The real significance of Oscars glory for us

And so, we won the Oscars, too. A truly great moment for Indian cinema. We just bagged an Oscar not only for the insanely wild Telugu song 'NaatuNaatu' for the best original song from the Rajamouli blockbuster, 'RRR,' but also for the subtle Indo-American Tamil short documentary, 'The Elephant Whisperers.'

Let the Oscars dust settle down. Pause. Shall we now look into our ethos and our cultural and emotional inheritances? Unfortunately, we never recognize our own greatness and always look forward to foreigners' appreciation. Hence, we still have a Shakespeare of the East in Kalidasa and an Italian of the East in Telugu and so on and so forth. Thousands of years of ever evolving civilization has endowed us with all the nuances of art and life. The varied literature we have which ranges from the philosophical to spiritual to existential in all languages is mind-blowing in depth and content nature. Only, we never marketed them worldwide.

People came to us from outside on their own for various reasons and interpreted our ways of life, according to their understanding and preferences. All that is slowly changing and Indians are asserting themselves on the world stage in every field with greater confidence leading to recognition otherwise reserved only to the developed. 'RRR' grossed more than Rs 1,250 crore worldwide and became viral globally. The 40-minute docu-film about a Kattunayakan tribal couple, Bomman and Belli' in Tamil Nadu and how they bring up orphaned elephants like their own children also became viral globally thanks to the technological avenues.

These two are two different genres and deal with extreme emotions. One displays the dynamism of life while the other deals with the more subtle values like compassion and love for the non-human life forms. Rajamouli adopted an aggressive style of storytelling while Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga merged the docu with the silence of simpler hearts of the jungle. 'RRR' is pure fiction of convoluted history –of course, Deepika was wrong in introducing the main characters as real-life revolutionary friends – whereas 'The Elephant Whisperers' mirrors a real-life story.

So, what does all this mean to Indian cinema which had a stereotype image of loud musicals? The Oscars have gone to the diversity called India. No doubt, as some critics have suggested, the credit for the greatness of these two efforts should equally go to the OTT platforms. It also tells the world that Indian Cinema is not only about Bollywood and its listless stories of nowadays.

Even if some of them rake in money for the producers, it is the regional flavour that is in dominance now. There lies the story 'of our stories'. The urbanised megapolis not only change our lifestyles but also our choices. We tend to drift away from the purer forms of preferences. Wasn't it a shame that on Oscar night, Jimmy Kimmel referred to RRR as a Bollywood film. Why did not anyone point it out on the stage while receiving the award at least? One could have revealed it is an Indian-Tollywood movie just as the docu-film which is called Indo-American Tamil venture? Perhaps, overtaken by the emotion of winning an award at the world stage? These awards certainly encourage, particularly, documentary makers more than any. So-called mainstream films could also try something different and relevant to 'ek maar, do maar, teen maar' cultures.