Indian cinema is changing on the surface but not in its soul. Every few years we are handed another Ramayana and another Mahabharata dressed in new colours with new faces, filming the same story we have heard a thousand times and somehow this keeps happening without anyone asking the most basic question. Why.
Why are we still stuck in this endless loop of retelling epics, when we live in a world where stories can travel to galaxies and back. Why are directors so comfortable repeating the same narrative and calling it a vision. Why do we as an audience accept it without a single frown simply because it is backed by a belief system.
The answer is not spiritual and it is definitely not cinematic. It is business. Directors know that if they pick an epic they get a cushion automatically. They get the audience of believers. They get the attention of the religious crowd. They get a ticket to immunity because no one in this country wants to criticise anything that sits under the shadow of faith. So they keep doing the easiest thing possible. They take a story that already has an emotional audience and then they pour money on it and call it a magnum opus. They sell the same script in a new wrapper and call it innovation.
Where is the creativity in this. Where is the courage. Where is the risk taking that defines real cinema. This is not brilliance. This is laziness. This is playing safe with a minimum guarantee mindset. If they pick Ramayana or Mahabharata they know they will not fail completely. So why bother writing something new. Why imagine a world in the future. Why build a cinema that challenges the audience or expands their taste. Just pick an epic and sell it. Simple.
Look at the biggest blockbusters in the past six or seven years. You will hardly find a contemporary idea that became a phenomenon. Everything massive is rooted in some epic. The hero is always someone from an ancient story. The villain is always borrowed from mythology. The conflict is always decorated with the language of old glory. There is nothing wrong with epics. But there is something very wrong with repeating them endlessly while the rest of the world is pushing the boundaries of science, fiction, imagination and futuristic storytelling.
We are living in a time of artificial intelligence, space exploration, new technology and cinematic revolutions across the globe. Other industries are creating worlds that do not exist yet. They are experimenting with ideas that challenge humanity. They are asking questions that make viewers think. Meanwhile here we are still sinking money into the same tales that were already told with more soul centuries ago.
This habit is not just about the mindset of directors. It is also mindset of the audience too. People are willing to watch the same epic again and again because belief systems give comfort. They give a sense of safety and a sense of proudness. They give a shield where no one has to think too hard because everything is familiar. It is easier to applaud something when it already has an emotional foundation. And when something is wrapped in religion no one dares to criticise it even if the film is mediocre.
So we stay stuck. The audience keeps accepting. The directors keep recycling. The money keeps flowing. And cinema as an art form stands where it was. While the world builds the future, we keep digging into the past with the same old shovel hoping we will find something new in the same soil.
There is something even more serious beneath all this. A problem that goes beyond cinema and touches the way we think as a society.
Will discuss that in the next blog.
To be continued.
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