Raju Korti
An idle mind provokes more thinking, howsoever inconsequential it may be. In my present frail health, all I can do is to harness it to more constructive purpose.
The one thing that always gets to me is the emotion and melodrama after a murder or a suicide in serials and films. It appears that a funeral shot is mandatory in such episodes. The formula always works because nothing tugs at your heart-strings more than a funeral where mourners weep inconsolably while someone among the family of the bereaved lights the pyre. While you do make a concession for such emotional scenes as part of the "entertainment", it is amazing to see the quantity of wood burnt to show these fake funerals.
As a kid watching movies, it never occurred to my juvenile mind to think about such things. While watching a funeral shot all I could muster was few genuine drops of tears. Nothing affects as much as death does. Decades later, I still get misty-eyed watching those emotion-filled scenes but there is enough sense left now to question the necessity of wasting precious resource as wood on such scenes at a time when the environment is headed for an inevitable, impending disaster.
Crime serials in particular on television and movies in general have to have such a scene though each one of us concedes in our rational mood that they are corny and the effect is intended to last only until the time you watch them.
Forest covers are dwindling faster than people are planting trees. Oxygen will be available only in cylinders some day and the room temperature in a decade from now on will shoot through its rooftop. People who worry about environmental degradation are in terrible minority and their voices of sanity are either lost or go unheeded. Forget animals, even human race will become extinct one day if you make a small allowance for the extremity I am painting.
I am inclined to believe that given the badge of intellect they wear on their sleeves, our film-makers and serial-makers would do well to show funeral scenes symbolically rather than burning logs of wood every time to give the impression of being realistic. But discretion often gets shrouded in noisy debates and there will always be lobbies to and for. Ask know-alls of the likes of Arnab Goswamis and Rajdeep Sardesais. They have the potential to hold incendiary debates which are meritoriously inconclusive. Should there be a debate on this, a mild-mannered Sunder Lal Bahuguna would probably be run down by the shouting brigade from the showbiz.
I am looking to that day when some journalist will do an investigative story on this pepped up with facts and figures. My gut feeling is it will be a revelation.
Despite all this harangue, I am keen to witness a funeral scene being shot. I am sure the man who is shown as dead, must be watching his own funeral from the sidelines and laughing his guts out even as tonnes of wood burns.
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| Pic only for representation |
The one thing that always gets to me is the emotion and melodrama after a murder or a suicide in serials and films. It appears that a funeral shot is mandatory in such episodes. The formula always works because nothing tugs at your heart-strings more than a funeral where mourners weep inconsolably while someone among the family of the bereaved lights the pyre. While you do make a concession for such emotional scenes as part of the "entertainment", it is amazing to see the quantity of wood burnt to show these fake funerals.
As a kid watching movies, it never occurred to my juvenile mind to think about such things. While watching a funeral shot all I could muster was few genuine drops of tears. Nothing affects as much as death does. Decades later, I still get misty-eyed watching those emotion-filled scenes but there is enough sense left now to question the necessity of wasting precious resource as wood on such scenes at a time when the environment is headed for an inevitable, impending disaster.
Crime serials in particular on television and movies in general have to have such a scene though each one of us concedes in our rational mood that they are corny and the effect is intended to last only until the time you watch them.
Forest covers are dwindling faster than people are planting trees. Oxygen will be available only in cylinders some day and the room temperature in a decade from now on will shoot through its rooftop. People who worry about environmental degradation are in terrible minority and their voices of sanity are either lost or go unheeded. Forget animals, even human race will become extinct one day if you make a small allowance for the extremity I am painting.
I am inclined to believe that given the badge of intellect they wear on their sleeves, our film-makers and serial-makers would do well to show funeral scenes symbolically rather than burning logs of wood every time to give the impression of being realistic. But discretion often gets shrouded in noisy debates and there will always be lobbies to and for. Ask know-alls of the likes of Arnab Goswamis and Rajdeep Sardesais. They have the potential to hold incendiary debates which are meritoriously inconclusive. Should there be a debate on this, a mild-mannered Sunder Lal Bahuguna would probably be run down by the shouting brigade from the showbiz.
I am looking to that day when some journalist will do an investigative story on this pepped up with facts and figures. My gut feeling is it will be a revelation.
Despite all this harangue, I am keen to witness a funeral scene being shot. I am sure the man who is shown as dead, must be watching his own funeral from the sidelines and laughing his guts out even as tonnes of wood burns.
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