I am always amused at these so called pseudo “Intellects” who always pounce on those soft targets who never retaliate or understand the thinking of these so called intellects. These intellects decide if a movie is good or bad, it’s no more left to an individual’s opinion but they seem to know what’s good and bad. All that brings us to the question, is cinema some “science” that you can clearly demarcate as good or bad? Isn’t it an art? Good movie to one might be bad to another. I find it ridiculous to make sweeping statements saying the movie was bad. I would ask “to whom”?

Now they have moved one step further, they want fans of actors to behave in a particular way. They will now decide which one of us is decent or foolish or real or unreal. Again I absolutely have no problems in people making fun of those fans who they consider silly or stupid; again it’s their opinion, at the same time I am completely against them advising the fans their responsibilities or the way they ought to behave. Comparisons with Hollywood actors and movies sound bizarre. Everything we do is compared with the western world. Anything that revolves around us is benchmarked against their standards. We ought to think like them, talk like them, behave like them, watch movies like theirs, and follow our stars like they do theirs. Where are our sensibilities?

To the so called ‘Intelligent movie goer”, I have only one advice. Please look around you, at the political sycophancy, corruption, poverty, child labor so on and so forth. Invest your energy and intellect in trying to do something about that. Cinema is entertainment as well; we watch movies to be entertained not just to educate us. There is always something good in a bad cinema and bad in a good cinema. We watch bad movies to find out what’s bad in them. We would still watch it. Please stop advising us what movie to watch and how to idolize our stars. We do conduct blood donation camps, we participate in funding meritorious students, and we in our way do help society. We ask the so called intellects what has been their responsibility towards society and its causes. Save from putting up a post on the Mumbai attacks what else have they done? What have they done when they see political leaders and nobodies’ put up their party flags and flout traffic rules? What have they done when they have been stuck at traffic signals and see processions go by? Don’t they see any wrong doings on the street?  We are immersed in so many scams and we watch our elected representatives take us for a ride and we do nothing about it. We make a big issue out of the fans celebrating their idols return. Yes we would do that because we would lose nothing in the bargain. Try fighting the establishment, try fighting the system that we all know takes us for a ride.

Yes we all are bitter about the system, bitter about everything that’s happening around us, everything that we read and that’s why we go watch a movie. To entertain us, to see the bad being punished, we are not stupid not to know its unreal; we know our heroes can’t fight ten men at a time. We will whistle and clap, we will still throw kisses and flowers because we want to escape, escape from the reality around us. We would do everything that we can to make our idol happy, happy for making us happy. At the same time, count on us to be on the streets when we got to fight the system. If we can go the airport to receive our hero we will also get on the street to bring about a change. We won’t sit in the confines of our room and post a comment or write a blog against it under an elusive identity. We have a name, we have a face. We would proudly protest. You call us the front benchers.. So we are.. Always in the fore front..

We are not as intelligent as you, but we would appreciate it if you would spend your energies and synergies on something more important than movies and actors. Leave the insignificant things to us. Please don’t preach to us on how to appreciate a movie, how to like a star. We are bereft of a real hero, so we will worship the celluloid ones. Hoping one fine day we would find a real one who would lead us out of the mess we are in. To the ones who compare us to the western world, we are the same, same as the ones who visits Elvis’s grave every year, the same who spends a sleepless night at the “apple’ store for a gadget launch, the same who whistles, screams and beats his chest at the Man U stadium, we are just fans.. FANS who know when to stop.