OSO and Tare Zameen par

I know it has been long since OSO - Om Shanti Om and TZP - Taare Zamin Par, hit the theatres. But, i always wanted to write why i preferred OSO over TZP. If i recall the days from my childhood when going to movies with parents was a rare event, i always preferred movies which had songs i could sing later, watch with awe how the hero could fight 10 people at the same time and still remain unscathed and how in the end the heroine went to her hero. Later when i started going out with my friends, i started liking so called art movies or based on some real life incidents. After watching these movies, i had one sentiment for sure, pessimism. Life did seem hard from the newspapers and now the 24*7 news channels not leaving any stone unturned to be the first one to report some event. It seems as if we were born to hear people bickering with each other, someone who goes to some other country in search of better opportunities and uplifting his standard of living and his peers, getting bogged down and pressurised to come back after certain years of success, the saas-bahut sops, slowly changing the way women were portrayed in Indian television and film industry.
OSO - among the movies to be released around Diwali 2007 was a welcome respite. I found all the elements of cinema i had so much wanted to see all these years. It had song and dance, a beautiful actress, and equal suitor in the form of Shah Rukh Khan and other co actors. The plot, a pure fiction, was so set that even before the audience could contemplate what was about to happen, the whole story moved around 20 years ahead. But then, still all the song, dance, action was not missing and the film ended on a happier note. I am happy. I got all what i expected from cinema, atleast there was a difference between a news channel and a movie.
TZP - although normally, i appreciate any effort by an individual or society to try and bring socially/financially/physically or otherwise backward people into the mainstream, this one where people boasted they had wanted to cry out loud while watching the movie, put me on the defensive. Why should i go and put in my 3 hours and 150 rs just to watch someone weep or get myself pulled in some emotion which our cinema is capable of, BUT, forget the moment i step out of the theatre. If cinema can make me compassionate about something, i have no issues, BUT, if it was so capable, things may have changed a bit more. And what happened after the movie, what is being done for the type of kids shown in the movie, by the general public or some gov agencies, how far have they come, is worth debatable.

Till then, i am singing, 'Aankhon mein teri ajab si ajab se adayein hai'