The Land of Dreams et al.

I can feel it in the very essence of my bones. Resonating through the frayed nerves, mixing with the very base of my blood and existence.

I always feel it, and it takes all my will power to keep it within me.

I’m about to lash out. Illogically and emotionally. Big time.

Bollywood.

That amazing land where singing is second nature to everyone from a baby to the 200 year old granny, and dancing around trees is commonsensical to one and all.

The land where the spoilt rich girl falls for the oh-life-is-so-poor-but-beautiful servant.

The land where forty year old men can pass off as college students.

The land where the spot boy becomes the film star.

The land where life is beautiful.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Bollywood as much as the next person, and pay amazingly huge amounts of money every other weekend to contribute to the ever growing pockets of the producers. But oh -my-God. How in this whole wide crazy world can people give Bollywood the right to define their lives????

Or worse…expect it to define mine?

How is it that there are so many people in this world who believe that life is meant to be beautiful? That life is about seeing the beauty in small things and the people and that money doesn’t buy happiness? That it’s good to be romantic and see the romance in every freaking thing in life? Getting drenched in the rain, little cute kids, the mountains and the sea, the first smile, the first kiss, the view from the top, the wind, the inspiration from the road, the love and the villain, the sexiness and the lust, the crowd and the local train, the first time the eyes meet…the description of everything in life in terms of visuals and the feelings they inspire, rather than vice versa.

And believe me, till here, I’m still perfectly fine with things. To each his own. After all, Bollywood wasn’t created out of thin air, it is, I’m assuming, based on popular thoughts and beliefs.

But what really gets to me is the stubbornness of this lot.

If I can accept them, why is it so difficult for them to accept me?

The fact that I don’t see beauty the way they do? That I prefer my life unpopulated and clean, comfortable and cool, with money and without emotions, far away from the maddening crowd. Why do I disappoint them so? And why is it so difficult for them to believe that I can be happy in ways very different from them? And that, for God’s sake, it’s not their responsibility to show me what happiness is, and how I should go about achieving it?

Why is it so difficult to tolerate my views and my perspective?

And believe just for a tiny little second, that a thought and a feeling might just come to me before the ideal visual from a movie does?