Ayan' YOLO" Mukerji

Coming of age has been a popular and central theme to most commercial cinema aimed at the generic teenager. People like John Hughes made an entire career making mediocre shit like Ferris Buehhler that made every teenager perceive non existent depth to the plot line. Rob Thompson, a leading Pop Culture expert in the United States defines it as the "teensploitation" genre and has been ranting to me about how John Hughes was a market driven douchebag and everything he made was turd.A bit much is what i would say but as does happen with most instances of cultural osmosis between the Cinema in the US of A and India, thirty years later was born the celebrated Bengali Ayan Mukerji.

Wake up Sid was the first that came along that turned every third guy in the hostel dormitory and street corner into a "creative bwoy". Honestly speaking, that year had seen Lakshya, a far more mature attempt at the "Coming of Age" cinema(With a slightly KMG hungover Hrithik though ofcourse). What Ayan did with his film though, was provide a massive boost to the sales of Canon and Nikon as every guy now was not only swiping his Daddys card at Emporio, but was also clicking pictures with puke like 'Sepia" filters and watermarking them . This isn't to put down the industry of photographers at all, but even they within themselves know that a majority of people picking it up was part of a Multiplex sham that was fed to them through the eyes of a likeable but brutish spoilt brat. This is what every 3rd year college undergrad was dreaming of. I mean, the Bangkok made printed Tees he wore were to been seen everywhere on ripped boys in Delhi University who had started to look so much like Ranbeer Kapoor it was worrisome. But time passed, and people didn't really give too much of a shit about Hauz Khas and the DSLR's started to gather dust. I can only imagine a dark rainy night when the MD of Sales at the camera firm probably called him saying a boost was needed. Ayan of course had grown up by now and evolved into someone who surprisingly was even more pretentious .

This was the pits. The semblance of realism that existed in his first was now pissed upon with some really good songs. Perhaps its the crowd at film school talking, but i clearly remember way too many people walking out of that movie saying 'that guy is me'. This film became the ultimate excuse for people suffering from the 'very real' quarter life crisis to quickly make a trip to Spain and party for month, of course filming evry now and then. To travel, you need some money. And to make that money, the least favourable route you could adopt is to be a guy who is clicking pictures of a mythical goat that craps flowers once a decade in Spiti Valley. Coming back to 'Teensploitation", its twisted because making hard personal calls and seeking to live a non traditional lifestyle usually get you satisfaction, but that happens when youre a few years in and can look at yourself not as an emotional or financial liability on your parents,your partner or society. It definitely doesn't happen in the first rain of the season. And also,'Kabira' isnt playing in the background.