First real exposure to Hollywood

Movies are part of growing up for most of us. When I was growing up in the late eighties and early nineties, movies meant Saturday and Sunday afternoon broadcasts on Doordarshan. Hindi movies at 4pm on Saturdays and Bengali movies at 5pm on Sundays.

We watched whatever was shown, mostly very old Bollywood films with the likes of Raj Kapoor or Dilip Kumar.

This went on for many years before Hindi movies slots on Doordarshan were moved to 9 pm in the evening which was late night as far as me and my brother were concerned.

So movie watching went down for many years. However, during all these years I had very little exposure to Hollywood.

If I am not wrong, the first English movie that I saw was First Blood. Bose uncle, our neighbor asked me one day if I wanted to watch Rambo or not. I had heard about Rambo from my friends but had no idea who or what that was. I went to Bose kaku's place and watched in wide-eyed admiration and adrenaline-pumping exhilaration what John Rambo could do. He jumped from a cliff, he stiched his skin and went mad with his guns, pumping hundreds of bullets into his enemies.

Just magnificent.

I can't remember all the other movies I watched, but I remember Men in Black, again at Bose kaku's. I kept wondering for quite some time into the movie who MIB was :D

Next was perhaps Titanic. Boy, was it awesome! The biggest draw for us school kids was the portrait scene and the lovemaking scene. Titanic was the first exposure to nudity which we knew was always present in English films, for that matter it was the first exposure to nudity and the world of adults for many of us kids.

Through all these years, however, I never became a fan of cinema. Perhaps, I was not old enough to really become movie buffs at that age.

That love for cinema, especially Hollywood movies first took seed when I watched Braveheart when I went to college. Braveheart opened the whole wide world in front of me. I became aware for the first time what cinema could do. The kind of stories it was possible to tell through the lens, the reality of it, the emotions of it. I loved every frame from that movie. I always loved history and Braveheart added fuel to my quest for reading and knowing about history in a more profound way than any history book from my school could.

And the music. The music transferred me to the cloudy, foggy mountains of Scotland. The fight for Scottish freedom struck a chord deep within me. William Wallace became my hero.

I am thankful to Braveheart and Mel Gibson for opening my eyes to cinema. I went on to see many great movies, some of them are way better in many different ways but Braveheart will always have a very special place in my heart.

Freedom!