Apna time aayega - Gully Boy is about finding our voice and keep going

The best part of Gully Boy is about how the movie ends. It doesn’t end with the stereotypical celebration of success through a spectacular event where the hero rapper Murad (Ranveer Singh) receives the award and gives a thank you speech. Turning this conventional thinking on its head, Zoya Akhtar, gives us a refreshingly different climax where we look into our inadequacies and lack of confidence to take that one disruptive step that can change our lives forever. Or that overpowering drive to change our circumstances to make the dream a reality, even if it means confronting people, breaking stereotypes, while remaining grateful to few good friends. We begin to reflect on many things that we wanted to do but could not!

It was simply mind-blowing to experience the joy of achieving vicariously through the supremely creative and talented Murad. Gully Boy immerses you so much in reality that you feel like celebrating at many moments throughout the movie. Mainly, when the parents and Murad have many arguments and violent confrontations about completing the education, getting a degree and getting into a respectable job. This is nothing new. What is new is the way Murad struggles to find his identity through his talent beyond the socioeconomic limits of Dharavi in Mumbai.

Yes, Murad's creative talent that doesn’t really wait for a formal qualification to be proved but lives and breathes through the music and the rap. Gully Boy is about aspirations and ambitions; it is about finding our voice, our Ikigai and our calling. It is about breaking the shackles and the limits that we impose upon ourselves or become victims of circumstances.

The story is about not waiting for someone else to tell us who we are! It is about keeping our passion alive and believing in it indefatigably in the midst of worst adversity and keep going with the belief apna time aayega (meaning “our time will come”).

How often we sacrifice our dreams and ignore the talent that can help us realize that dream. One of the powerful scenes in the movie is between the father and the son. The father tell his son how we should try to adjust and be in the limits of our social identity. Can a driver’s son dream to make it big in the world of music?

Murad sees the world differently. He believes in changing the reality to realize his dream. He doesn’t believe in compromising and remaining with the ‘limits’ nor does his love interest Sakina who dreams of becoming a Doctor, overcoming the gender issues in her family, breaking the statusquo.

Gully Boy is about overcoming fears. Often it is the fear of the unknown that keeps us away from trying something new. The fact that we are told to take the same road as everybody does is the most normal thing to do. But, the one who take a turn on that road and explores the unknown and the unseen is the one who makes a difference.

Change is the most uncomfortable truth we all confront everyday. Gully Boy tells us to embrace change in many ways. Change the way we look at our socioeconomically challenges. Change the way we get constrained by external social conditions. Change the way we look at our education and work. 

India lives in its lanes and bylanes. We need to celebrate many dreamers, doers and achievers from across the country. Talent Shows and Competitions on television may have brought to the fore just a few of them. There are many whose talent is yet to be discovered and showcased to the entire world. I loved the inspirational movie and the music. Let's hope the movie spurs an awakening among the young to groom their creative talent and use it for the betterment of themselves and a whole lot of us! Let's create more opportunities!

#GullyBoy #ChangeMaker #Dreams #Reality #Inspiration