Cocktail ...bitter tale!

Being disappointed with Hindi cinema I had stopped going to the theatre. Then came Cocktail, looking fresh with pretty girls, stunning locations, and well, hummable songs. If you watch the movie from entertainment point of you, you would probably not be disappointed. But it hurts at many other levels.

Veronica (Deepika Padukone) is a 'bad' girl. She drinks, goes to pubs, wears skimpy clothes and sleeps with random men. Her parents have probably abandoned her with oodles of money. She has no purpose in life. Enter Meera (Diana Penty) - a timid girl abandoned by her husband on the streets of London with no where to go. This Salwar Kurta clad damsel meets Veronica in a drug store and accepts her invitation to stay with her.
As fate would have it, they become best friends and Meera shows off her petite figure with much ease. No, she doesn't start drinking and sleeping with random men. Why she didn't take the other 'bad' girl traits from Veronica is a mystery.

Saif plays the charmless casanova. His and Veronica's is the perfect jodi. For kahaani mein twist, Saif tells Meera how she's adorable and how she will meet a man who will never leave her side. And that was it. He becomes a good guy who falls in love with Meera and she reciprocates. This good girl becomes hungry-for-love-backstabbing bitch!
Veronica also realises how her life is vain and how she needs a house and a husband to pamper her. Ok, hungry-for-love-sati-savitri. Meera leaves Saif for her best friend Veronica. Veronica does everything to gain Saif's love. But obviously Saif wants what he cannot have - Meera.

Anyway, the story is not important. I wanted to see a liberated woman, who she is, till the climax of the film. I didn't want her to change for a typical Indian man with double standards. Why is a girl who is 'bold' termed 'bad' and a girl who isn't loyal to her friend termed 'good'? Why are 'shorts' bad and 'salwar kurta' good? If I don't pray, can't cook or can't impress the mother-in-law, I'm not suitable for a boy? Saif's mom Dimple tells Veronica, 'tum ladki achi ho, par kapde bahut chote pehenti ho'. Disgusting!

Bollywood is an important medium of showing the world what India is. Heck, it is an important medium of showing who we are to our own countrymen and mother-in-laws. Indian girls are not who they were 50 years ago. We have changed, for our own good. Clothes and alcohol certainly don't define us. According to the media, we take home the good girls and we play with the bad ones.Why? I don't even think that this is entirely true. We can't blame the Guwahati men if we accept this movie with open arms. Afterall, the girl was drinking and probably not dressed in Salwar Kurta - she was indeed a 'bad' girl. Ofcourse they had no right to judge her and ill-treat her, but it's our moral responsibility to show her the 'right' path.

We need writers, movie makers, journalists, to tell these men how wrong they are. Movies like Cocktail will do no good to our scarred society. For heaven's sake, don't watch it.