Baghban - The Celluloid
Navaratna
Baghban – "the caretaker of a garden", probably the
best script written in the Indian celluloid history, probably the best
acting done by all the stars and co-stars. They pulled out the naked
truth that all families face, that all parents face, sometime or the
other, which all children inflict on their parents.
It is a custom of an Indian family where ones’ father is seen as GOD
and ones’ mother is seen as the Gateway To Heaven. These are two
individuals who are known to be supreme. They are the creators of
future generation. Every mother and father has a dream that their
child becomes a person that the world recognizes as a true human
being. All parents always want their child’s well being. They leave
no stone unturned in providing happiness, joy and pleasure to their
children. They go to the extent of sacrificing their quota of
happiness, joy and pleasure for the sake of their children, just to
see them smiling all the time. They are the ones who teach them how to
speak, how to walk, how to read, how to write, what is wrong and what
is correct for their well being, in a nutshell, they are the ones who
bring infants to life, show them the light of the world. They take the
place of the Almighty in molding us from raw clay to hardened bricks
that can form a strong building.
But we tend to forget all these when we start a new family. Well
established now, we don’t need them anymore; we start neglecting our
parents. We forget that it is because of them we are what we are
today. We owe them our life that is not possible for us to fulfill our
debt and no parents will ever ask for that. What they ask for is
support when they are old, when they require solace; but, shame on us
that we neglect them. We have used them as stairs to climb up the
ladder of social security, now that we have reached the summit, we
don’t need them, we throw them as waste, pieces of torn shirt,
pieces of used up furniture and dump them in the can. This is what
reality is and Baghban has truly become successful in teaching
worthless, shameless sons and daughters like us who think parents are
burden when they grow old. When an old dad or a mom can’t expect a
little solace and love from their grown-up and established children, I
am sorry to say it is an absolute necessity that parents have every
right to disgrace their so-called children. They have sacrificed their
yesterday for our today and this is what we present them.
Baghban should come out as a book so that every single person can
realize that they are the LIVING GOD, instead of neglecting and
harassing them in their old age, we need to love them, we need to show
them respect and we need to worship them. Such movies should go for
Oscar Fevers. We need strong coordinators in the film management box
office to forward such gold movies to the Oscar management, and I am
sure if Baghban goes for Oscar, it will give us some sort of
achievements, if not the Oscar.
By Arunava Das
