POV: 5 things Bollywood taught me that shaped my life

Whether we like it or not, Bollywood is a huge part of our culture and so many of us have grown up inculcating a lot from the movies into our own personalities. Out of all the content I've consumed over the years, here's my takeaway from it.

As Indians, we take our movies and Cricket rather seriously! Every single thing about it is dissected, dismantled and discussed. And that's how my love for movies began, when I was a kid. There’s so much that I learnt about life in general just by the way I saw these characters live their hero’s journey on-screen. I fell in love with the way they romanticized life but also spilled some hard hitting truths that have now become iconic phrases in pop culture. Since I loved watching Bollywood movies almost every weekend in the theatre, it became a huge part of who I went on to become as a person.

Pooh taught me to live like a main character everywhere I went, Om taught me that we create our own path and we deserve our own happy ending. And Sid taught me that I will eventually find my calling in life and do what I love. There’s just so much I learnt from the various stories that I watched over the years and I didn't know that one day, I'd be an amalgamation of these bits and pieces I picked up along the way!

Also Read: 9 on-screen characters who weren't teachers, but we learnt a lot from them!

Here’s how Bollywood became my life guru!

It taught me how to be a hopeless romantic!

My first introduction to the concept of love was when Shah Rukh Khan saw Kajol for the first time in K3G. How he falls head over heels in love with her at the first sight is something I wanted to experience too. When I listened to 'Kuch Toh Hua Hai, Kuch Hogaya Hai’ from Kal Ho Naa Ho, it showed me how happy everything feels when you’re in love. That’s when I started looking not only at relationships but life in general with a very romantic lens.

Just like our films, our lives too get a happy ending and if it’s not a happy ending then ‘picture abhi baaki hai mere dost’

A lot of times, things don’t go the way we want them to and hence it's not the happy ending that we thought it would be in our heads. But because of Bollywood, I do believe that if you love something, the universe does come together to give you what you truly deserve.

No matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to be present everywhere

I have learnt it the hard way as an adult but I finally have accepted the fact that as much as I’d like to, I cannot be present everywhere and make everyone happy. I also recently traveled abroad and realized that what Naina said to Bunny in YJHD was actually so true. “Life mein jitna bhi try karlo Bunny kuch na kuch toh chutega hi”. There’s just way too many things to do and life is just too short to do it all so rather just be in the present moment.

How to not have two left feet

A huge part of Bollywood is its songs and I grew up dancing to them all! I feel that just like me, so many Indians just love dancing simply because Bollywood dance numbers just taught us how to let loose and dance like there’s no tomorrow!

Our history and culture

If it weren’t for certain Bollywood films I wouldn’t know about half of our historical figures and unsung heroes. Quite a few historic films from over the years left a huge impact on me in terms of the resilience the people in that era had and how things happened back then compared to now. There's so much inspiration one can draw from these stories to bring change into the world in our own little way.

Bollywood always has and will continue to be my number one mentor for all things life. Sometimes it teaches me how to see the good in people and sometimes it helps me filter out the bad. I hope it’ll always be something that I can count on to show me the way!

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