Enkayaar, Bollywood Trade News Network

While quite a lot of celebrities from the film industry have become the victims of cancer notables being Nargis Dutt, Prithvi Raj Kapoor, Rehman, Richa Sharma etc., cancer as a disease has not got the positive response in terms of creating awareness about the disease. Cancer was always used as a turning point in the films that were being made in terms of dramatizing the narrative, either for forcing the daughter to marry a boy of the choice of the father or for pushing the family to the throes of poverty. Invariably in all the films being made some time ago, there used to be a character being inflicted with one form of cancer or the other, and wasting himself away. Besides, there always was a stigmatic portrayal of the disease so the characters never disclosed that they were suffering from cancer, and as such the awareness about the disease kept being shrouded in mystery, and as a result still the awareness about the disease is very rudimentary. This is inspite of the fact that every year effort to create awareness about cancer is celebrated as International Rose Day on 26 September 2007.

The first time that cancer was brought into relief in a distinct manner was in ANAND where even the awareness about the disease was being created by informing the public about the medical terminology of the disease. From that time onwards most of us have become aware about what lympho circoma of the intestine is.

Sunil Dutt after he lost Nargis Dutt to cancer, made a very sensitive film on cancer, DARD KA RISHTA that is a milestone as a film that brought about sensitively how much loss the family has to suffer if one of its members is found to have developed any form of cancer. Sadly enough, even on the Rose Day multitude of channels, which bombard us with various kinds of films, seems to have given this film a real go buy. The film is also marked by one of the most emotive performances that Smita Patil did in her short-lived career.

The other important film that did make a reference about this disease was in KAL HO NA HO. In this film also there has been a reference about this disease and the sense of loss that the family undergoes by loosing a loved one. There however was a definite scope for this film to probe deep into the manner the disease causes havoc in the life of the families, but this was not probably attempted.

As a matter of fact the issues concerning health and various chronic diseases have never been a priority as far as making a film on it is concerned. This issue still hangs fire for the Hindi films. Hollywood has been handling this area in a very determined manner for quite a long time, and through the films it tries to create awareness about the way the diseases spread. OUTBREAK, Judie Foster and Morgan Freeman starrer film, as also Tom Hanks starrer PHILADELPHIA is a striking testimony to that, which incidentally was adapted as PHIR MILENGE in Hindi.

There still is complacency about making mainstream films, which pick up the life threatening diseases as the central theme. However, with the diseases and epidemics assuming myriad propositions it is imperative that this species of story line is also brought under the spotlight.


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