Ghajini: A Big Bloated Bubble!

Ghajini is big, bloated and ready to burst. When the entire nation is engulfed by the Ghajini fever, what can we say but recollect the glorious heydays of Hindi cinema when stories ruled supreme. Ghajini, the so called phenomena, rated a masterpiece par excellence, clearly spells the death knell for good cinema. When marketing supersedes quality and star power overshadows story, then Ghajini is undoubtedly the star of the show and we have to painfully acknowledge that the show must go on...

The Ghajini hoopla is a windfall for the perfectionist Aamir Khan and his team. The story revolves around a man suffering from short term memory loss and the filmmaker unconsciously toes the line presuming the audiences to be suffering from a memory lapse as well. Sitting through the movie what strikes you is a good story which has gone wrong; thanks to the filmmaker. The story is not logically connected, with many loose ends left dangling here and there. While he lavishes time on the love story and the tragedy angle, he fails to show how the ailing man comes to terms with such an alien life and how he builds his clues and cues. That the story has been unfurled through the two narrators (the police officer and the medical student) will hardly testify for an explanation.

Inconsistencies mar the beauty of the theme. A man who is suffering from short term memory loss knows clearly where his camera is placed in his coat. The house is so well organized that we audiences are ashamed to look inwards at our own civic sense, when Lord Almighty has bestowed upon us the divine gift of memory. A sudden flash of memory justifies the climax and the evil paying for its deeds. A haphazardly sloppy narrative has left the counters ringing!

If Aamir Khan's six-pack abs and toned muscular body along with the newly found talent Asin and the glamour quotient quipped in by seductive Jiah Khan forms the right success recipe with a well knit story hardly a matter of concern, then it is time we acknowledge that Bollywood is heading for doomsday. Aamir has proved beyond doubt that marketing is the star at the end of the day, whereby you can afford to throw away the script. But box office success is guaranteed. A saving grace is the movie title which takes after the villain. He may be elusive with his villainy striding ahead of him, but the climax lauds the magnanimous hero who settles the scores. The movie pales in comparison to some of the worser stories that have been successful.

While Ghajini is minting money, the maturity and the sensitivity of the Indian audience is at stake, when anything in the name of cinema would sell by harping on the marketing gimmicks. Money mongers ruling the film world are the least perturbed by artistic justice. If Taare Zameen Par catapulted Aamir to the distinguished coterie of perfectionists, then Ghajini shows the perfectionist who has gone overboard with his success. Apart from Aamir and Asin, the movie with unjustifiable and illogical violence fails to appeal to the refined sensibility of the Indian audience.

Ghajini is reaping accolades and the nation is basking in this new found evanescent glory. Nevertheless, when the bubble bursts, the industry will have to re-build itself from the rubbles of the golden milestones of artistic creativity.