I know most of you would have clicked this inveigled by ‘G’ word and wondering what’s wrong with this female! Well there is something surely wrong ...not with me but with us and it is this wrong that doesn’t allow us to experience liberation in its true spirit. Well those who are bored by the idea are free to leave the note/blog here itself and those who stay shall be ready for understanding a movie that rattles not just the brain but the inner self.
I am talking about a movie not considered worth releasing in the India despite winning several accolades globally as an Indian entry. I am talking of a movie despite being black and white shows a shade of life which many of us must be facing but fail to recognise. I am talking of a movie whose title itself can fuel controversy in a nation like India. I am talking of a movie which most of us face in our daily lives but would fail to understand forget associating with. I am talking of Gandu- The Loser a movie directed by Q. Yes it’s just Q (question) with no A (answer). The movie is something that Bollywood can never offer well to put it straight it would never be allowed to offer one. Reality is inversely proportion to popularity and the biggies are mugged it up without a flaw. But, still there are a few who break the norms of convention and bring what is often tagged as ‘experimental cinema’. But sadly the experiment fizzles out as soon as it enters a global contest. Gandu as a movie promises to take Indian cinema to not just next level but levels much higher than that. It’s a movie that hits you right on your face and still leaves you wondering what was it! Honestly speaking this movie needs several readings and re-readings before one can associate with it. Well most of us cannot even associated with it as it talks of real people, desperate people, poor people living lives completely within themselves and dreaming of coming out of the ghetto. But, surely this is one that would not leave your mind so easily.
Gandu, the title character, represents the subculture that consists of people who live in world surrounded by insecurities and hatred, poverty and illusion. His life like ours is routinised but his routine activities are different: breakfast with mother, wait for his mother and her boyfriend to start their lust driven business so that he can steal just half the amount daily from her boyfriend's wallet and use the income to gamble daily, visit Internet cafe and watch other engage in web chat, return home to lather his frustration, rinse and repeat. But, Gandu as per his name is unable to do anything apart from seething. The only respite for him is his rap- the rapid words with which he dreams of making it big someday and ‘make world the balloon and himself the Prick’. But despite being highly talented there is no one in his society who reckons it.
Things begin to change when he befriends a Bruce Lee worshipping rickshaw puller, whom he calls rickshaw walla. After meeting him he wins the lottery ticket starts there projectile journey from the world of reality to world of delusions. With Gandu getting introduced to smack the story unravels the battle between hallucinations and reality. (For what it unravels you have to see the movie. For its reflection on our lives read below)
Though the film talks of a guy whose lifestyle doesn’t resembles ours’ but it clearly shows a Gandu that’s hidden within us. That tries to escape the reality and happily live in a world which appears much more sombre. It talks of a man who cannot differentiate between realities from dream. The illusion of being developed and culturally strong is so deep rooted that we fail to recognise the deep fitted flaws of the society that we live in. The film beautifully talks of world that exists within all of us and yet we fail to recognise it. I just wish the revolution in Indian cinema starts now!
Monday, October 31, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Lessons learnt in small packets
At times there are few questions that no matter how crucial find no place in the world may be because we have no answer to them or maybe we to flatter our ease a bit more we tend to neglect them and prefer not to rattle our brains. But somehow these questions have affected me today and provoked me to write this piece which is nothing more than vague thoughts but it might affect if not all but a few.
Standing and struggling for foot space in an overloaded Haryana roadways bus is never a fun ride but nonetheless it’s the best board to unravel the myths and complexities of life and values. As the canvas the board presents has shades from different pockets of lifestyles. Standing on one corner of the bus struggling hard to protect my feet from constant stamping by people who are either in a hush to take a seat (despite the bus being full!!! May be they feel safe standing in the middle of the bus...) or in a rush to jump out of the bus and at the same time balancing the bag tucked on my shoulder full of heavy notes I was just waiting for someone to get down at every station the bus stopped. Disappointed at my guesses of who would leave the bus where I stood still at one corner back to what I was struggling for. When suddenly, I noticed a little movement on a seat right under my nose and saw an old sardarji picking up his cloth bag. I made my calculations fast and a sudden adrenaline rush told me that yes I had to hurry and take that seat before the guy standing next to it leaps upon it. And whoa the movement sardarji vacated it I grabbed it at a speed which would put spider man to shame. Happily nested in the seat and adjusting my side bag and making some room for my leg I realised that an old lady was also expecting to grab the seat and had just come there a minute later than me. Undoubtedly I was greedy for the seat, but my inner self had the dignity and wisdom to stand up and offer the seat to the old lady and get myself back to struggling position and as to every courteous person’s expectations I did that. Not that this had happened for the first time with me I have been offering seats to old people, mothers protecting a life in their womb and even men with fractured legs...but this time it was something different that somehow rattled my brains and my heart. The lady sat and offered to share the seat with me (an advantage of being petite I believe) but at the same time she expressed her angst at people sitting comfortably and not offering a seat to a 70 year old lady despite her asking for one. Her anger reflected the much boasted about Indian value system. Not that I am challenging it but it forced me to think for sometime what are these Indian value systems that we talk about? Reminds me of what the much critiqued Arundhati Roy said in one of her meetings ‘Indian values are strange people can piss in public but they cannot kiss in public’. Maybe an over exaggerated view but when pondered isn’t it true? Our Indian value system prohibits lot of things in our lifestyle from publicly displaying your love, live in relations, premarital sex to wearing short dresses to arguing with parents everything is obscene and unacceptable. Recently I have seen people trashing their love lives in order to fulfil their parents’ desire who are much concerned about their social status. Most of our decisions are so governed by the society; no wonder man is a social animal. But I find it strange how our happiness is governed by the rules of society. Our decision of good and bad is based on what society would think. And strangely when it comes to actually doing something for society we turn selfish. No one volunteering to offer a seat to an elderly person is a very trivial issue but strongly reflects the hollowness existing in our value system, which is highly pseudo in nature.
Standing and struggling for foot space in an overloaded Haryana roadways bus is never a fun ride but nonetheless it’s the best board to unravel the myths and complexities of life and values. As the canvas the board presents has shades from different pockets of lifestyles. Standing on one corner of the bus struggling hard to protect my feet from constant stamping by people who are either in a hush to take a seat (despite the bus being full!!! May be they feel safe standing in the middle of the bus...) or in a rush to jump out of the bus and at the same time balancing the bag tucked on my shoulder full of heavy notes I was just waiting for someone to get down at every station the bus stopped. Disappointed at my guesses of who would leave the bus where I stood still at one corner back to what I was struggling for. When suddenly, I noticed a little movement on a seat right under my nose and saw an old sardarji picking up his cloth bag. I made my calculations fast and a sudden adrenaline rush told me that yes I had to hurry and take that seat before the guy standing next to it leaps upon it. And whoa the movement sardarji vacated it I grabbed it at a speed which would put spider man to shame. Happily nested in the seat and adjusting my side bag and making some room for my leg I realised that an old lady was also expecting to grab the seat and had just come there a minute later than me. Undoubtedly I was greedy for the seat, but my inner self had the dignity and wisdom to stand up and offer the seat to the old lady and get myself back to struggling position and as to every courteous person’s expectations I did that. Not that this had happened for the first time with me I have been offering seats to old people, mothers protecting a life in their womb and even men with fractured legs...but this time it was something different that somehow rattled my brains and my heart. The lady sat and offered to share the seat with me (an advantage of being petite I believe) but at the same time she expressed her angst at people sitting comfortably and not offering a seat to a 70 year old lady despite her asking for one. Her anger reflected the much boasted about Indian value system. Not that I am challenging it but it forced me to think for sometime what are these Indian value systems that we talk about? Reminds me of what the much critiqued Arundhati Roy said in one of her meetings ‘Indian values are strange people can piss in public but they cannot kiss in public’. Maybe an over exaggerated view but when pondered isn’t it true? Our Indian value system prohibits lot of things in our lifestyle from publicly displaying your love, live in relations, premarital sex to wearing short dresses to arguing with parents everything is obscene and unacceptable. Recently I have seen people trashing their love lives in order to fulfil their parents’ desire who are much concerned about their social status. Most of our decisions are so governed by the society; no wonder man is a social animal. But I find it strange how our happiness is governed by the rules of society. Our decision of good and bad is based on what society would think. And strangely when it comes to actually doing something for society we turn selfish. No one volunteering to offer a seat to an elderly person is a very trivial issue but strongly reflects the hollowness existing in our value system, which is highly pseudo in nature.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
It’s gone too far
It’s gone far away
It’s hard to now find it in the fray
The tussle that is on between the sense and what has been tagged as the nonsense
Hopes have clashed and now they lay lashed...
Lashed by the power of time,
Wings of dream, broken by the force, so divine and predestined.
But the soul still betrays the mind because still there might be something that has to be beat the divine and the time.
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