First posted on Desicritics on 12th October, 2008.
Happy Days is the only Telugu hit in over a year. The people involved with the movie are still basking in its success, giving interviews and appearing in various TV shows. In an interview before the release of Happy Days, its director Shekar Kammula said that he was struck by the absence of a genuine Telugu college film in the last decade. Surprise, because for over eight years all the South Indian film industries have been churning out teenage love stories, usually set against a college backdrop. It all started with Teja’s Chitram and K Vijaya Bhaskar’s Nuvve Kavali becoming trend-setters in 2000.
People hoped that Shekar meant something more than a love story by a college film. More so because he decided to “romanticize college life” according to that interview. Though mistaken as a classic director, Shekar is laudable for the sensitivity with which he handles his characters. Only four movies old, he has carved for himself a distinct name especially among film critics.
Sadly, his attempt to romanticize resulted in romance almost exclusively. The only major differences are that most of the scenes of the movie are set in an engineering college and instead of one pair there are four pairs here. Those who’ve embraced the movie have argued over and again about the inevitability. “Do you want to simply see students attending classes or fighting over college politics?” they asked.
Do they have a point? Are romance and politics the only noteworthy features of college life?
I tried to look back into my own college life. Unless one counted discussing the tumultuous love lives of friends of friends and giving word of mouth publicity to acquaintances who contested in elections, there was neither romance nor politics in my college life. What else then?
Freedom. To many if not most students, freedom is the condition that intoxicates them time after time. Depending on the oft-changing priorities, the young minds indulge in various activities. This, in fact, continues long after college days until people somehow “settle down”.
Some try out a wide range of hobbies, zero in on one of them, and pursue it with a rejuvenated passion. Some network incredibly and devote a major part of their time to arranging college festivals. Some get addicted, say to the Internet, and play truant stretching the rope till it snaps. Some, to their own surprise, discover a love for their career paths which had been initially chosen under parental and/or peer pressure. Some do a little of everything. Everybody invariably spends time in what are called “fart sessions” to varying degrees. The pleasurable activity not only binds new bonds, but also shapes perceptions about topics which otherwise would have not occupied any space in their minds.
Underlying these umpteen activities is a gestalt of confusion and uncertainty that resurfaces every now and then and sharply towards the end of the phase. Have I wasted all these years? Should I have done it differently? Am I good enough to survive the harsh future? Will I make it? It may take years for them to appreciate that they’ve come out wiser, having unconsciously learnt lessons that serve a lifetime.
These are all aspects of college life which it is possible to sketch using stereotypical characters. And they are as interesting as romance or politics for a movie to be made about.
Shekar too in this movie used stereotypes: the confused boy, the studious boy, the nerd, the playboy, the tomboy. It is just that all of them had their first loves as their major complications. Another great opportunity wasted.
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