I recently saw the trailer of the much anticipated movie- Kedarnath.
And something which I intuitively wanted to see was how sensitively it deals and addresses the tragedy of the Kedarnath floods.
Well! Let’s have a quick, IMPORTANT fact check
- More than 5,700 people were feared to have died during the massive floods.
- More than 4,000 people were recorded as 'lost' and are still not found.
- More than 12,000 houses were damaged.
- Stranded people were looted, women were raped, dead bodies were mutiliated so that the jewelry worn could be stolen.
- It incurred a loss of more than INR 12,000 crores to the state.
It was an event which sent waves of emotional trauma across the lengths and breadths of our nation.
It was an incident mourned by people.
So many families were seperated, children became parentless and what not.
It was one of the worst tragedies of India in the 21st century.
In a nutshell,
THE FLOODS AT KEDARNATH WERE A FREAKING TRAGEDY AND NOT A HYPOTHETICAL PLOT TO SET UP YET ANOTHER LOVE STORY.
But, but, but, our Bollywood pays very little, I should rather say, the least bit of mercy towards events with a traumatic past.
Digging up a love story at every and any place IS NOT A GOOD IDEA.
Bollywood, please learn to respect the sentiments of the people who feed your industry.
A steamy kissing scene to grab eyeballs won’t do any good.
If you really had plans to make a movie on this tragedy, you should have done it on the real life heroes who saved people during that peak time of hopelessness- be it Army, NGOs, individuals who saved even a single life!
That would have earned you much more respect in the eyes of the audience than a love story set in a tragic setting against your stereotypical popular idea of sensationalising every issue.
- Economic disparity between the hero and heroine? Check.
- Religious differences between the hero and heroine? Check.
- A contemporary issue to grab attention of people? Check.
With the tagline ‘Love is a pilgrimage’, the film is reportedly a unique love story of a Muslim pithoo (Sushant) and a Hindu tourist (Sara), set in the backdrop of the Uttarakhand floods that left the state devastated in 2013.
An incident which left more than 5000 people dead, 22,000 stranded is not something that should be go down the history as one on which a freakin' love story was made.
Just for a moment stop tainting every serious issue with a romantic lens.
Not every issue is meant to be romanticised and sold to the masses.
Respect the emotional upheaval and painful memories people have with such a sorrowful incident.
Grow up Bollywood.
Footnotes:
Kedarnath is not an everyday love story, says producer Pragya Kapoor
Kedarnath poster: Sushant Singh Rajput and Sara Ali Khan rework Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol’s DDLJ pose