Bol - disrobes reality, shocks, angers, stuns, numbs and...

Bol by Shoaib Mansoor, the critically acclaimed director of Khuda Kay Liye, is brutally hard-hitting cinema. When movie makers choose to depict societal evils, they have a choice - either they can pay lip service and make the depiction an insignificant sidetrack or they can choose to take the bull by the horns - that is when they do real justice to their craft!

What is cinema without storytelling? When the story entertains, we appreciate it because we want to escape reality. In living our fantasies through our cinematic idols, we revel in their exploits, dance steps, riches, conquests and triumphs! When the story is closer home in its grounding, we tend to sometimes brush it aside, choosing to label it, 'not for the faint hearted/weak hearted'/ 'bold'/'hard-hitting'/'art cinema' etc. By categorizing movies as mass entertainers, we have started committing a grave injustice, injustice to the intellect of the masses. 

Set in Pakistan, in a quasi-urban landscape,Bol is the story of a single family's travails and tribulations. Hakim Saab (Manzar Sehbai) in his quest for a male child ends up with seven daughters and a hermaphrodite. The most rebellious and vociferous in the household, the eldest daughter, Zainab (Humaima Malick) confronts her father every time his ego and male chauvinism shackles the household. Child sexual abuse, the perils of growing up as a girl child in an ultra conservative and feudal environment, corruption in police ranks, prostitution, societal attitude towards hermaphrodites, their humiliations, Shia-Sunni divide, all compounded by a single man's egoism and chauvinism - this is Bol! 

Ayesha (Mahirah Khan Askari) is lucky enough to be charmed by Mustafa (Atif Aslam), the boy next door. She falls in love with him and among Zainab's many crimes in the eyes of her father, giving Ayesha's hand to Mustafa is also one. Humaima and Manzar are both excellent, the former in her restrained anger and agony, verbal barbs and jibes and the latter in his seething hatred of his eldest daughter and his inability to reconcile with his conscience. Atif gets to emote little, Mahirah is just OK and the other girls end up as helpless spectators of a charged battle. The movie disrobes reality,shocks, angers, stuns, numbs and in the end, leaves us with a flicker of hope - a hope that is beautiful in its potential to transform lives.

Cinematography in the song 'Hona tha pyar' is awesome. It manages to juxtapose the natural beauty of the landscape alongside the frail existence of Mustafa and Ayesha. Among other songs, Dil Janiya is my favorite. Mumkin hai is the very voice of hope! Shoaib Mansoor, hats off, hope this serves as an inspiration to other talented craftsmen in the sub continent.

Perhaps, it is high time, the masses too start asking themselves - do we want movies that are escapist or do we want movies that question accepted norms and ask uncomfortable questions? With the World in turmoil - debt crisis, austerity measures, Arab dissent and frustration with farcical democracies - isn't it time for cinema to become a vehicle of the collective and for the collective, in articulating their real voices for a change? The scope and potential is huge, who has the guts to take the plunge?

Sometimes...

I wish I have a time machine to

go back in time and live the best days of my life all over again...
play cricket in those back alleys and large grounds...
chatter ceaselessly on topics one would forget after 5 minutes...
take those early morning walks admiring the lush fields and the rising sun...
travel by local trains standing on the foot-boards...
admire the last few girls who cross the railway tracks as the train leaves...
wait for the mother's call sharp at 7 PM as she returns from work...
rush for school right at 8.55 AM after the last bollywood song is played on DD's morning show...
cuddle up on the terrace steps with a novel...
wake up listening to devotional songs on All India Radio...
try and measure the length of one's shadows at different times of the day...
fight for trivial things with my brother...
see cricket matches with my father late into the night...

Alas, its sad that we ought to grow up at all!

Jan lok pal movement - The Poster boy of middle class India

In a country as diverse as India, with a political class that has till date deftly managed to evade any accountability whatsoever, the middle class has bore the major brunt of all its failings. The rich have been able to bulldoze their way by dint of their wealth, flouting it to negotiate any hurdle on their way to more riches. The poor have always had to grapple with something more basic than corruption. Corruption begins to affect one when the basics are in place - food, clothing, shelter and water in Maslow's hierarchy. The shrewd political class realizing this, has successfully orchestrated a subsidy culture to give illusory and momentary happiness to the poor. By playing on their emotions and sentiments, they have also nurtured vote-bank politics, thereby bidding accountability goodbye. 

Alas, now the real backbone behind India's growth stories - the IT engineers, the bio-technologists, the research scholars and the parents who toil hard to make sure that their sons and daughters make it to the IITs and the IIMs - they have woken up and are demanding accountability. The real taxpayer is finally standing up! This would not have been possible without an able leadership - a  person who stands for middle class values - in Anna Hazare and his team. 

Let us look at what is now core team Anna - 

Arvind Kejriwal - Business today calls him a clean-up crusader and fittingly so! His life, his brainchild - Parivartan - the locality he lives in, exemplify a middle class upbringing, values and lifestyle. With an IIT background and a Raman Magsaysay award against his name, his experiments with grassroot level local governance models gives him a lot of credibility among the middle class. 

Kiran Bedi - "Kiran's father, a talented tennis player, and her mother, a brilliant student whose schooling had been curtailed by early marriage, were determined that their daughters would have every opportunity to achieve their own life goals. One inspired her and her sisters to be tennis champions and, more importantly, to be people who had dreams and sought to achieve them. The other ensured that they would be healthy and fit to achieve those dreams."  - led a life that is inspirational to this day for all middle class Indians, one in which she grabbed every opportunity to become the person she is now. 

Prashant Bhushan - "On the rights of minorities and the dispossessed, on judicial accountability, on civil freedoms, on environmental concerns, he has prised open new spaces where earlier there was only opacity. He has helped keep democratic institutions responsive." - through his impeccable conduct in public life has endeared himself to the middle class by standing for what they hold dear, ethical conduct. 

 The middle class see themselves in these fellow citizens and are no doubt drawn into the movement in large numbers because of this fact. Anna Hazare is that figure, the middle class would love as a leader. By donning the Gandhian cap, what Anna has made possible in today's age and pace is that, practices that are deemed impractical and ineffective - peaceful protest, fasting - can actually yield results. These practices, curiously, are not ones in which action is immediately tangible. Paradoxically, in making the youth rally behind these, what Anna and team have demonstrated is the resilience of Gandhian methods. 


Democracy - really?

As Santosh Desai points out in his book, Mother Pious lady (replete with insightful analysis on every attribute of India's middle class) - "It can be successfully argued that India is an election-o-cracy more than it is a democracy, in that the primary quest of the democratic process is to allocate power. The exercise of that power, once gained, is subject to much looser standards of performance. The key idea of elections in India revolves around power and not mandate, patronage not policy." He actually asks the question: "Instead of seeing ourselves as a democracy, what if we really are a distorted form of elective and distributive monarchy?" When self anointed intellectuals talk of Indian democracy and constitutional methods, they should perhaps reflect a bit more on these. 

Given that we are not really a democracy in the true sense of the term and that the middle class has been ignored by the political class, the fact that have come together in staggering numbers to rally behind a cause that matters most to them, is something that should be taken notice of. Whether all the clauses of the civil society's Jan Lok Pal get accepted or not, what the movement has very successfully done is unite middle class India across caste, community and regional identities. The weight of their numbers has for once been made obvious to the political fraternity.

As the middle class gains more and more clout thanks to the opportunities that are expanding, in a globalized world, they will continue to draw inspiration from other movements and revolutions world over. A political change that is radical can only be brought by a revolution at the grassroots level. Be it the one that swept the streets of Cairo not long back or the one that is sweeping the small towns of India currently, both share a common thread - the people who ignited them are serious about it and will keep at it until they see their wants realized. If the political class cannot read the signs staring at their face, no amount of sloganeering can save them when they stand at the altar!

Chitradurga diary part 2 - 3 days of fun and adventure in nature's lap

Rock climbing –

During the warm-up to rock climbing, a new word entered our lexicon – “Ji-goo-ja”. Brainchild of our instructor Prabhu, we swayed to its every syllable and laughed our lungs out in the process! The short trek to the rock - that would be our object to scale for the day - proved to be the perfect occasion for cameras and sun glasses to come out. With the Chitradurga fort and the wind mills in the distance, the scenery around us slowly and surely, like a magnet with just about the right attractive powers, drew us into its embrace. 

 

Fears – how do we deal with them? Mostly we try to circumvent them or carefully postpone their onset by trying our best to avoid them as far as possible. There are exceptions though. Sometimes, more than our own belief in our capabilities, we might just discover that others around us may believe strongly. That is the most opportune moment to confront our fears and emerge on top.

In other words, when “I can do this” becomes a little tough, “you can do it”, heard a 100 times magnified, repeated over and over again, might just work. Rock climbing, to the majority of us, had a similar effect. In a group that had come together with the sole objective of indulging in adventure, this encouragement, which constantly floated in the air, subtly aided in bonding.

The bravehearted and the supremely confident among us took to rock climbing like fish to water (Niles bhai for example), while for the rest (the category of the lesser mortals), it took time to build that confidence thanks to the “You can do it” shouts in large measure.

Raghav – an inspiration -

Raghav, when he made the climb, stood out with his attitude. He writes in his blog space – “I have a hunger to do everything whichever is possible in this life including a space travel. I love good food, theater plays, music, adventure sports and all that where I can live the life to the fullest.” His attitude towards life is highly inspiring. He has not let his vision impair his dreams in any manner – indeed, positive attitude and optimism should have Raghav as synonym!

Exhilarating experience –

I was among the last ones to climb – to get a grip just before the summit, one had to back oneself and give one final heave – the best part of the 3 minute exercise was that single moment! Even the best experiences crystallize into some intense moments – it was such a moment.

Cave exploration -

After rock climbing, instead of heading for lunch, we decided to do some cave exploration. Led by Prabhu and armed with torches, we marched. The first few caves that we entered were all small and relatively easier to navigate. The coolness of the rocks, despite the searing sun right above, kept us going. Soon enough, we were staring at paths that were overbearing in their resolve to hinder our progress. 

We had to bend, squat, squeeze through, slide, crawl and long jump – through all this, there was a buzz of slight tension in the air. A journey is thrilling when we know not where our next step will take us! This certainly was one such journey.

Luncheon –

Still marveling at the labyrinthine maze we had just traversed, we took a much needed lunch break. Rice and rotis found their way into our stomachs in almost no time. Numerous monkeys surrounded us, intently watching our every move for lapses in concentration, but alas, our focus on the task at hand was so complete for them to find any opening :) 

Life king-size –

Man has, since time immemorial, tried to outdo nature and every time, fallen short. Be it the construction of dams and zoos or cloning, he has been unable to reconcile to the fact that he is simply not good enough to match up to the creator with the capital C. But, if ever, he came close to emulating His feat, it must be during the reign of kings who encouraged architecture and sculpture. Ankali cave exemplified one such piece of architecture. Undoubtedly, once a lavish abode of royalty, it is now a sad remnant of its glorious past – the Indian penchant to scribble on temple walls extending to caves! With one meticulous piece of architecture leading to the next, Prabhu briefed us patiently on what we saw– down to every minute detail. 

 Small town life -

With enormous effort, we dragged ourselves towards the bus. Alighting at the Chitradurga town, all around us, we found signs of life in a small town – the demurely dressed women and buses and autos moving about leisurely. There was a slow rhythm to life that made me envious of the people of the district. Living life on the less maddening slow lane, people seemed relaxed and so sure of their future – there was optimism in the air.

 

Camping –

Back at our accommodation, while people waited for their turns to get refreshed, some of us got down to the exciting activity of pitching tents. Me, Sayan and Dada unwrapped one and did a decent job with it – I remembered the evening after I had trekked to the top of Kumara Parvatha peak, an evening truly adventurous! Dinner was spent recounting the events of the day – tiredness that had engulfed all of us hours back had given way to incessant chatter and laughter.  

Chitradurga diary part 1 - 3 days of fun and adventure in nature's lap

Plans, excitement and the journey to base camp –

“Nature is not, of course, always benign and beautiful. It can be frightening and terrifying also.

Not too many generations ago, raw nature and wilderness tended to inspire fear and dread in "civilized" people.

They represented Otherness and the Unknown. That which is "wild" is also "bewildering".

Today, wilderness is usually considered to be something good and in need of preservation.

The beauty and awesomeness of it dominate our attention.

We are attracted by wilderness, the Otherness of it, the sense it is something inevitably outside of us.

Always beyond us, it is what is ultimately real.

We cannot adequately appreciate this aspect of nature if we approach it with any taint of human pretense.

It will elude us if we allow artifacts like clothing to intervene between ourselves and this Other.

To apprehend it, we cannot be naked enough.

In Wildness is the preservation of the world.”  Who else but Henry David Thoreau could have expressed so beautifully mankind’s tryst with nature? He says somewhere else, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” If something can best sum up the experience of 24 adventurers in Chitradurga district (~200 kms from Bangalore) nestled in the wilderness, these quotes would come very close!

Indeed, a city with all its attractions and scope for entertainment, fails to offer its inhabitants, the opportunity to enjoy some finer pleasures of life – the pleasures of hearing the sounds winds can make or those of seeing a rusty gate leading to a battered pathway covered in dense fog!

24 people from different backgrounds and professions signed up for an adventurous event – the Jogi Matti Adventure camp organized by Nisarga. There was little else except a strong passion – a passion to explore nature and indulge in adventure – that connected all of us. At the end of 3 days though, through the course of some demanding physical activity, we found enough common interests in each other to exchange numbers.

It all started with a mail – so attractive was the itinerary that I decided to be part of it in almost no time! The journey to the base camp till the forest department guest houses at the Jogimatti hill station was infused with a lot of anticipation and excitement. As people got in and settled in their seats, the introductions and conversations slowly started. The most happening row was the last row with Nilesh alias Niles bhai, Vijetha alias Viji, Vinay, Raj and Jayalakshmi uproariously crackling with laughter.

Morning @ the camp –

Nature has its own unique way of often, exposing humanity for what we really are – almost a nonentity when compared with its combination of ferociousness and generosity. The fog and the chillness in the atmosphere, thanks to the windy conditions, were the first signs of our encounter with raw nature – unblemished, untrammeled, pristine and towering in its entire splendor.

The watch tower, as we climbed up to it, was inviting. With every step up, our hearts filled with fresh, unpolluted air – lots of it! Reaching the top, we wandered to the corners to have a look at the surroundings. The fog teased and lured us – it hid more than it revealed and the titillation was almost sexual in its rawness. Our instructor Prabhu -with his child like smile, he captured our hearts over the next 3 days – elaborated on the geography of the place; freezing cold winds that can topple cars and a wildlife encompassing sloth bears and leopards – it thrilled us no end!

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara – Redefining what hindi cinema stands for!

Every journey of self discovery entails confronting and battling inner demons. All of us, with few exceptions, have problems in life that we prefer to paper over so that they take root deep in our subconscious and we end up carrying them like hidden badges! Often, the answers to one’s problems lie within us and not with others. If only, we have the courage to admit to ourselves that, day in and day out, the reason we are unhappy or the reason we are not able to strike successful friendships or relationships is, perhaps, we either think too far ahead or brood far too long in the past! We fail to “seize the day” as Katrina Kaif puts it aptly in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.

Arjun - In some cases, the problem might be fundamental, for example, it may lie in what we seek from life. If we seek money from our work instead of challenge or fun or excitement, we can never be happy, for no amount of money will ever be enough. On the other hand, if we continue working in unhealthy environments imagining that we are addressing challenges, then too, the road might lead to a dead end. The key is to strike the right pact with work – balancing priorities at every step!

Kabir - In other cases, the problem might arise if we sacrifice our happiness and joy to see someone else happy or please someone else. While this is a little tricky based on who the “someone else” is, beyond a certain point, it is better if we acknowledge upfront that, “to me, my happiness should matter more than anything else!” While some might argue that this is a selfish stand to take, aren’t we all selfish? Why the duplicity then when it comes to admitting it?

Imran – In some other cases, we attribute to ourselves, a greater ability to discern what is right and what is bad than we can actually take credit for. A most dangerous trait, this can lead to an existence in ignorance, while putting on a confident façade. Oblivious to the good judgment and feelings of our near and dear ones, in these cases, we close our ears and fail to listen.

This movie compels the protagonists to confront these problems as it takes the viewer on a fantastic journey through the length and breadth of the Spanish landscape. Conquering one’s deep seated fears also means choosing to break barriers that we have fashioned for ourselves. During the course of a road trip, our actors realize that, the reassuring presence of close friends away from familiar surroundings can be the perfect driver to be themselves. All three shed their masks, act foolish and begin doing what they truly like.

Dotted with excellent poetry oozing the class of Javed Akhtar, the movie strikes a chord with the viewer not because it is unrealistic, but because, it convincingly conveys the message that self discovery entails a journey into the very recesses of one’s mind! Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar and Abhay Deol play characters far meatier than Saif Ali Khan, Aamir Khan and Akshay Khanna in Dil Chahta hai. Katrina Kaif and Kalki Koechlin too get to play unconventional roles. This movie is also a complete ‘Watch with friends’ one, albeit of a slightly serious kind with the protagonists having to make far more difficult choices. Perhaps, the poetry in the movie is the ultimate hero – kudos to the genius of Javed Akhtar!

Yeh jo gehre sannate hain

Waqt ne sabko hi baante hain

Thoda ghum hai sabka qissa

Thodi dhoop hai sabka hissa

Aankh teri bekaar hi nam hai

Har pal ek naya mausam hai

Kyun tu aise pal khota hai

Dil aakhir tu kyun rota hai

Dilon me tum apni betabiyan leke chal rahe ho,to zinda ho tum

Nazar me khwaabon ki bijliyan leke chal rahe ho,to zinda ho tum

Hawa ke jhokon ke jaise aazad rehno sekho

Tum ek dariya ke jaise lehron mein behna sekho

Hr ek lamhe se tum milo khole apni baahein

Hr ek pal ek naya sama dekhe nigahein

Jo apni ankhon mein hairaniya leke chal rahe ho,to zinda ho tum

Dilon mein tum apni betabiaya leke chal rahe ho,to zinda ho tum

Mumbai - A city unparalleled in its magnanimity

"Magnanimity - kind and generous, especially to someone that you have defeated"

Mumbai, a city of dreams to most Indians, a city that has been catapulted onto the World imagination thanks to its slums, the crowds in its local trains, its monsoons, bollywood movies and of late, bomb blasts! A city whose resilience and fighting spirit finds mention often in different contexts - when I set foot in it, I felt the thrill that only adventure and excitement can provoke. 

"Nobody judges you here. You can do whatever you want!", my friend remarked when we were in Juhu beach. Her remark would, perhaps, best sum up the perception that an outsider would get as he lands in this city. Swarming with busy people, it is a city that deludes one into believing that the whole of humanity, especially in this particular mass of land, is constantly on the run - running in all directions imaginable! Indeed, if one just waits in a corner and starts observing people in the city, one can feel one's pulse start to throb.

11.45 PM, Friday night, Dadar railway station: We were in the Churchgate - Virar fast local. The train had not even come to a complete stop and people were trying to get in jostling each other. Such is the spirit of the city that only the strongest survive. Either the weak slowly reconcile themselves to a hopeless existence or simply give up too soon. The city is unforgiving and ruthless to people whose will is fragile. Sometimes, it is magnanimous and lets the weak eke out a living relegating them to footpaths and pavements, leaving them to the mercy of the natural elements during monsoons and just about extending a protecting arm. 

Pali Hill, Bandra (W) - home for the rich and the affluent. BMWs and Skodas glide across the lanes in all their splendor. A few kilometres away on the way to Mahim railway station, there is poverty in all its gruesome form - children crawling on pavements and mothers trying to make rotis. Families living under flyovers and men cleaning themselves with hardly any privacy - some sights that I would carry with me. 

Mumbai is a city that defies even the most fertile imagination. As another of my friends said, sometimes it just doesn't care. It tramples over people's souls and revels in delight even as they struggle. When everyday life is hard, it bestows in mankind a strange nature - one that is a little more caring. Thanks to this spirit, the people of the city have taken it upon themselves to resist what they perceive as the city's might. They think that if in some manner or the other, they don't care for each other, the beast that the city is, it shall swallow them up. Hence one comes across people who go out of their way to help strangers. 

It is an everyday battle here - between this beast and humanity and it is this battle that is intriguing to a stranger. He is drawn to it like a magnet and the clever beast, with its lure of promises, continuously devours humanity, slowly, but surely. Mumbai is a city waiting to explode but shall never explode; it is a tightrope walk in which the person treading the rope always appears to lose, but manages to triumph in the end! The man on the rope is either very shrewd in his manoeuvrings, but on the other hand, the rope might just be teasing him without his knowing!