Caught up with my friend N after a long time and conversation turned to quality of movies coming out of India and her parents being skeptical about them always and even more now that they are elderly and set in their ways. Made me think about how similar our families were growing up in a very similar social and cultural milieu and yet how far apart our formative experiences had been. She grew up on Disney animation and that was a very small part of my childhood. My parents took me to watch Bollywood movies from the 50s and 60s because they loved the music of that time and my father was a very good self-taught vocalist. He had a huge repertoire of Hindi and Bangla songs and he was always singing when at home. They both liked what was called parallel cinema in those days and introduced me to it early.
I used to know other kids from families similar to mine but spoke languages other than Bangla at home. They exposed me to a regional movies made in India both mainstream and arthouse - my parents had no understanding of this world but learned some from me. The conversation with N highlighted how two people could have a very different experience of the same world and how they understand it even though very little separates them. Looking back to youth and childhood, it is comforting to think that the people you know from that time and still remain friends with are just like you at the core - its only life experiences of adulthood that set us apart. That may not be entirely true - maybe the divergence starts a lot earlier leading to very different paths over time,
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