Practical Paro Artless Chandramukhi

Dev D is overwhelming, every time I think of writing about it, there are so many thoughts rushing in I end up writing about something entirely different...

Number one I had no idea we had started making movies like this.
Number two the director is a man.
Number three he has been smart enough to make such a movie and still keep it out of all controversy. I almost thought it was a B grade movie when Chammak Challo is asked to send a photograph of hers to Cool Dude during an online chat. She could have met the same fate as the Delhi school girl in the MMS case...
I had always wondered what that Delhi student's family might be going through, the police had gone to meet her. The parents said she had been sent abroad (Ah the magical place, thank God for Abroad!) ...why can't India be a bit of abroad for it's female citizens? All that moralising in those days, gave me the creeps . She was just a kid and obviously not a very smart kid. Not like the street smart (but equally lovable) Paro. She was not really a criminal, just a foolish, naive, stupid girl. She needed to be told to mind what she got herself filmed doing, and by who. It should have been left at that.

In the movie she is half Indian and I have seen how confusing our culture can be for all half western, half Indian girls. I see one such naive fool with this boy in dark corners near my place. I sometimes think I should tell her mother to watch out for Indian double standards. Does this foreigner know what hypocrites we Indians are? Sometimes my neighbours discuss how this is offensive. I really can't see how it offends them though I have tried. So I tactfully suggest we leave these kids' morals to their parents.

We Indians are not naive like this American girl, ...Paro epitomizes some of us and I admire her for her practicality!

Paro is smart. This girl has confidence, she is proud of passing with good grades every year, better than Dev D, who barely scrapes though :) Our justified faith in education as a saviour, and our Indian obsession with good grades. I know many class toppers being equally bright in every field, including -like Paro, in their ability to break some social standards of perfect female behaviour. But their biggest ability lies in still surviving it all, to live a normal middle class life. That's the best part. We see it happening everywhere. So unlike the child like trust and innocence of the Western girls who get caught on camera and ruin their lives. Why can't they understand our Indian values and culture? What's so complicated in this simple rule? And it couldn't get simpler than this: Just don't get caught.

That's our culture in four simple words. Just don't get caught.