Aisha - setting benchmark in mindless cinema

What happens when a bundle of young girls meet together? Do they talk normally about their lives and their experiences? No. Do they become friends whose relationship is founded on the basics of trust and support? No. Do they discuss their lives’ goals and ambitions? No. Why? Because they hardly have anything like ambition, except fixing marriages – for themselves and others. Because going shopping is the only intellectual pursuit that they have ever known. Because bitching-behind-the-back and making-fun-of-behenjis is their regular preoccupation. Because girls’ creativity is limited to their mastery at cosmetics.

So, pick up a girl (thin as a willow), dress her up, doll her up, addle her brains (if any) with dates and marriages, don’t let her sniff sense – and you get an ideal woman. This is what the movie AISHA tries to prove. Even Jane Austen’s heroines are better than this. At least, they talk well.

That this movie has bagged as many as four stars from reviewers of Times of India (Nikhat Khazmi…yes, she too) and rediff…is a substantiation of how media is sold out. These are the kind of media which dole out for the likes of ‘Well done Abba’ and ‘A Wednesday’, as many as three stars (god bless PR budget in these times). Aisha, both the movie and eponymous character, are as shallow as it can get. Storyline is predictable like snow in Siberia. Dialogues are written from the bed. Cinematography gets so regular, it might as well have been a TV soap. Performances are…umm…let’s go one by one. The lead character, Aisha (Sonam Kapoor) plays the lead only because her dad got her an easy entry in Bollywood. Pinky (Ira Dubey) quite sports the character she plays…she really looks like a ‘Guldastaa’! Randhir (Cyrus Sahukar) gets relegated to the jackass’ role, which he enacts in true blood. Arjun (Abhay Deol)…well, is he the same guy who did Dev D and Oye Lucky Lucky Oye? If yes, what the @#$%^&* hell is he doing here?!

But the prize catch among the actors is the small-town girl Shefali (Amrita Puri). She acts like this gullible yearning-to-marry little thing, evoking real sorrow and pity. Aisha’s dad in the movie (MK Raina) is a fawning father who cracks the best joke in the movie. He calls Aisha ‘intelligent’. Beat that! Whatever little weight the movie carries in the form of Abhay Deol, gets washed out when he himself proposes to Aisha. And the only good song in the movie – gal mitthi mitthi bol – comes at the fag end, making the wait worthless.

All in all, the movie sets new benchmark in mindless cinema. It is an insult to all sensible girls. It gives the word ‘crap’ a whole new dimension. It stretches the limits of audience forbearance in a two-hour mental torture. The worst part is (now hold your heart) – that the makers of this girl-derogatory movie - Director Rajshree Ojha and writer Devika Bhagat, are women themselves. Which makes it not just crappy, but tragic.

My saving grace was that I went to watch the movie with my brothers, whose active comments kept me sane. They felt, Aisha was making a capital C of not just Shefali, but the entire audience. And in one of the scenes, where Aisha is shown sobbing in front of her home-library, my brother summed it up:

“अगर तूने इनमे से पांच किताबें भी पढ़ी होती, तो आज तेरी ये हालत ना होती”.

Comments

  1. Very nice written...keep it up...

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  2. extremely well written...you have summed up the whole experience wonderfully well,madam...

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  3. What talent! Only YOU can come up with such fine observations on, as you called it, ‘a crap movie’. The power you wield with the pen is enormous… very few can pick up relevant issues from irrelevant subjects. Just imagine the impact you can create by picking up issues that matter…issues from the real world rather than the reel world!! All said and done, movies are almost entirely a medium for entertainment…pass-time. All that talk about movies being a potent tool for social change etc is a little too far-fetched. So go on…move on…and wield your pen on issues that are closest to your heart!! Let the world see the REBEL… the REVOLUTIONARY in YOU!!!

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  4. What if you were allowed to carry a brick inside the cinema hall.

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  5. oh ashu! my all-time mentor :)
    you never cease to inspire me, do you? never stop leading me to my possibilities...to what i could be...to what i should be.

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  6. with a brick, i would have exercised a whale of restraint to not hit at the screen!

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