rest of my lot of that generation and dragged to theaters week after week for torture and more torture.

Up Next: Insaaf Main Karoonga (1985) starring Rajesh Khanna, Tina Munim, Padmani Kolhapure

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Filed under Bollywood, Memories Re-brewed
Tags : Anita Raaj, Jeetendra, Memories Re-brewed, Rekha, The Torture Series.

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