Films: Stories Behind My Stories

I genuinely feel lucky.

Lucky because there was a time in my life when evenings belonged to me. No pressure to constantly be productive. No endless notifications. No pretending to love fake friends or family. Just me, sitting quietly in a dark room, getting lost in films. Not movies. Films.

And trust me, there’s a difference. I know because I had insufferable friends who made sure I learned it properly.

The kind who would correct you if you said “Bollywood” too casually. The kind who spoke about cinema like they were discussing religion, politics and heartbreak all at once. They taught me the difference between a “movie buff” and a “film enthusiast.” One sounds like a guy who watches Fast & Furious on Star Movies every Sunday. The other one who admires art and storytelling in cinema.

People today mostly remember the big factories of entertainment. Dharma. YRF. Warner Bros. Marvel Studios. Massive banners. Massive openings. Massive PR.

But my friends introduced me to a different gang.

To Kurosawa.
To Almodóvar.
To Kubrick.
To Tarantino.
To Scorsese.
To Nolan.
To Villeneuve.
And somehow, even to Eric Kripke, the man who made Ghostbusters go on a roadtrip hunting demons, and man-child superheroes hungry for love.  

That’s when films stopped being “timepass.”

Suddenly, stories had stories hidden inside them. A cigarette meant loneliness. Rain meant guilt. Silence meant war. I started noticing little things. Symbolisms. Leitmotifs. Clever callbacks. Easter eggs so subtle they felt like the director whispering, “Good. You’re paying attention now.”

And yes, I still love Marvel films because somewhere inside me, there’s that overexcited kid who forgets all adult problems the moment Spider-Man swings into the frame.

But in the same breath, I also love A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Bad Education, Amores Perros, Inglourious Basterds, The Prestige... the list goes on.

My taste in films looks like someone from FTII hacked my mind. And film conversations with friends? Pure madness.

One friend once asked me,
“Bro, have you watched Inside Job?”

I said,
“No, but I watched Inside Man.”

Another guy asked,
“Did you watch The Mechanic?”

I said,
“No. But I watched The Pianist.”

At this point, I’m convinced half our conversations are just grown men remixing film titles and pretending it counts as intellectual discussion.

But somewhere between all these frames, dialogues and background scores, films quietly started shaping me.

Udaan changed something fundamental inside me. After watching it, writing stopped feeling like a hobby. It started feeling like survival. Like the only thing I could honestly become without lying to myself.

Then came Kantara. And somehow, spirituality stopped sounding like old people forwarding WhatsApp messages. It started feeling visceral. Ancient. Personal.

And then there were films that didn’t just entertain me. They sat me down and spoke to me like older brothers.

Dead Poets Society made me romanticise life in the most dangerous and beautiful way possible. Suddenly, words didn’t feel like words anymore. They felt alive. Like they could save people. Or ruin them. Or become the only thing keeping someone alive. After that film, “Carpe Diem” started feeling like a responsibility.

And Good Will Hunting. That film hit differently.

Because beneath all the intelligence, humour and attitude, it was really about a boy trying to believe he deserved love, peace and a future beyond his pain.

The older I grew, the more I realised some films don’t become your favourites because they are masterpieces. They become your favourites because, at some point in life, they understood you before people did.

I know my taste in films probably looks random to people.

But honestly, films find me according to the phase of life I’m in.

Some films entertained me.
Some films understood me.
Some films arrived like warnings.
Some became my therapy.
And a few rare ones quietly sat beside me and changed the direction of my life without making any noise about it.