Common man, uncommon expectations

Rab ne bana de jodi – Aditya Chopra latest directorial venture, is the story of a “common man”, a Clarke Kent, who seeks to induce his wife-by-accident to love him. In the process, he creates a persona of a boisterous and flashy, yet sensitive, Raj who almost wins his wife’s heart – but loses out in the end.

Aside from an excruciating three hour length, gaping improbabilities in the plot (a moustache can hide the identity of a man from the woman he lives with?!) and a Shahrukh Khan who thinks that an “ordinary man” has drooping shoulders and simpers, the story throws up an interesting view point. 

If Sahni – the “ordinary man” has it in him to be dashing, and amusing, why does he go through life as a repressed soul. Indeed, why is it important that the girl love his boring personality and ignore the advances of his attractive alter ego?

Some years back, I had the opportunity to consult with Mrs Rama Bijapurkar – a leading marketing consultant. We were, at the time, doing some research on the economics of film making and I asked Mrs Bijapurkar if it were possible to use market forecasting tools to select a script for a movie. Her insight, which I think is extremely meaningful, was that successful movies were a lead indicator to consumer behaviour and could be used to forecast shifts in consumer preferences – and not the other way around.

If RNBDJ – the alphabet soup the movie name resolves to – becomes successful, is there a message in it for marketers and society? That too a perverse one – that hard working, ordinary people, had best retain their anonymity. That aspiring for greater success and recognition is best left to others – perhaps even a hint, that with a bit of piety thrown in, you may even achieve the “impossible” – in the movie, the love of the protagonist’s otherwise uneventful life – if you do not aspire for more?

Over the weekend, the newpapers carried articles suggesting that Mr Ratan Tata was annoyed that a police officer who had risked his life for 6 hours in the Taj while waiting for the commandos to arrive, had released a CCTV recording to the media which showed him in action. Usually, most societies celebrate bravery. More so, when a poorly armed officer faced up to the challenge of heavily armed and well trained terrorists – and risked his life in the process. If it were a set-up, or the action pre-meditated, one could understand the reason for displeasure. With neither being the case, what can be the reason for feeling that the recording was “misused”? Though I am perhaps being uncharitable here – does it reflect the bias of society leaders that an “ordinary man” has attempted to reach beyond his station in life. It appears that stories of extraordinary courage of ordinary people, can be celebrated only in death, and if still alive, such persons should rapidly recede back into anonymity. Life imitating art?