We finally launched the Cine Blitz Gold coffee-table book this month, titled, Love and Longing in Hindi Cinema. The book travels through the decades and takes a closer look at the various interpretations of romance from KAAGAZ KE PHOOL to KABHI ALVIDA NA KEHNA.
Apart from valuable inputs from industry influentials like Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif, Karan Johar, Javed Akhtar, Vikram Bhatt, Sriram Raghavan…there is a wealth of well researched information laid out along with breathtaking pictures from the past and the present.
While working on this book along with my gang of girls, I realised how much I’d actually been missing romance in our movies. I don’t think it’s just nostalgia. My younger colleagues agree with me as well, most of them being in their twenties. There is a sort of purposive-ness that’s crept in, the hunger for eminence overpowering the hunger to express…
In a way, this book is a reminder of how vital romance is, not just for our movies but also our lives. Love, longing, angst, passion, romance, music, melody, grace, gentleness, affection, monsoons, mountains…memories…being completely and wholly alive…living life from the heart…being full and overflowing…rather than empty and dry.
So let’s bring back the romance into our films and our lives, guys. And let’s not be apologetic about being emotional fools. Leave the calamities and the catastrophes, the demons, the devils and the disasters to the phobic Big Daddy. We are Indians. We are a joyous people. Give us our song and dance…and romance. Give us our joie de vivre. It’s been a long time…
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