Mr. India is amongst one of the few movies that find relevance across all generations. Like today there weren’t as many channels back when we were kids, and for seeing new movies one had to essentially make a trip to the nearby single screen that had typical 12, 3, 6 and 9 pm shows.

Back home from school, lunch was almost shoved down our throats and within moments we were expected to change into already laid out clothes to make it to the preferred 3pm slot by our mothers. Fights Discussions on who will sit where and who did or didn’t deserve popcorn started in the auto-ride to the theatre itself. No, we didn’t mind any of it! 🙂

Anyway, back to Mr. India. There are many scenes in the movie that stay with you long after you’ve seen it. I remember our extempore dancing on the Football parody in the theatre, the crying by buckets when the cute little girl dies in the bomb blast, the horror of seeing men melt in the acid pool and turn into skeletons and even Anil Kapoor’s inappropriate for us but absolutely mesmerising I Love You….! *still blushing* 😛

I mentioned something about generations earlier, right? Well, that’s because old as the movie might be, it has found a die-hard fan in A Jr. For the annual function in our society our super-excited kids weren’t able to zero-in on any new song. I don’t know who it was, but someone suggested this parody and everyone simply jumped at it! After promptly making me show him the video on Youtube, A Jr was all up for it.

The function is long over, the kids did an absolutely awesome dance performance on it by the way, but the song got etched into A Jr’s memory. Since Mr. India reruns are quite frequent on many movie channels, now he insists on seeing it every single time it’s aired. This time too, I don’t mind it. The good thing though, is that he has now matured to understand and grasp lot more than the fun part of it.

Branded a cry-baby myself, I was speechless when today while watching the movie A Jr just couldn’t stop sobbing. The scene was when Anil Kapoor doesn’t have the money to feed his adopted kids and they go hungry for two days, till Sridevi has a turn of heart and brings yummy treats for all of them.

I was silently crying myself, but I distinctly noticed A Jr keep his lunch aside and go on crying uncontrollably. I tried to make him turn around and talk to me but he refused. When he did, his eyes were all red and he came to me and hugged me tightly, still refusing to speak.

I calmed him down as best as I could, and he did, but I guess he finally got the lesson I otherwise couldn’t have taught him this well. I sometimes feel I get too harsh with him when I deny him a chocolate for no reason, scold him for throwing away books with lots of blank usable pages, carelessly sharpening pencils till they are reduced to half or leaving food in his plate.

Come to think of it though, shouldn’t we all at least take the effort to make our kids realise that the things they take for granted aren’t as freely and easily available to every child in the world? I’m in no way in the favour of rebuking their privileges, but we can surely make them feel compassionate and thankful, yes?

Mr. India’s magic lay in the fact that even while being invisible he could fight the bad men and make the world a better place to live. In his own unique way, today he taught my boy something priceless. It is wrong to be mean to others. Good people may have to face hardships, but they must always be good. Er, also, it is alright for children to be naughty. 😉

Wrong gender but I cannot resist this, Varsh khush hua! 😀 😀