Gutar Gu has confused many Amazon miniTV fans as the newly released web series, Gutar Gu and Gupt Gyaan are way too similar. Yet, there is a major difference between where the respective stories start and end. In Gupt Gyaan, Ritu (Ashlesha Thakur) and Anuj (Vishesh Bansal) are already a couple who have also already kissed. In Gutar Gu, the story begins from how Ritu and Anuj meet and then fall in love. While a pregnancy scare hovers over Anuj and Ritu in Gupt Gyaan due to inadequate knowledge and information about sex, Gutar Gu is a simple love story with no such complications in the couple’s lives.
Now, what’s the similarity?
The love between this teenage couple is adorable, in the movie as well as the series. The unwavering devotion to each other and the commitment to stand by each other, come what may is the core theme of Gupt Gyaan and Gutar Gu.
The Plus Point of Gupt Gyaan and Gutar Gu
As I mentioned in the Gutar Gu review, shows or movies like these two are very important for today’s youth. In India, I do not think parents will ever get comfortable discussing sex or the physical and emotional transformation boys and girls go through during adolescence. And even if parents bring up such topics or schools dedicate sessions to sex education, it will never be enough. Because the environment matters. When you serve education in the form of entertainment, its impact is everlasting. What’s best about the web series and the short film that Amazon has come up with is that it neither makes one uncomfortable nor does it preach.
I always wondered why we do not have shows for teenagers that they can relate to. Most of the shows focus on sex (not sex education), the hormones going wild, friends (most of the time, a wrong group of friends), and drugs. The reason being they are inspired by the west. There is nothing wrong with loving a non-Indian show and then recreating it here in India but does that really speak to our youth? Does that really address the issues Indian youth is facing today? Not always!
In Gupt Gyaan and Gutar Gu, both Anuj and Ritu are well-connected to their families. While Anuj’s mother is strict, Ritu has chilled-out parents who even accept their teenage relationship. Not just accept but also respect it because they trust their daughter. Here, we get to see both the sides of Indian parents and the way they deal with adolescence. I hope going forward we get to see the positives and negatives of Indian upbringing as well. The only mistake Indian parents do is they do not know where to draw the line – where to get strict and where to give the freedom when the children are in the ‘neither kids, nor adults’ phase.
My Mom was my best friend during all phases of life. I know how that helps. Even when I liked someone (regardless of my age), I would be able to talk to her about it. And then there were friends growing up with strict parents whose intention was ‘to discipline’ the kids. Few years later, when the girls became 18 years old, they ran away from their home. Two got married and the parents didn’t know about it.
Marrying young is an individual choice but marrying because you do not know what decision to make next or because you know your parents would never support you only makes things worse. Many teenagers commit suicide as they know that if their parents found out what they have been doing, the consequences would be worse than death.
To avoid such unfortunate incidents, raising emotionally stable kids is a must. For that to happen, one needs to accept the changes they are going through. Before that, someone needs to communicate the changes a human being goes through during adolescence. Someone needs to send out the message:
Embrace Adolescence, Do Not Be Scared Of It.
And Amazon is doing the same with their shows and movies, especially Gupt Gyaan and Gutar Gu. There is one dialogue in Gupt Gyaan where Ritu says that she wants to die and Anuj says that he would die with her but he won’t. Not because he is afraid of death but to correct the mistake, it’s important to be alive. It’s a beautiful scene where the young boy is not afraid of taking responsibility and is also a lot mature for his age.
How you depict the youth in cinema will change the way the youth looks at themselves and also, the way the adults look at them. Cinema surely replicates and takes inspiration from real lives but the truth is also that we idealise the lives we see on screen and try to replicate that in real life.
I am glad that going forward, with movies and series like these, our youth will be raised well. I just hope that this doesn’t end here. More such shows are made where the focus is shifted to the issues teenagers face and the solutions to their problems are – no, not spoon-fed. I am talking about shows and films that make them smart enough to come up with their own solutions – wise solutions to their complicated problems.
ALSO READ: Amazon miniTV Can Now Be Watched Without Amazon Shopping App. Here’s The Web Address
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