Ranjona Banerji | Kitsch or reality TV: What's your pick?

Over the years, I have faced a bit of flak from well-meaning friends and relations over my reluctance — all right, all right, downright refusal — to watch what passes for Indian popular entertainment. All the words to qualify my unacceptable position have been thrown at me — Macaulay, too Western, snobbish, add whatever you want. As one friend put it succinctly, “Ranjona does not understand the Indian cinematic idiom.”

After a lifetime of devouring as much Indian popular entertainment as I could, in Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, it was the unending sick violence of a film called Andhaa Kanoon which finished my love story with popular Hindi cinema. What is now called Bollywood. That was 1984.

It’s not that I haven’t tried in between. I watched all the early national TV serials and enjoyed them: Hum Log, Buniyaad, Nukkad, Tara, the two epics… Before that, the fabulous entertainment that Bombay Doordarshan provided, where theatre artistes demonstrated their massive talents. All the Manmohan Desai fun on the big screen. The ridiculous fun films.

A lot of the art cinema.

But once it became all bish-bosh-boom-splat, my interest waned. And didn’t really pick up ever again. My Mother was a great Shah Rukh Khan fan, so I watched some of those with her. That’s a lot of Karan Johar. Devdas by Sanjay Leela Bhansali was one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. I watched some of these new films, more urban, more of today’s middle-class issues, more about the young and their aspirations. Post-economic liberalisation, “millennial” cinema if you like.

There was that much loved one about three young men and their rich urban lives. One falls in love with an older woman. When the time comes to declare himself, he then does that thing that no one ever in the whole world ever does except in Hindi or maybe Indian cinema when the filmmaker has no courage: an unplanned but perfectly coordinated song and dance sequence.

The flip was not part of the character of the young man. It was the intrinsic dishonesty and cowardice of the maker.

Then came a very popular love story with big new stars, about how lovers met. It was on a train and the first 10 minutes went in “this is my seat” “no mine” “no mine”. How am I expected to watch this with no writing, no skill, no wit? And more importantly, why?

Once more, I gave up.

These post-post-urbans could carry on with their absurd fantasies. I was getting too old anyway.

But well-wishers, they chipped away at me. I was the one suffering apparently, even though I did not know it, since I was quite happy in my own choices of entertainment. The streaming services opened up the world. But have you seen the latest about a rape case, a lipstick and a burkha, young women drinking themselves silly and having sex in a city a few years after the young American women had done the same thing?

I haven’t, I couldn’t, I didn’t.

But every time I say I never will again, somebody else wins. A friend acted in a Malayalam movie. It was funny and great fun and I enjoyed every second of it. The friend herself — not an actress — emerged as a scene-stealing star! I was pleasantly surprised that there was one story and the director stuck to it.

Another friend introduced me to a popular series on a Mumbai matchmaker. This is so ridiculous that it’s really good. New India, confused and really silly NRIs, the great Indian art of mixing marriage and community compromise and a loveable but spectacularly unsuccessful matchmaker. What’s not to love.

I became foolishly emboldened. Perhaps I was being a frog in a well. So much was happening. People were right. I had to expand my thinking. So I found by myself a film called ‘Life Won’t Happen Twice’ — that’s a rough translation. It began with three young men driving around some foreign land. Like that other film on the train, two of the men had the exact same conversation with each other for the first 30 minutes. While they drove, while they lay in bed, while they were up in the air, down in a swimming pool. I tuned out.

Later I discovered this film is an Indian version of a cult classic. My online criticism had many hurt people telling me how wrong I was to dislike this masterpiece. I did not mean to inflict pain on them. It was inadvertent. But there is no power on earth that would make me watch that or anything like it again.

But because I felt bad that I had upset so many diverse people, I listened to more advice. I do now think I am a real sucker for punishment, never learn and all that stuff. I gritted by teeth and began to watch the very popular series about wedding planners in Delhi. The first series was interesting for all the wrong reasons. All the vulgarity, money, weirdos was entertaining. Except for that one character rounding off each episode with trite observations — the city is unforgiving, dirt under the glamour, such is life, bleat blah blah.

But the second season went totally cuckoo. Perhaps full of their success, the makers decided that this was the time to tackle social issues. They already had a lovable flawed man as one of the main characters, and he was gay. So one point for inclusion. Then the planners hired a trans-person. One more point. Both characters were demeaned, to me at least, because they spent most of their spare time on dating apps. The second series took on, in the most fragmented and desultory manner possible, these subjects: Dowry, domestic abuse, real love versus societal norms, old people in love, class differences and caste prejudices.

Not a single topic was handled with any sense or sensitivity. The caste episode blew up because of appropriation of someone’s story without credit or acknowledgment. And the extreme shallow nature of the writing and perhaps understanding of these issues left me fed up.

To punish myself further, I watched Rocky and Rani’s love story. And surprise, surprise, I really enjoyed it. Much to the horror of those who do know me. I also watched the false-real life of the talented designer daughter of a proper actress, which was more real than the wedding planners’ lives. I am now engrossed in the lives of Bollywood wives. I have learnt about beauty treatments and how to holiday in Doha. The English cuss words, however, I already knew before the performers and filmmakers were born.

Reality TV. I think I’ve found my niche. Bring on the vulgarity, the pomposity, the gossip and the falling out! Maybe Indian society will accept me now?