Bunty and Babli: The Face of the Current Generation?

Choti Choti Shaharon se
Kaali bore duparahon se
Hum to jhola utake chale
[...]
Hum Chale, Hum Chale
Oye Raam Chand re
[...]
Dhadak Dhadak
Mujhe bulaye re

Are chores of peope who went out of their ‘choti sharar’s for education or work playing “Bunty Aur Babli”? The story of a young lad trying to break free from the clutches of a small town mentality and resources to reach a wonderland of opportunities that will make him “someone” strikes a chord with me. I am sure there are hundreds out there who come from a similar background as I am–some small town.. went umpteen places to study and then is working in some city. Are we making a mistake (“Hum Galat The”)?

Let me get the movie out of the way first. The story assumes honesty = poverty and respect minus comforts. It also assumes Naukri = poverty. These are no longer true thanks to the IT revolution and Mr. “NRN” Murthy and Premji in particular (but the script writers, directors etc. could be from that generation where it was practically true).

Bunty and Bubli make their day mostly out of theft and cheating. So the story is not applicable to majority of the Bunties and Bablies I am referring to. But it raises intriguing questions.

What is our (bunty aur babli ka) goal in life? We seem to be ceaselessly planning our career for the next big step. How long will it last? What are we breaking free from? And what is our destination? Do we just want to be “someone important”? Will the enthu last till we actually achieve something? Or are we selfish to stop trying soon after we are “someone important”?

And what about our choti shehar? Do we have any responsibility towards our hometowns? If every one uses our home-towns only till we can “break-free,” are the towns ever going to improve? I don’t think I have ever done anything to my hometown. But I have rejoiced when my hometown paper wrote about me “Some one from our town made it!” I have never felt heavier about my hometown. My hometown actually is a hot place (55 degrees in summer) with a declining population. But still it is the place where I grew up. It provided me with a place to live, school to study and a job to my father so he can feed the family.

Can our towns survive their own “brain-drain”?

Inspiration:
Small town India of Bunty aur Babli
Rama Bijapurkar
June 21, 2005

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