My Essays

Cinema and community.
Cinema and community.We know that Cinema is an Audio – Visual medium. More than one person is involved in the production of a movie. Many of us don’t know that the thoughts of a director and a scriptwriter can make a lot of difference in society. You might ask what difference can they make. They are just two common people in the society. Other people see their imagination on the silver screen and they try to imitate that. Imitation is common human behavior. Its human nature to imitate whatever they see.The scenes like the villain chasing the heroine and abducting her and raping her or the cold-blooded killings or the hi-tech robberies and destroying the evidence etc are all teaching us how to do a crime and how to escape after that and how to destroy the evidence. Thus a lot of anti-social activities could be learned through this medium.We are not aware of the reality that there are a group of people who are trying to create chaos in society by showing violence, killings, rape, robberies, drug abuse, prostitution etc on silver screen using artists. They are sawing the seeds of crime into the minds of people.At this point a question might arise that whether the artist don’t have his own freedom to express. All artists have freedom of expression. It flows like a lava flow, not even censored by the Censor Board. The truth is that nothing is censored at all, except for a few sex scenes.An artist should be someone with a positive mind and also somebody who wants social justice. An artist should have the thinking that myself along with the society should be liberated from the clutches of the evil, then only good thoughts will blossom.You may ask how evil comes into such a good artist’s work. It’s a good question. All artists may not be good souls. When one had artistic talent, he tried to exhibit it, without caring for good and evil. He may not have thought of the difference it makes in the society. Even if he had thought, then his counter thought will be what good does it make to himself. I know that I can quench my hunger only if I work hard. Will this society give me food at least once a day? Will it construct a house for me to sleep? Will it buy me dress to wear? Nobody will buy me anything. Then why should I think of making the society better? But such thoughts can never make the society better; it will only go more and more into evil paths. If God has given us a talent, then it is for us to make a living out of it. Along with that, we should understand the good and evil in society and write or visualize against evil. Thus through our creation, we should create at least a small ripple. This is an artist’s responsibility towards society. Even if he gets rich through his creation, it doesn’t mean that he should divide his wealth and give back to society. He became rich because of his talent. He knows that he made everything through good deeds only. Each citizen in society can come up in life only through self-talent. Anything achieved through evil is only temporary and never permanent.An artist’s achievement is to exhibit his creation before the society and get an honor for it. But the creations so honored should contain only good. Then more and more good artists and good creations will take birth, and the society will be kind enough to accept them without discarding.Although Cinema was born in France, it started its growth in countries like America, Europe, India and Russia.For the first time in history, a Cinema was made and publicly exhibited by the Lumier Brothers. This was in France. That was the beginning of Cinema. After that the art form of Cinema grew worldwide.Today the world cinema centers at Hollywood in America, The Indian cinema centers at Mumbai and the South Indian Cinema centers at Chennai. Cinema today is big business, but the truth is that good quality movies are not taking birth as expected.The main reason for the sheer fall in quality of today’s cinema is the changing environment. Earlier the idea in one man’s mind will be elaborated by many other people and give rise to a superior creation. Today it has become mechanical. Film production has gone hi-tech with latest technologies. As a result good cinema died and low quality movies are taking birth.As said in Hindu mythology, Devas and Asuras were enemies. They fought with each other. The Asuras got the ‘Amruth’ after churning the ‘Palazhi’. But the Devas fooled Asuras and got Amruth and they became immortal. Along with that one Asura also got Amruth and became immortal. As a result the Devaloga was slowly on destruction. Devas didn’t know that. Just like the Palace secret becoming public talk, nobody knew about this. Even if they knew it was no good. Because along with the Devas, one Asura had also become immortal.Moral of the story is that when we start a good thing, we should not co-operate not even a single person who is against it. Else sooner or later we will repent.In our society also there are Devas and Asuras. It can be divided as people who do good deeds and people who do bad deeds. People who do bad will keep on doing it if the climate is favorable. Such people have the capacity to destroy a society or a civilization or even a country.Quoting Swamy Sree Narayana Guru, we should unite to be strong. Only our union can make us stronger. It will make the society better. But if the people who unite are the people who are doing wrong, then we can guess the result.If a society has to be good, the people have to be good. If the society is good, the country will be good. Many good countries might make this world better.A question might arise that what are the factors for the betterment of society. For a good society people should have pure and innocent minds. Abstention from alcohol, tobacco, drugs etc is very important.But in today’s work it is difficult to find a person who doesn’t have any of the above bad habits. Even if we find them, they are just numbered.Its written on the cigarette pack that “Smoking is injurious to health”, but still people buy and use it. It’s a bad habit. Its written on the alcohol bottle that “Drinking is injurious to health”, still people buy and drink that. Similarly it’s written on Pan masalas that it’s injurious to health, but still people use them.Like doing a crime intentionally, people are trying to hug a disaster. We can say that it is like going to a prostitute who is know to have deadly diseases like AIDS or Gonorrhea.Knowingly or unknowingly we might slip into the wrong path and go far. There is no point in repenting after which there is no return. ‘Time’ is precious for man. Do GOOD things only.