Tamasha
If you're a young Indian on the verge of enrolling into an engineering course, with entrance exams hitting you like bullets piercing through your skin to reveal your relative mediocrity and dreams unrelated to nuts and bolts dissolving to nothingness before your eyes, well trust me, I've been there. In fact, so many of us have been there that middle- to upper middle-class Indians giving up on their dreams to embrace the blanket of security and stability are not even tragicomically funny anymore. It's a joke that's way too played out, as much of a given now for many people as the mere act of breathing.
Perhaps that's why 2015's Tamasha did so well. Underneath the typically Bollywoodised storytelling was a tale of being crushed under the weight of a conventional corporate lifestyle that one has been forced into, as well as a depiction of the mental toll it can take. It has also been instrumental in many creative personalities finally breaking free from the confines of their stable jobs and pursuing what they always wanted to do, now empowered by advancements afforded by the Internet and a more connected world.
I was one of those people who feared getting into engineering. There are many people who may not be particularly inclined towards it and dream of living in a first world country where other avenues would be more viable, but at the end of the day, they are accepting of the more conventional profession and even go on to embrace it for the comforts it can provide them. I was not one of those people. I loved the sciences, but I also loved the humanities, and making a choice was too difficult for me. I eventually chose architecture, and have never regretted my choice. Architecture will never be my first love the way writing is, but it is a close second or third, simply because of the multidisciplinary nature of it.
However, over the past two years, the cost of making this choice has become more clear. My classmates from high school who did engineering or medicine or economics are already settled into the beginnings of a proper career, and I am still educating myself and if I follow the path of high education as I intend to, I will not be in a 'career' till I am in my 30s. I have had episodes of acquaintances look down upon me because they think if I was brighter or smarter or something-er, I would have a job in Bangalore by now. The difficulties of my career choice are seldom appreciated, and the good old "those who can't do go on to a PhD" is not explicitly said but heavily implied. The length of my career trajectory will also have an impact on my personal life according to my parents, because I may not be stable enough in terms of geographical location to consider marriage till I am very late into my 20s or early 30s, something that worries them, and there are comical legitimate concerns expressed about my biological clock. I make enough money for myself, but it's not money that is enough to plan a future around, a luxury that IT professionals, bankers and doctors can afford even in their 20s. Even in the US, while my friends who are in some form of engineering or IT get into companies which gives them a large number of cushy benefits, I can only expect those benefits if I get recruited by the very top architecture firms, which seems unlikely for someone who has a degree that focuses on housing.
The irony is, in the grand scheme of crazy careers, mine doesn't even qualify. I did everything a good student would do, and was only about two millimeters left of center in my choices. But those two millimeters were meaningful.
Don't get me wrong. I still surprise myself when sometimes I look back and realize if I had to do it all over again, I would make the same choices, even knowing what I know now. The point that I am trying to make is that in life, it is rare to have everything and more often than not, the pursuit of dreams leads to compromise in financial security, social credibility and one's personal life. Now, whether one thinks those compromises were worth it or not varies from person to person, but it is naive to say that the compromises don't exist. I assume that in the core arts, like the theatre, film, writing, art and so on, the compromises are even bigger. In the mildest cases, it's your relatives calling you a 'band master' when you're really a musician. In extreme cases, it is about being broke in Mumbai and considering offers to "compromise" (wink wink nudge nudge) because you're desperate and you've burnt other bridges and you feel too old to start all over again.
This is where Tamasha lost me. I felt for Ranbir Kapoor's character when he becomes what is essentially a zombie, and then transitions into a ticking time bomb. It made me sad to think about how lonely he must be feeling in the cage he has built for himself. I was invested enough to forgive the hare-brained first half with its manufactured romantic storyline, and forgive Deepika Padukone's character for depending on Ranbir Kapoor's for showing her a more interesting life instead of simply pursuing one for herself. But where I couldn't support it anymore, was when Ranbir Kapoor's character become quits his job and becomes a theatre sensation overnight. No uncertainty, no struggle, no doubts. The movie even presents the cinematic version of an artistic career, where you only see the final masterpiece of the artist but not the thousands of hours of work and frustrations and redos that went into creating it, which is unfortunate because a lot of the general public sees real life artists that way as well--as people with dreams and uncommon natural ability who were only ever stalled by external hurdles and never by their own learning curve of their craft or their own insecurities, with those dark hours hidden from the audience's view. I would go so far as to say that such a view of artistic careers is insulting to those who are actually involved in such careers, similar to how it was insulting to real ballet dancers who had been dancing since they were three years old when Natalie Portman claimed she had done all of her own dancing in Black Swan after a year and a half of training. Ironically, this overnight success happens to people like, well, Ranbir Kapoor, who undeniably has uncommon natural ability but had the advantage of being from a film family and was able to overcome the failures of his first few films which could have crippled another actor's career.
I will admit Tamasha broke down one dream for us--the dream of getting good marks, getting itno a good engineering college, doing an MBA, getting an indisputably white collared job at a multi-national corporation, getting married and having kids, and expecting all of it to automatically make us happy. But it did sell the alternate dream that just because you choose to follow your dreams, you will become successful and secure in your chosen profession on the basis of talent and passion alone, and that was how it made a tamasha of the audience.
Perhaps that's why 2015's Tamasha did so well. Underneath the typically Bollywoodised storytelling was a tale of being crushed under the weight of a conventional corporate lifestyle that one has been forced into, as well as a depiction of the mental toll it can take. It has also been instrumental in many creative personalities finally breaking free from the confines of their stable jobs and pursuing what they always wanted to do, now empowered by advancements afforded by the Internet and a more connected world.
I was one of those people who feared getting into engineering. There are many people who may not be particularly inclined towards it and dream of living in a first world country where other avenues would be more viable, but at the end of the day, they are accepting of the more conventional profession and even go on to embrace it for the comforts it can provide them. I was not one of those people. I loved the sciences, but I also loved the humanities, and making a choice was too difficult for me. I eventually chose architecture, and have never regretted my choice. Architecture will never be my first love the way writing is, but it is a close second or third, simply because of the multidisciplinary nature of it.
However, over the past two years, the cost of making this choice has become more clear. My classmates from high school who did engineering or medicine or economics are already settled into the beginnings of a proper career, and I am still educating myself and if I follow the path of high education as I intend to, I will not be in a 'career' till I am in my 30s. I have had episodes of acquaintances look down upon me because they think if I was brighter or smarter or something-er, I would have a job in Bangalore by now. The difficulties of my career choice are seldom appreciated, and the good old "those who can't do go on to a PhD" is not explicitly said but heavily implied. The length of my career trajectory will also have an impact on my personal life according to my parents, because I may not be stable enough in terms of geographical location to consider marriage till I am very late into my 20s or early 30s, something that worries them, and there are comical legitimate concerns expressed about my biological clock. I make enough money for myself, but it's not money that is enough to plan a future around, a luxury that IT professionals, bankers and doctors can afford even in their 20s. Even in the US, while my friends who are in some form of engineering or IT get into companies which gives them a large number of cushy benefits, I can only expect those benefits if I get recruited by the very top architecture firms, which seems unlikely for someone who has a degree that focuses on housing.
The irony is, in the grand scheme of crazy careers, mine doesn't even qualify. I did everything a good student would do, and was only about two millimeters left of center in my choices. But those two millimeters were meaningful.
Don't get me wrong. I still surprise myself when sometimes I look back and realize if I had to do it all over again, I would make the same choices, even knowing what I know now. The point that I am trying to make is that in life, it is rare to have everything and more often than not, the pursuit of dreams leads to compromise in financial security, social credibility and one's personal life. Now, whether one thinks those compromises were worth it or not varies from person to person, but it is naive to say that the compromises don't exist. I assume that in the core arts, like the theatre, film, writing, art and so on, the compromises are even bigger. In the mildest cases, it's your relatives calling you a 'band master' when you're really a musician. In extreme cases, it is about being broke in Mumbai and considering offers to "compromise" (wink wink nudge nudge) because you're desperate and you've burnt other bridges and you feel too old to start all over again.
This is where Tamasha lost me. I felt for Ranbir Kapoor's character when he becomes what is essentially a zombie, and then transitions into a ticking time bomb. It made me sad to think about how lonely he must be feeling in the cage he has built for himself. I was invested enough to forgive the hare-brained first half with its manufactured romantic storyline, and forgive Deepika Padukone's character for depending on Ranbir Kapoor's for showing her a more interesting life instead of simply pursuing one for herself. But where I couldn't support it anymore, was when Ranbir Kapoor's character become quits his job and becomes a theatre sensation overnight. No uncertainty, no struggle, no doubts. The movie even presents the cinematic version of an artistic career, where you only see the final masterpiece of the artist but not the thousands of hours of work and frustrations and redos that went into creating it, which is unfortunate because a lot of the general public sees real life artists that way as well--as people with dreams and uncommon natural ability who were only ever stalled by external hurdles and never by their own learning curve of their craft or their own insecurities, with those dark hours hidden from the audience's view. I would go so far as to say that such a view of artistic careers is insulting to those who are actually involved in such careers, similar to how it was insulting to real ballet dancers who had been dancing since they were three years old when Natalie Portman claimed she had done all of her own dancing in Black Swan after a year and a half of training. Ironically, this overnight success happens to people like, well, Ranbir Kapoor, who undeniably has uncommon natural ability but had the advantage of being from a film family and was able to overcome the failures of his first few films which could have crippled another actor's career.
I will admit Tamasha broke down one dream for us--the dream of getting good marks, getting itno a good engineering college, doing an MBA, getting an indisputably white collared job at a multi-national corporation, getting married and having kids, and expecting all of it to automatically make us happy. But it did sell the alternate dream that just because you choose to follow your dreams, you will become successful and secure in your chosen profession on the basis of talent and passion alone, and that was how it made a tamasha of the audience.
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