On a lazy Sunday afternoon I and my friends were planning to go for a movie. As usual the discussions heated up with everybody thinking movie of his choice is the best. So fed up of the office life were we bachelors that we decided to go for a neutral movie. For once the decision was made and we found ourselves at movie theater for a marathi movie "Sarivar Sari" .
Marathi movies nowadays are seeing golden days thanks to the multiplexes. This was also evident there. The movie was running for at least for 4 weeks and is still going strong.
All of us knew only one thing about the movie and that was "it's a serious movie". Yet we had heard good reports so were positive about it.
It turned out to be a good decision and we witnessed something that could make an insensitive bunch of people like us think about it seriously, that too in that Sunday party mood.
The film is a story of a lower middle class or a poor family, which includes of a couple and their two daughters. The man in the family works in some firm to earn the living for their family. The elder daughter is very intelligent, hardworking and is pursuing MBBS. The younger one is a typical naughty, bold, bubbly girl of a family who is not so good in studies but is interested in entertainment industry.
Her parents are traditional and cannot understand and accept this. One day she does a fashion show in college for which she buys coustumes from a boutique on condition that she will do a photo shoot with them for their advertisement. It doesn’t stop there but the store owner also gives her photos to an ad film director who offers her contract.
From here starts a new journey in this family’s life. A fight between family and values, a fight between old and new generation, a fight between family and career starts and takes their family by storm. The girl leaves home and goes ahead with her modeling contract. Gets reasonable success in the career but meets people there whom she cannot totally trust. She starts feeling alone and her family is the only support she can find. The family on the other side starts feeling her absence, her father drinks more, behaves strangely and the family starts going through torrid time.
Both the sides realize how incomplete their life is without the other and hence their
significance, finally trying to understand the other side’s views. Finally an incident breaks the ice and the girl comes home not leaving her career but asks family for their support for whatever she is doing. She expects them to say that they are with her in whatever she does. She tells them she has not been defeated or that she has lost the will to fight, but says that she feels everything incomplete without their support and appreciation. She also tells them that now she is going to do a nude photo shoot with international company and asks them for their support. Unexpectedly her father who even opposed her dancing in the colony gives her unconditional support.
The film ends there but leaves many questions behind. A question that every teenager wants to ask, not just to themselves but to their parents as well. What is a definition of successful career? Is it a career chosen by the parents who most probably will choose a traditional career or a career that they themselves want to pursue?
The big question is how many people in India are satisfied with what they do? How many of them think that they are best fitted for the job that they are doing? How many think that whatever they are earning is good?
Hardly few will give a positive answer to this. Most of the times people land up doing something not because they want to do it but because they make earning out of it.
Parents today will always tell you go to school, study hard, to get good marks and to become an engineer or a doctor. Very few will willing advice them to go ahead with the career that they would think is best for them.
I here don’t say that every child in India knows what he wants to do but surely a good 30 % know what they want to do. If they had been given the freedom, India would not be so backward in every department.
One more question that continues to come to mind is, Is this new generation so bad that they will never want to listen to their family or They are so forward that they wont understand the tradition or They are so selfish that they wont understand the importance of family in their life? I think answer to these questions is NO.
No one willingly wants to go against their family. Nobody wants to something just to hurt their family and I think everybody is quite aware of the fact that without family’s support their biggest win is also a biggest loss.
I think the time has come when parents need to sit with their children, discuss the career options and also tell them what are their expectations from their children and at the same time listen to what their child thinks, understand what he or she wants and come out with the best possible option.
Also at the same time I feel the time has come when children also tell their parents what they want instead of just expecting them to understand. Also they need to be able to find a golden mean of traditions and their aspirations. They need to realize that parents have seen this world more than them and hence will talk sense no matter how conservative they might look.
May be a hope against the hopes, but I would love to see everybody saying “This is what I always wanted” rather than “This is life, you have to live it as it comes”.
