Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!

I just watched Rudy for the first time last night on the CMT Channel and I gotta tell ya, I think I've turned into my mom as far as watching dramatic, poignant movies is concerned.

Growing up in an Indo/Pakistani family, one of our favorite family activities was (and still is) to watch Bollywood Indian movies together. Now Bollywood movies are absolutely nutorious for their sappy love stories and their melodrama. Infact, just about every Bollywood movie is a soap operaesque romantic comedy/tragedy or somewhere in between. Most of them are pretty much terrible,over acted and overdone, but every now and then, we'll find a "nice family movie" with "a good story line" that doesn't have too much "show sha" and "garam masala".(literally traslates to hot spices, it basically means gratuitous violence/ drama/ flashiness/ etc).

Anyhow, back to me turning into my mother. Well, I remember watching Indian movies with my parents as a kid and during particularly dramatic and poignant scenes, my mom's face would begin to turn a little red, her eyes would start to glisten, her nose would scrunch up slightly, her lips would start to purse..and a couple of tears would roll down her face. At first, I'd feel a little awkward. I just didnt understand why she was crying? It's not real, it's just a movie! Then, I'd look at her, start smiling, giggling and jokingly tease her "It's okay mom, don't cry! It's just a movie!" and we'd all have a good laugh about my crybaby mom.

Well guess who's the cry baby now? Me! Now, at age 25, I turn into a little crying machine when I watch movies about triumphing against the odds, persevering, shedding sweat, blood and tears to accomplish your dreams.

As I mentioned earlier in the blog, I watched Rudy last night, a movie based on a real life story about a boy from a working class household who dreams of playing Football for Notre Dame and strives to become a Fighting Irish despite everyone ridiculing his ambitions. It is an inspiring little feel good film and if you ever want to get a nice little cry out and you haven't already watched it, please do! This goes to you "manly men" as well since Rudy was named as a top ten movie that makes men cry by the Spike Channel (AKA the testosterone channel). Anyway, so I actually kept track of the number of individual times that I cried during the movie and get this, I cried 5 DIFFERENT TIMES!! My good God! This little "crying profusely during movies development" is pretty recent I tell you. I didn't used to be a crier until about 2-3 years ago and now I tear up at the smallest little things. I once got watery eyed during a Rice Crispies comercial for cryin out loud!

I guess I finally understand why my mom (and now me) cry during movies. If you're a privileged child in a middle class family, you live a carefree life with no real responsibilities, no doubts about your future and everything to be happy about. But, as you grow older, life happens, you succeed at many things but you fail at some. You lose people that are important to you through death or estrangement. You have doubts, you have worries, you have responsibilities but you also have victories, accomplishments, love and happiness. The older you get, the more experiences you have, the more you can related to others' trials and tribulations, including those of the characters you watch in movies. Sometimes, the connection to the characters is so heartfelt, that it actually conjurs up real emotions, emotions that you might have felt while you were experiencing something similar, and so, sometimes, you cry. You let it out. And ain't nothin wrong with that.