The lens we use to view the world

Lessons and outtakes from the biggest debate we've had at our flat

Dear you,

I watched Rocky aur Rani kii Prem Kahaani last week and had a ball of a time! I was hesitant to watch it for all the standard reasons - underwhelming trailer (that hair flip discourse!), no real earwormy songs, and a general disgust for Hindi cinema’s offerings of late - but my flatmate F. (whose taste in movies I have learned to trust) was convinced I would love it and talked a bunch of us into buying tickets for a Monday late night show.

I absolutely, 100%, with my whole entire heart, loved the movie! I walked into it expecting Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham ver. 2023¹ and was pleasantly surprised (nay, shocked!) by the amount of progressiveness and modernity Karan Johar infused into the commercial family-friendly movie template.

What was more interesting though, is how differently we three flatmates reacted to the film. Later that week, when we’d all managed to wrap up work by late evening, our usual dinner table conversation turned into a two hour-long debate on why we liked / didn’t like the film and we realised that some of the scenes that made two of us love the movie were the exact scenes that made the other hate it!

Warning: minor spoilers ahead!

Cancel culture monologue

This scene is tied with the bra shopping scene for my favourite scene in the film. Ranveer Singh embodied Rocky Randhawa - politically unaware goof with a heart of gold - to perfection in this scene where he asks how people are expected to learn and grow into better people if we’re all too busy cancelling each other.

I can honestly say I don’t personally know anyone in my social circle whose family is as liberal as Rani Chatterjee’s. Mine certainly wasn’t, even if it wasn’t as patriarchal² as Rocky’s. Everyone I know, then, is somewhere on the spectrum between the Chatterjees’ ideal liberal household and the Randhawas’ almost caricature-ish patriarchal clan; and so we all need to be given the space to learn and grow into better versions of ourselves. The so-called “cancel culture” does not help with that.

One of my flatmates though, had a different point of view. She thought that in that moment, Rocky should have focused on apologising to Chandon for his family’s atrocious behaviour instead of making the speech about himself. Sure, the monologue was important, and should have featured in the film, but that was not the time for it.³

Rani raising her hand against Tijori

I’m fairly certain this scene will not age well. The excellent film critic Rahul Desai⁴ called it what it was - just a forced conflict and an “unnecessary, necessary evil” setup to the film’s final act. The three of us aren’t RD - by which I mean we are not that pragmatic - and quite the debate ensued.

We all agreed that (a) Rani didn’t “raise her hand” against Tijori so much as push his hand away; and (b) Rani’s family berating her for defending them was an asshole move. So our only real point of contention was whether she should have interfered in that heated conversation between Rocky and his father.

S. said it was but-natural for Rani to have butted in when she heard the vile aspersions Tijori was casting on her family, that’s what she’d do if she were in that position! F. and I (while fully understanding S.’s point of view) were Team Rocky inasmuch as (a) you sent him out to handle his family (even when he didn’t want to confront them just then) so let him handle them; and (b) we’d like our partners to stay out of our family matters too.

S. said “nuh-uh, this doesn’t agree with my worldview, I’m out”, F. said “I love Rocky, I will understand what motivated his actions, and try to empathise with him”, and I said “I can find a way to look at his actions in a bona fide way and so I will”.

The different lenses we used to watch the film

After a very passionate debate at the SFS household, we spent some time trying to understand why we used the lenses we used to interpret those scenes from RARPK and came to three broad conclusions:

• S. does not really watch Bollywood films. Therefore, she doesn’t have the two decades of context F. and I do to appreciate (tolerate?) the appeals and constraints of the KJo commercial movie template. This also meant she could hold the film on par with western film standards and on comparison, it will of course seem absurd at best and lacking at worst;

• F. loves movies, all kinds of movies. She walks into a moviehall ready to enjoy herself and if she does love a film and its characters, she will do her level best to empathise with their actions and cut them slack for it; and

• I view a film through the eyes of benevolent interpretation. If it equally possible for me to interpret a scene in a benign manner and a critical manner, I will consciously choose to interpret the filmmaker’s intent through a more kindly gaze.

A case for benevolent interpretation

This is my blog, so of course I will espouse for my point of view, but hear me out here!

I have two very compelling reasons why I have begun to use the benevolent lens for interpreting content (and on a wider scale, tried to implement it in my interactions with the world at large) -

• It is the lens that will bring me peace of mind; and

• It is the lens I wish people would use to judge my own actions (“do unto others…” and all that)

My facebook keyboard warrior days are behind me. I am older, have far lesser energy for outrage, and as long as I’m not treading towards dangerous rationalisation, I have begun actively seeking out that interpretation of events that brings me peace of mind. Giving someone the benefit of doubt and assuming by default they had good intentions (or at the very least, did not have ill intentions) is the easiest path to mental peace.

A dear friend had written this quote in exquisite Malayalam calligraphy above his desk at college. Sharing a loose translation below:

The lives we don’t experience are mere fiction to us.

- Benyamin, Goat Days

The older I grow, the more it becomes clear to me that human beings are composed of multitudes.⁵ We will probably never fully understand another person’s myriad motivations, past hurts, future aspirations, and all the secret thoughts in between. I’ve unintentionally hurt people I care about and people who care about me have unintentionally hurt me. Neither of us wanted to hurt each other, obviously, but it still ended up happening because, well, life, adulting, stress, just the human condition?

Remember that quote from school - “Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes”? I propose we slightly rewrite that quote to a more realistic “You can never walk a mile in another person’s shoes, so be wary before you judge them”.

And that’s my biggest case for benevolent interpretation - even with the best of intentions, we are all going to unintentionally mess up. It’s easier to fight and make up after if we extend to each other the grace and presumption of good faith we wish were extended to us when we messed up.

Leaving you with my favourite poem on mercy:

She asks me to kill the spider.
Instead, I get the most
peaceful weapons I can find.

I take a cup and a napkin.
I catch the spider, put it outside
and allow it to walk away.

If I am ever caught in the wrong place
at the wrong time, just being alive
and not bothering anyone,

I hope I am greeted
with the same kind
of mercy.

- Rudy Francisco

Until next time,

Stay healthy and happy friends,

Sruthi

P.s. Go watch RARPK if you haven’t already! We can discuss all our favourite scenes after!

P.p.s. I know that the only way I’ll get better at writing is if I write more. But at the same time the perfectionist demon that’s the newest resident in my brain wants my writing to be absolutely perfect before I put it out into the world and - both logically and counterintuitively - I don’t even get started. But I read this quote somewhere and it pushed me to put this piece out:

Every first draft is perfect because all the first draft has to do is exist. It's perfect in its existence. The only way it could be imperfect would be to NOT exist.

- Jane Smiley

Going forward, I’m going to focus on just writing my by-their-very-existence perfect first drafts and not worrying about the rest =)

P.p.p.s. How masterful was that last shot of Oppenheimer which showed us the conversation between Oppenheimer and Einstein? 2023 really is shaping up to be a wonderful year for cinema and content!

1. K3G is a movie I love unabashedly despite its many problematic tropes because I was 7 years old when I first watched it and nostalgia colours everything in rose tinted hues

2. To me, Jaya Bachchan’s Dhanlakshmi Randhawa was essentially a patriarch as the customs in the Randhawa household were designed to favour men - Rocky’s mother was expected to be a homemaker, Rocky’s sister was expected to get married ASAP and had to hide her passion for stock trading, Rocky would inherit Dhanlakshmi Sweets, etc. Personally, I don’t think her being a woman made this setup a matriarchy.

3. Incidentally, Karan Johar’s take is that the monologue was quintessentially Rocky; Rocky wouldn’t have meekly apologised, that isn’t who he is!

4. Few people can make writing feel as personal and vulnerable as he does, not to mention his stunning breadth of vocabulary. RD, Baradwaj Rangan and Roger Ebert are my Holy Trinity of film critics!

5. Shoutout to my fellow ‘The Seen and the Unseen’ fans! Which is your favourite TSATU episode?