Aditya Shrikrishna · @gradwolf
3rd May 2016 from TwitLonger
This comment: As counter to "Tamasha invalidates or looks down upon 'desk jobs'"
Tamasha as a counter point (or even a companion piece) to Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year
https://baradwajrangan.wordpress.com/2016/04/29/guest-post-breaking-gender-stereotypes-what-queen-and-tamasha-tell-us/#comment-60941
Late here but this is an interesting diversion the discussion has taken. I did notice a lot of criticism during the height of Tamasha on how it invalidates the desk job, over romanticizes the arts. Though I didn’t see it that way, I can imagine why that can rankle in this era of eagle eyed criticism and think pieces.
I wonder if Ranbir Kapoor saw the dichotomy here and chose the role but I can bet Imtiaz Ali did. Rocket Singh is the other film that was lauded critically (luckier than Tamasha that way) but terribly failed at the box office. A stellar script from Jaideep Sahni, a film that celebrated the desk job – I somehow find this term reductive – but surely it celebrated the dream of a business, the owner, the industrial revolution so to speak. It’s the complete opposite of Tamasha and we can wonder endlessly why there was no criticism that, how can anyone love or romanticize a desk job so much (hey it is not cool enough!). But for all purposes, here is your answer – the desk job celebrating film has already been made, it is even better than Tamasha and it is Ranbir Kapoor himself espousing the philosophy.
A particularly poignant line from the incredible scene in the end has this line – “Maine neeche wala raasta liya kyunki aap ne koi aur raasta chhoda nahin tha mere liye”. Singh says this to his boss, but you can very well see Ved say the same to his father in the last scene when he finally turns into the no-holds-barred storyteller.
A beautifully scripted and performed scene that just about stops short of making love to the “desk job” – “jab khoon pasina ek saath kagaz par chapta hai na,
table bed ban jaati hai aur office ghar, bhuk pyaas bhool jaati hai, bal bachche rul jaate hain, tab jaake saali company banti hai”.
Where were you when the desk job film was made? ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1uob7Rh0EE