The story about a Madur Bhandarkar, and a Vishal Bhardwaj

I don’t think that Madhur Bhandarkar and Vishal Bhardwaj are just people. They can so easily signify so many things. They obviously signify two seemingly alike styles of cinema. Yknow, how they seem to show the real India, unlike the fluff that’s portrayed by the majority of Bollywood.
But one thing bugs me, just because they are different from the majority, doesn’t mean we pool them together.
I think they represent two different type of art and cinemas, one which is serious yet takes itself lightly, the other is self engrossed and self serious.
When you are exposing the underbelly of Corporate or the Fashion world, the first thing that you are doing is journalism, but when you leave it to just that, you just end up being a glorified journalist.
Yes, it’s indeed a hard thing to find realism in much art these days, since everything’s getting bigger and better. Realism is much respected, since it’s a hard discipline to follow. But I think there’s also a fault in thinking that realism in itself is a great achievement. It’s like any other genre it’s a medium used to express oneself.
Reality is a launching pad for artistic expression. Where the artist has to find his own voice and not hide behind the noise of real life.
That’s the difference between a Bhandarkar and a Bhardwaj
But that might not be the only thing separating the two artists.
One is strictly Indian, stuck in that frame; the other is global on the surface yet has an Indian core. The same difference between an artist who has used utensils to make tremendous artistic expression worthy of the world stage, and artists who have used clichés images in boring ways, images of cows on streets, the tricolor palette of colors , kites with wheatish brown colored people, people who copy paste from the ancient Indian art styles and “fit” them into the current scene(see cows on streets and wheatish people with kite).
Just painting an image of India is not enough, you have to get the essence of it, let it boil inside you, and then does the aroma settle and spread its effect. I think its important to live India, and act yourself, our identity might be through India but India’s identity is defined by us.
So we have to see, are we Indian or are we too Indian?