When the song “Kesariya” was first released online, the Internet mocked its use of the phrase “Love Story Yang.” Like most social media debates, it was probably taken more seriously than it should have been and exhausted. It turns out that there is much more to despair than the use of the Hinglish language.
There is no other way to say it – the excessive Hindu imagery of the song attacks your senses. It’s a couple professing their love to each other that has been celebrated in various public spaces such as the middle.Set in Varanasi, this song adds temples and extreme rituals to this list. There is a long sequence of couples sitting in front of a sibling, joining hands in a ritual, and looking at each other with affectionate approval – the ideal Hindu couple. , the couple may have to try harder.Ranbir Kapoor was denied entry to the Ujjain temple over his alleged comments about eating beef.
The implications of your choice of settings are by no means harmless. Artie Wani, in his book on love and romance in 1950s Bombay cinema, describes this use of public space by cinema as the privatization of public space. Public space is not always available for private use in real life, she says, so this is “the illusion of ‘occupancy’ of public space for ‘non-public’ personal purposes.” claimed.
In fact, this fantasy was a utopia of love in Hindi cinema. Like most fantasies, it could be violated.In the love song’s imagination, couples found space to express their complex desires. And thanks to the song, it was in a poetic way. Also, because the language was Hindustani, Hindi films are said to have played a role in preserving the language with songs and dialogues.
Love in ‘Astraverse’ was hyper-Hinduized and became ‘Kesariya’. Not just the song, Shiva and Isha’s entire love story is embedded in a deeply religious and more specifically Hindu world. Their first meeting is during the Dussehra festival, and the courtship (in Pandal) is sealed when Isha tells Shiva that her name means Parvati. This is the same movie in which lovers discover common ground and discover that they are destined – how can she not support him. It’s actually dangerous in that it makes religiousness look neutral. And even more modern. The “Boycott Gang” had no worries.
The solution might favor love as the solution to all ills, but it does enough damage to dent the promise of the original utopia. There is not even a token religious “other” pretense, except for the appearance of a child named Tenzing. Another song sequence that discovers a relationship has the refrain “Om deva deva…”. The melody is definitely catchy, but the context of the times we live in calls for public spaces to be sanitized of non-Hindu symbols, so what are we really humming? do you want?
In an interview, director Ayan Mukerji, who previously directed “Wake Up Sid” and “Ye Jawani Hai Diwani,” said that this is the first time he has incorporated his own “faith” (religion) into a film. Told. This statement is as compelling as the movie’s “modern mythology” marketing line. In the very world of Hindu Brahmastra, the Hinduization of Bollywood seems to have been completed. The obvious difference between hyperbact like Akshay Kumar and the rest of Bollywood could possibly end. Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions has both Marvel and Rajamouli templates for movies, as well as Bollywood. Borrowing from the Hindutva fantasy of policing, we have found a way to appease the market. Some may vouch for the film due to misunderstood calls for a boycott, but it seems like a trap. Even long-term fans might want to switch off if they’re trying to set the tone for the Hindi movie of Aur bhi ghum hai zamane main (there are other sorrows in the world).
Delhi-based writer Aakshi Magazine teaches Film Studies at Ashoka University and recently co-edited ReFocus: The Films of Zoya Akhtar.
