How many of you remember the first time when you smiled at any “Raja & Rani” story narrated by your grandparents? If you remember one story, there is a minimum chance you can recall the other stories which revolved around “Raja” and “Rani” that followed. It is because your smile faded; you grinned, simpered and then smirked when you finally realised they don’t have anything new to share at the moment. And then they had to change… Never did they think that they could make us broadly smile the second time by telling us something new? Contrary to what they say, they were not just afraid we won’t laugh, they were reluctant to dream.

A few months earlier, journalists were in a mood to ask every director and actor, that how we cannot make “Avengers Infinity war” in India. They were curious with the box office collections of the film. The answers varied from ‘production’, ‘budget’, ‘scale’, ‘distribution’ and every statement that couldn’t end with the word ‘imagination’. A creation named “Baahubali” recently shook the country away. But how is it that, in response to why it did, I am only hearing and reading words mentioned above (mostly scale)?.. How are they eventually in line up to make 10 war movies based on real events in history in the next 3 years? A simple exception can be made for the movies based on the great “Battle of saragharhi“, because it was not in any history books I read. But why do they expect a women I read poems about, who was in every chapter of every ‘1857 revolt’ book I read, will force me to pay Rs 600 to hear her story from a ‘voice over’ I hear whenever I read or watch history?.. The real question is: how could we, the intellectuals of cinema, confuse dreams with scale?..The answers will have to take us just a few decades back in Hindi cinema history.

Every time a movie breaks a record, the inquisition has gone beyond a simple answer to it, that it was a good dream. A “sholay” influences almost every producer to practically force writers and directors to follow the sacred footsteps of Salim-Javed. Don’t they know, it is sacred because they have the ability to embrace their own uniqueness. Oh right term! I just got the news that we are no longer good at one thing we could easily be proud of, songs for the narrative and just for it. I was just told we are now ashamed of it. I heard it from the songs themselves, that they are the background noise of marketing. They said “Aapke ehsaan ki mujhe jarurat nahi hai, meri aap ko hai”.. It just required a few years and the curse 80s did to mainstream movies to get back on track. Not for long though. Unlike your suspicion, I did not forget the various ‘almost’ remakes of 1995 hit film “Dilwale dulhania le jayenge” where dulhans were never easy to be eloped, or where there always was a brother or a father resisting the blissful (boring after 1995) union. If I can skip all these “bhed chaal” events to 2013, where a hit biopic “Bhaag Milkha Bhaag”, sweeping all the awards, gives birth to 50 (roughly because there are so many) biopics in the next 5 years. But does it only speak about the trend, the “bhed chaal”, when I use the word “biopic” or does it say that we finally have the reason behind it?..

Story. As simple the word sounds, the level of scarcity is the same. And when the scarcity of people in the dark room, where they open their eyes, is talked about, the word “footfalls” is used more than what they come to see, “dreams”… When the “crisis of 2017” was discussed everywhere, writing was on the wall and writers were not empowered. As true as it is, I felt that was the only thing stable. I say that because, even plots of a boy and a girl, meeting at humour and thinking, that they can marry at catharsis, rocked at the box office. Well, at least more than the others. Ronnie Screwvala said on the “producer’s adda”, conducted by Anupama Chopra “We have dreamers, we have merchants but we need dream merchants”. Clearly Sir, the numbers for latter is far more than the former. Because except Bahubali, I never felt I closed my eyes when I opened them in the dark room. Or I never woke from my sleep the same way I do from a good dream in the middle of the night, where I struggle to get back to sleep with the hope to see the same dream again, after I saw “Intermission”. Unlike my reality, they had the ability to get me back to the same dream. They failed because I was never excited to get back and watch people I can see in my “mohallas” or my office. I never wanted to pay this much money to see titles of the dream like “Reality weds humour”… This year and the few years to come, look like we want to surround ourselves mainly on posters that’ll say “Based on real events”. If you don’t believe me, take the posters in your hands and count.

If you need 10 staircases to reach where you want, you can’t keep tapping your shoes on the same staircase, you would like to take the next step. So, answering the questions of those journalists, if my grandmother stopped “Raja and Rani” the next time instead of eventually the 10th time when she narrated me a story, odds say that it wouldn’t have taken 10 stories for me to smile. Obviously not. I remember when I wanted to watch Bahubali the second time, I failed to get tickets for a Thursday show on a Monday. I still keep imagining if another story that had the same impact released the very next friday, how many screens would’ve increased, just to satisfy people’s needs?..Will it not increase the ‘production’ values or the ‘scale’, if ‘distribution’ is able to bring so much money. Now, what if, after a few(or 1 or 2) movies that work, when the same amount of money is practically given to scale or a set of history movies, they fail to bring people after the sunday holiday. Would you blame the ‘scale’ then? Or would you then try to finally understand the power of dreams that the dark room demands?..Because believe it or not, it demands…It demands your closed eye dreams…