A Wednesday: Good movie but...

Harry Potter once stumbled across a mirror which reflected the deepest desires of the person looking into it. The images were so seductive that a person could spend the whole of his life just looking at it, so the wise Dumbledore warned Harry.

A Wednesday had a similar kind of effect on me. Rationally I know that vigilante justice is wrong. However, looking at the utter incapability of our police in nabbing terrorists, there is a small part of me that wants to cheer a person who would have the guts to do what Naseeruddin Shah does in the movie. A Wednesday is one of the best directed movies I have seen in a really long time. Neeraj Pandey's (the director)first attempt at directing makes me salivate for more goodies. Its terse, tight, and packs a punch. Of course, with actors such as Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah playing the main roles its difficult to go wrong (although its been known to happen, remember Anupam Kher in some of the worst mainstream movies!)

Here, Anupam Kher as Inspector Prakash Rathod gives a fantastic performance. Cynical yet dedicated, he tries to negotiate with an anonymous caller who claims to have planted bombs in various places in Mumbai. A little into the movie, we realise that Naseeruddin Shah is the person who plants bombs. For the most part, he appears to be another of those deadly Islamic terrorists with an ordinary face who wants to wreak vengeance for his cause (whatever that might be). However, as the movie moves towards the climax, the plots twists into something else entirely. It turns out that Shah is not a terrorist but one who claims to be a representative of the Common Man a la R.K. Laxman. Tired of the incompetence of the police in ensuring safety for the common man, he takes it upon himself to destroy four dreaded terrorists. However, he knows the only way to ensure that they are killed is to blackmail the police into releasing the 4 terrorists and killing them himself.

The only slightly "filmy" part of the movie is where Shah launches into a diatribe against state incompetence and the vulnerability of the common man who has no religion, caste, creed or danger. Just ordinary citizens trying to go about their daily business.

What scares me is the topicality of the movie. The day that I watched the movie was a Sunday at PVR Saket. It was probably the first time that my friend and I managed to get tickets for the movie just 10 mins before the show. For that, we have the series of bomb blasts in Delhi to thank for. One could see the fear in people as they meekly submitted to thorough security checks and looked around suspiciously for any unclaimed packages lying around.

While no one disputes that the police are incompetent, they are also hampered by the fact that they get inadequate training, inadequate pay and manpower. Top it off with constant political interference and its a wonder that India as a country functions at all. It also does not help when every action of the police (even legitimate ones) is viewed through the prism of communalism. Instead of condemning the terrorists who kill, a number of members of the Muslim community and a number of activists claiming to be "secular" (without ever defining what exactly it means to them) or protectors of "human rights" (it begs the question, which humans, when they only seem to come out of the wood work after some terrorists have been nabbed), want to tarnish every action of the police. I think they don't realise that they are really not doing a service to the minority community. For good or bad, in a democracy, state is or should be the only agency that can use violence as a legitimate way of dealing with criminals. If they undermine the state, they are endangering all citizens of the country. No one is questioning the need for reforms in the state organs. That has been overdue for ages. But there is a difference between systematically denigrating the system of law and order in the country and agitating for reforms. Because at the end of the day, the best protection for any person can only come from the state, not from vigilantes of any type.

Jaane tu...ya jaane na: Breezy and light

There are some movies that are deep, meaningful, serious and then there is Jaane tu...! This is a madcap story of two friends who gradually discover that they actually love each other. This theme of course has been done to death in many Hindi and English movies. However, Jaane tu's USP are its cute storyline and characters. Jai, played by amir Khan's nephew Imraan Khan and Aditi, played by Genelia D'souza are best friends who hang out with a bunch of oddballs from college. Jai is your quintessential non-violent type (his mom, played by Ratna Pathak Shah, insists that his dad was a strong beliver of non-violence) while Aditi is a hell raiser. Since both hang out together almost constantly, their parents assumes they are in love and broach the subject of marriage. The idea is instantly rejected by both who insist that they have no such romantic feelings for each other and embark on finding their respective life partners. While they do manage to fool themselves for a little while that they are actually in love with other people, they eventually realise that they love each other.

When putting down the story in black and white, it sounds really cliched and dull. However, the movie is anything but that. It not only explores friendships but also focusses on parental relations and even the equation between a brother and sister in a very believable way. I really liked Aditi's brother, Amit's character. He is an introverted artist who behaves obnoxiously with Aditi's friends, especially Jai, because he and Aditi were best friends before Jai came into her life. The cameos by Ratna Pathak Shah, Naseeruddin Shah (in the role of Jai's dead father) and Paresh Rawal are a treat to watch.

However, it does reinforce the stereotype that a girl and a boy cannot be best friends without being in love. Hindi movies have come a long way (or at least some) from the traditional and melodramatic plotlines to showcase believable characters, non-traditional parents and friendships. But exploring the equation of a girl and boy being best friends without any romance involved remains a taboo for all directors.

The Indian Budget for Dummies

Fiscal deficit, capital expenditure, gross domestic product, wholesale price index, excise duty...if you are like me (i.e. stumped by economic jargon), its likely that the Finance Minister's annual Budget speech leaves you reeling. Not because the fiscal deficit is rising or the gross domestic product has failed to deliver, but because of the onslaught of economic terminology bombarded at you. And if you are sitting with a bunch of economists listening to the Budget (again like me), its almost guaranteed that you'd feel like the world's greatest dummy! While people around you are making seemingly brilliant wise cracks about the Budget, you are desperately trying to remember the definition of Gross Domestic Product learnt during school economics classes some 15 years back.

So here's the Budget highlights for dummies:

a) More salary (yay): Not because your boss suddenly thinks you are brilliant but underpaid and decides to hike your salary but because the Finance Minister thinks you should get more money (the reason might just be a tad more complicated than the sudden illumination about your brilliance). And if you are a woman or a senior citizen you get to take home even more money!! Muah to Chiddu-:P

b) Debt relief (balle balle for farmers): The FM decided that farmers are special. Now what does that mean in budgetary terms? It means that you get to take loans from banks and the government repays them for you! Of course the FM seems to have forgotten that most farmers in India don't actually take loans from banks because of all kinds of procedural hassles...they take loans from money lenders who charge them exorbitant rates of interest. The actual people who take loans from banks are not the ones committing suicide since they are the relatively well off farmers. While I'm no economist (understatement of the year), even I can see that there is a logical fallacy in this. The people who are happy (other than the farmers who never paid back their loans) are the banks because they get their money back in full. And the most unhappy among the farmers would be the ones who foolishly scrapped and scrimped to pay back their loans. This, I think, is a textbook case of populism.

c) National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) gets universalised: The universalisation happened before. The Budget had to fund it. How did it do so? It went and stopped all other employment schemes and put in that money with a little extra into the kitty of NREGS. Now, I'm a little confused about the whole idea of employment generation through this scheme. While I am all for dignity of labour and right to employment, it seems a little self defeating to restrict the scheme's funding to unskilled labour. Essentially, what happens is there is money for people to dig up places but the moment a little more skilled work is required (which you would need if you are serious about building even the most rudimentary of things), the funding dries up (the Act stipulates the ratio of wage cost to material cost should be a minimum of 60:40. So proportion of funding for materials and skilled labour has to be less than cost of wage of unskilled labour!). Wow!! Even my non-economics oriented brain can see that this is not going to work. Also, given the level of corruption, these elaborate schemes are just a drain on tax payers money. Why doesn't the government use the money to provide better education and infrastructure so that the poor can acquire the skill to get employed and not remain at subsistence level??

This is all for now folks! Will write more later.

Taare Zameen Par: Finally, Bollywood shows a kid acting as a real kid

Yes folks! Taare Zameen Par is that rare Bollywood film where a kid acts like he is a kid and not like a mini version of a melodramatic adult. I can count on one finger how many Bollywood films show children as they really are (the only movies I remember are Masoom and Anjali, which was a remake of a south Indian film). Anyways, Darsheel as Ishaan is your normal 9 year old....messy, naughty, bratty but still retaining the innocence of childhood.

So the first half of the movie where Ishaan day dreams through class and expresses himself through paintings is a treat to watch. Also, the portrayal of the pressures that schools and parents put on children whether they are good or bad performers is very realistic. However, the movie goes a bit downhill in the second half where Ishaan is sent to a strict boarding school to be whipped into shape. There is no lack in Ishaan's acting...he is superb as the kid whose vitality has finally been subdued by the repeated insults and trauma that he suffers from all sides. The reason is Aamir Khan and his desire to give the movie a happy ending. It would have been enough if he had succeeded in identifying the problem and convincing the parents and teachers that the child did not lack brains, he had dyslexia, a learning disorder that could be successfully overcome.

However, the movie goes into overdrive, showing Ishaan making rapid progress and in the final instance winning the painting competition. This movie would have been Oscar material if it could have retained the level of reality it had in the first half.