Another new year. Another winter. Another downward scroll on the mouse when looking for my date of birth.
But do you ever suddenly realize the year is 2024? A number that seems like it belongs in the ‘future’. 24 years after Y2K. 12 years after the world was supposed to end. LESS THAN 12 MONTHS AWAY FROM 2025.
TWENTY TWENTY FIVE.
Not to be confused with Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating criteria.
A year that I must have seen in at least 3 movies that was the setting for the ‘future’. Some things have panned out.
Demolition man showed people on video calls.
Total recall showed people trying to get to Mars.
More movies then I can remember would have pristine futuristic towers juxtaposed with a dystopian dusty city. A stronger explanation than anything else of my deja vu when I first encountered Gurgaon.
But obviously some others have not. Flying cars. Sky net’s army of terminators or cold fusion. Not even in Canada.
Without a doubt, the internet has a lions share of the changes in this period but I feel uncomfortable thinking of it in this bracket because it was already around when I was in school.
Be it in the cyber cafes in Banashankari who would look the other way while groups of teenage school boys would crowd around one computer while holding the door shut.
“aye what you doing”
“Uh sir group project”
“Group project anthe thoo shameless”
Or the dial up internet we had at home.
I still remember looking up my 10th standard board exam marks on the internet with my hall ticket number
English: 87
Mathematics: 92
Science: 84
Hindi: LOL
These marks may explain why I can’t tell you what Hindi movies thought 2025 would be like. I had seen a bunch of them in the theatre but my grasp of the language made it like what I imagine a rally featuring North Indian politicians is like south of the Vindhyas.
Clap politely when you think it’s required and wait for the snacks.
This may explain why I remember the egg puff at Nilgiris better than any of the movies I saw at Rex.
This changed when I got to college in Pune. The movies I saw then are clearly etched in my memory. Firstly because paying for something that you later regretted is hard to forget.
I’m sure the people who have seen Fighter will agree.
The other reason being that half of these movies I sat through on a Neeta Volvo bus from Bombay to Pune. The only option to register your disapproval was to get off at one of the stops and refuse to get back on.
A non exhaustive list of some of these movies:
Lucky: No time for love
A movie that features Salman Khan rescuing and romancing a school girl trapped in Russia in the midst of conflict. Watching the movie suggests his research for the role was ingesting a bottle of vodka a day
Bluff master
One of two movies featuring Abhishek Bacchan rocking a suit, shirt, no tie and chest hair while he danced to a title song that was better than the movie. The other being Dus. A movie title that accurately captured the size of the cast and the audience
Waqt: Time is running out
Wtf was this obsession with time and English subtitles
A movie that features Akshay Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan, where Akki is a spoilt brat till he discovers his dad has cancer. The cringy songs are only topped by the audience having to swallow that Shefali Shah plays Akshay Kumar’s mother while being 3 years younger than him in real life.
I’m reminded of these movies every other week because every now and again someone pops up online with
“This movie just turned 18/19/20 today”
Like Khakee.
A movie that was released 20 years ago.
A police movie that features Akshay Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, Tushar Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai, Ajay Devgan (as he was known then) , Prakash Raj and Atul Kulkarni.
I made Mali sit through a rewatch fairly recently and it was shocking to say the least. The plot revolves around honest officers Amitabh, Tushar and Akki, laying their lives on the line to protect a Muslim who has been falsely accused of a conspiracy against the state following a communal riot. There are multiple dialogues and scenes hinting at politicians being to blame for causing the riots and then demonizing Muslims.
So how is it that Bollywood has flipped so hard?
How have we come from stories like that to every movie being a war/mythological/mythological war movie featuring some aging star spouting jingoistic dialogues or Hindutva talking points.
I am more charitable to assume that it doesn’t come from a place of malice but is purely commerce. They are downstream from ‘popular’ culture and this is why you will have them do fourteen versions of the same movie featuring Kangana/Hrithik/Vicky Kaushal.
Even Bob Dylan had written a classic song when asked about Bollywood’s spine
“the answer my friend is blowing in the wind”
On that count, I guess Bollywood was even less perceptive of the future than Hollywood.
Can you imagine those movies being made today?
Rang De Basanti which turned 18 and also features a phenomenal Atul Kulkarni. What would it look like now?
It would have to be updated to all the protagonists having sedition cases filed against them because questioning Rafale jets is anti national.
Lagaan would be remade to show that the minority players on the team were the actual enemies with the village deciding to go ahead with the higher tax because they were misled about these farm laws.
As absurd as this sounds nothing is off the table in Bollywood. Some down and out screenwriter or director is looking to reinvent himself with an RSS membership.
Which is still fine as long as they don’t touch the music. Nostalgia has been kind to these soundtracks. Almost everyone of these trash movies has a certified banger.
Do me a favour let’s play Holi
I’ve been brainwashing Amal on this count as well. I have leveraged our high speed internet, Spotify and Alexa to serve up everything from Coco Melon to Baby Calm down.
She’s copied my playbook and now will ask for music while we are seated for dinner. Irrespective of how our negotiations on how much she’s eaten are going.
“Appa I want a song from Alexa”
“Amalu finish your veggies and then we can ask”
“ok… ALEXA PLAY DIL DOOBA”
What a bluff master bro.