'Use cinema to create positive things'

“Cinema is a medium,which has the power to influence masses therefore we need use this toolwisely,” says the writer who was in Allahabad on a personal visitrecently, and adds, “If you will show negative things people will getinfluenced in a negative manner. I remember when Dilip Kumar’s Devdascame, after watching it a lot of youngsters, who had bad experiences in loveturned into drunkards, believing that by drinking they can get away with thepain. So we need to use the power of cinema to create positive things. Butunfortunately a lot of commercial cinema is being made just to make money todaywith little attention being given to social messages and storyline. They are allbanking on glam segment,” avers the writer without naming any movie.This leaves us wondering would it be a profitable idea to invest innon-commercial cinema, given the fact this segment is generating maximumrevenues for investors today? “Of course!,” the writer is quick toanswer, “In fact, movies with social messages are making more profitstoday. If you observe, 9 out of 10 movies with social messages become hit andend up generating more revenues. ‘Welcome to Sajjanpur’ which wasmade with a budget of 9 crore earned 14 crore or for that matter ‘Welldone Abba’, which earned 15 crores against an investment of 9-10 crore,are good examples,” Ashok clarifies.Besides, this writer isalso unhappy with the soaps shown on television. “What they are showing isabsolutely useless. Every where it’s the same Saas-bahu drama, noideation. That is the reason our soaps lose their sheen within 6 months oflaunch, unlike the ones in foreign countries, where the stories carry on foryears,” he avers and further shares, “There they have an entirestory development department, a team of writers, which works together to makethe serial interesting. Moreover, senior people from the industry called‘script doctors’ are also appointed to point out flaws in serials inorder to make them better. Unfortunately we have nothing here,” adds theunhappy writer.