Like A Movie Star…

“What we think ‘Real’ is just the mirror image of our innermost desires.”

As school-going teenagers, we used to find similarities between a film’s story and our own life-stories, specially the love sagas. You know, the kind of stories where lovers have to face obstacles from family and society, majorly having a tragic undertone. I even used to call my then-boyfriend by the names of the characters I had fallen in love with and so did he. In those days, even a song used to describe the situation we used to get ourselves into. I am sure many of you must be having such fond memories of the teenage years.

Gosh, those were the days… the good old days of our acne-prone adolescence and teenage years. Silly fantasies and puppy loves! The world seemed to revolve around us and our love lives. Looking back, I have some very fond memories of those growing-up years.

Then we all were highly awed and influenced by the passionate portrayal of the obsessive lover by Shah Rukh Khan. So much so, many tried to emulate his crazy ways like cutting the name of the lover on the hand. In fact, this is a private joke till date between me and my friends which is not for ‘mere mortals’ (Winking)!

But we were just growing up then. Romantic glares on, we were not able to visualize the real world, the real adult world (although we used to get warned by our folks). Once kiddy days are over, school romances are followed by college affairs and then office flings. So, do these ‘love stories’ still ape some block-buster?

Well, I guess many such real-life stories are more dramatic than any flick. After all in one movie, it would be very difficult to include so many plots of hook-ups and heartbreaks in a story of at most three hours! We open our eyes to a rude awakening that man like Humphrey Bogart of Casablanca, Richard Gere of Pretty Woman or for that matter, SRK of DDLJ doesn’t exist. (For the benefit of guys, neither do Julia Roberts nor Madhuri Dixit,or rather, their iconic characters exist!)

As I was watching Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara for the umpteenth time last evening, I once again realized our lives are rarely like anything as portrayed on celluloid. In that flick, Katrina Kaif enjoys drinks and travels with the three male protagonists, three complete strangers. The men adore her for being ‘cool’ and she shares comfortable vibe with all. But in reality, Katrina would never be able to do so without fighting off sexual overtures of these guys. The guys would justify their moves saying… “Well, she is the one who is visiting our place at night, drinking with us and hey, you can’t blame us men after a few pegs down!” So much for hoping against of hope for the three perfect men from ZNMD!!!

Yet, we keep on hoping. Of course, we are past that stupid phase of thinking we are the leads of a movie. And I am not only talking about romantic flicks. Many look up to even serious dramas like Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind or Vanilla Sky. May be as adults, we subconsciously attempt to run away from the harsh truth that life throws at us often. In the attempt to escape from the reality, maybe we end up discovering similarity between the real and the reel life. Maybe, as quoted at the very beginning, movies just mirror our innermost desires. But the real life is lived only by those who learn to live the life he or she wishes to, and not simply studying the movie lives… Maybe!