It Happens Only In India!
Baisanavarepalle, a small village in Chittoor district of Andhra was in the news today on NDTV 24X7. The newsreaders waxed eloquently about the energy saving methods of the denizens of this village – using solar energy in place of conventional sources of energy (coal, firewood and kerosene).
Interviews went off well with the villagers. And suddenly the entire screen was filled with the face of a woman (yeah, a woman and not a young girl in her 20s) wearing sunglasses (wraparounds, to be precise). The lady surely wanted to show off her status as a ‘richer person’ of the village. Apart from a new, silk sari, she wore metres of jasmine flowers in her hair, a touch of lipstick, a smile and used a non-stick pan to make her omelette! Of course one couldn’t miss the beatific and contented smile (smirk?) on her face.
If a woman can do it, can’t a man? So, there was a guy dressed in a colourful t-shirt and a rainbow lungi with wraparounds, trying to adjust the settings of the solar heater! These two scenes made my day happier, as I guffawed to my heart’s content.
In Telugu Cinema, you’d see the heroes wearing sunglasses everywhere – on the road, while singing with the heroine in the rain, at the office, at home, at the disco or a bar, while fending off the villains (from outraging the ‘modesty’ of the heroine in a bikini) – in their movies. Even heroines (not always, and not everyone) LOVE wearing sunglasses (especially, a rich heroine knows how to flaunt her ‘shades’ and even more specially at home) in Telugu cinema. I’d also love to see the hero/heroine having a bath with their ‘shades’ intact. Yet to come across such a scene though! Will someone pass this idea on to one of the Telugu directors please?
Tamil Cinema too celebrates sunshades. But their celebration is unidimensional (they have very little taste for variety; all of them wear the same glasses that were popularised by MGR; the tradition now is carried on by MKarunanidhi and it’s a pity there’s none on the horizon to carry this tradition forward).
During 80’s when innumerable number of Telugu/Tamil movies were remade in Hindi (and resurrected the careers of Jeetendra and Mithun (not to mention Sridevi and Jayaprada, and to a lesser extent Rajesh Khanna), these sunshades were brought in along with the storylines. However the trend didn’t stick (may be the glasses didn’t ‘wrap around’ the heroes/directors well enough). Had the idea gained roots, my wishes to see a lead actor with goggles probably would’ve come true by now. May be Raj Kapoor would have asked Mandakini to wrap herself around with these sunshades while having her ‘famed bath’ in ‘Ram Teri Ganga Maili’!
Hindi Cinema however ensures that ‘rich, spoilt and mannerless’ heroines wear shades to show that they’re ‘blind’. Their blindness to reality, to humanity, to humility and all such virtues is cured by the hero (and thereby the love story starts)! And, then of course we have enough number of songs that celebrate the haughty heroine’s looks in her dark glasses (‘Gore gore mukde pe kala kala cheshma’).
Of course we have ‘Men in Black’ and ‘Mission Impossible’ apart from the Bond movies that reflect the glamour of dark glasses in English Cinema. But none of them matches the impact, style and the verve seen on the Indian screens!
P.S. Influence of Telugu Cinema or not, it made good sense that these guys in the village working on the solar heaters wore glasses!
Interviews went off well with the villagers. And suddenly the entire screen was filled with the face of a woman (yeah, a woman and not a young girl in her 20s) wearing sunglasses (wraparounds, to be precise). The lady surely wanted to show off her status as a ‘richer person’ of the village. Apart from a new, silk sari, she wore metres of jasmine flowers in her hair, a touch of lipstick, a smile and used a non-stick pan to make her omelette! Of course one couldn’t miss the beatific and contented smile (smirk?) on her face.
If a woman can do it, can’t a man? So, there was a guy dressed in a colourful t-shirt and a rainbow lungi with wraparounds, trying to adjust the settings of the solar heater! These two scenes made my day happier, as I guffawed to my heart’s content.
In Telugu Cinema, you’d see the heroes wearing sunglasses everywhere – on the road, while singing with the heroine in the rain, at the office, at home, at the disco or a bar, while fending off the villains (from outraging the ‘modesty’ of the heroine in a bikini) – in their movies. Even heroines (not always, and not everyone) LOVE wearing sunglasses (especially, a rich heroine knows how to flaunt her ‘shades’ and even more specially at home) in Telugu cinema. I’d also love to see the hero/heroine having a bath with their ‘shades’ intact. Yet to come across such a scene though! Will someone pass this idea on to one of the Telugu directors please?
Tamil Cinema too celebrates sunshades. But their celebration is unidimensional (they have very little taste for variety; all of them wear the same glasses that were popularised by MGR; the tradition now is carried on by MKarunanidhi and it’s a pity there’s none on the horizon to carry this tradition forward).
During 80’s when innumerable number of Telugu/Tamil movies were remade in Hindi (and resurrected the careers of Jeetendra and Mithun (not to mention Sridevi and Jayaprada, and to a lesser extent Rajesh Khanna), these sunshades were brought in along with the storylines. However the trend didn’t stick (may be the glasses didn’t ‘wrap around’ the heroes/directors well enough). Had the idea gained roots, my wishes to see a lead actor with goggles probably would’ve come true by now. May be Raj Kapoor would have asked Mandakini to wrap herself around with these sunshades while having her ‘famed bath’ in ‘Ram Teri Ganga Maili’!
Hindi Cinema however ensures that ‘rich, spoilt and mannerless’ heroines wear shades to show that they’re ‘blind’. Their blindness to reality, to humanity, to humility and all such virtues is cured by the hero (and thereby the love story starts)! And, then of course we have enough number of songs that celebrate the haughty heroine’s looks in her dark glasses (‘Gore gore mukde pe kala kala cheshma’).
Of course we have ‘Men in Black’ and ‘Mission Impossible’ apart from the Bond movies that reflect the glamour of dark glasses in English Cinema. But none of them matches the impact, style and the verve seen on the Indian screens!
P.S. Influence of Telugu Cinema or not, it made good sense that these guys in the village working on the solar heaters wore glasses!
posted by Quintessential Critic (Sudhir Narayana) @ 8:10 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Haha, that was a good one. You perhaps missed the Mumbai societal ladies. They prefer to use their shades more as a hair band than to cover the eyes!!
hahaha..... in telugu films, if one has 'arrived' on the scene, one has no option but 2 wear goggles inside the home..no wonder our friends conserving energy had 2demonstrate as much...
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