Life in interesting times

After watching Kapoor and Sons a couple of weeks ago, and Ki and Ka this weekend, I felt both a sense of relief and stumbled upon a realisation.

The sense of relief came from the fact that film makers are making stories about people like us. These are hugely relatable characters, family dynamics, social associations and the like. These films don’t even try to take us to a fantasy land to ‘forget about life for a while’; in the words of the very wise Billy Joel. They are about life. And not even about a particular adventure in life – like for instance, in Jab we met, which was not very long ago - they are about occurrences that inevitably can happen in any life.

So when we see the driven and career minded Kia as the lead, we don’t even bat an eyelid. In fact, the character felt very-close-home, down to her v-neck knit tops. Ka is a less run off the mill guy, but he is not an implausible character either. There are many guys, who are not just comfortable around ambitious women, they are ok with not being the most career focussed people in town as well, because they have different ideas of how they want to lead their lives.

The film might by itself not come together as seamlessly as one would hope (and the whole conversion of the house into a railway station is inexplicable), but every scene by itself is entertaining and saying something interesting. So whether it is Ka’s annoyance at Ki not paying enough attention to him at their honeymoon or Ki’s competitiveness at losing out to Ka in the popularity race, we see everyday challenges that a modern couple can face.

It helps that Ki is the very luminous Kareena Kapoor Khan, who has such effortless mastery over her craft, you can’t but wonder: Why is she not there in more such films? I don’t know much at all about the film trade, but I find it hard to believe, if that is the reason, that she is anywhere near being past her saleability date. That Balki has made the film is a good thing – he is very relaxed about women taking unusual decisions in his films – whether it is Tabu, who marries an older guy in Cheeni Kum or Vidya Balan who has a child out of wedlock in Paa. In fact, in the latter, it is not even an issue. Like, it should be, in any civilised society.

Which brings me to the realisation: Regular life in today’s times is more layered, evolving, and definitely glamorous enough to be mainstream movie-worthy than it has ever been in the past. And should we be grateful for that, or what.

At least, for the high-heels, ya?