A thousand dreams

Hazaaron Kwaishein Aisi...Ghalib's immortal words on my gmail status aroused many queries. There were better films and not many could relate to this one. So what made it special?

Either the film had many layers or I simply imagined them.... images of reality clashing with idealism; new worlds struggling to take shape; and poetic lyrics that sent heady meanings:

Bavra Mann Dekhne Chala Ek Sapna....
Bavre Se Is Jahan Main Bavra Ek Saath Ho
Is Sayani Bheed Main Bas Haathon Mein Tera Haath Ho

A story of college friends who choose different ways as India is poised for marked transition. Sometimes, many of us can relate to all the three characters: geeta, who doubts idealism but who returns to it ultimately; siddharth, who plunges into the struggle but who has no answers for the violence creeping in; and vikram, who struggles to find his feet in the corrupt system to later embrace it.

The film to me is about a generation I never saw, a generation that I glimpsed now and then..... in professors who recounted with awe the power of student movements; uncles who recounted heady dreams and fiery speeches of their days; the disappointment of a generation whose dreams of a brave new India never took off. And their disdain for those who embraced the corruption and leg-ups.

Today, we hardly speak of them, the generation of the 60s and 70s. They did not know of my grandfather's dream for independence and Nehru but hoped for direction and romantic ideals, sought Indian equivalents to the west's dreams and development.

Their optimism, hopes and ultimate confrontation with reality and compromises is what Hazaaron Kwaishein is to me. I saw in it what my professors and uncles spoke of. Their inspiration and disillusionment and how they then went on with their individual lives powered by academic successes in middle class, pre-liberalisation India.

Surprisingly, I could also relate to the characters, mostly geeta's. Slipping in easily into two worlds: academic and intellectually stimulating dreams; differences and conservatism in a traditional telugu household.

It isn't practical to be ideal, and it is cheap to be material. But we grudgingly respect conviction and struggle, the person who chases his dreams; and also admire the man with the money, even if we wrinkle our nose at the means.

In the film, I smelt the musty dreams that a generation forgot as it embraced the rules of the new world. The struggles for equality, the social worker, the idealism preached in college brushed away.

It was not meant for us, we had to read and debate but do nothing. I grew up in this convenient understanding.

Either all these dreams were there in the film as I knew them in some people, or I simply imagined them. In between the film, the message of confusing and conflicting dreams and worlds was somewhere there or I probably read parahs between the lines.

But somehow in susy's bathroom slippers and cycle, in jerry's awe of student power; in jose's smiles at the trivial issues that centred our lives; in dreams for a new awareness, in books and articles, I saw a period, lost forever.

But the dreams were there....thousands of them. And they hoped as they waited.

Hazaaron Kwaishein Aisi
romila ;)