On Rang De Basanti**

Rang De Basanti (Rakeysh Mehra, 2006) was not just a very successful film in terms of box office returns, but was also able to aquire cult status, when it was released. A film can do both at the same time only when it is able to put ideas out there which its audience is able to identify with. And this is exactly what RDB did. It packaged two important ideas in its story - one, that the glory and fervour of patriotism that was prevalent at the time of the Independence struggle is something that is simply not accessible to the youth of today, and two, that there is a chasm between the State and the youth which results in deep-seated alienation in the minds of the young people of this country.

But the skill of the film-maker did not stop there. RDB has a parallel narrative structure, which not only assimilates the two ideas, but is also able to convey the thought that in spite of the alienation positive action is possible. In this blog, I want to concentrate on this parallel narrative and what it is able to do for the film.

On the one hand, we have the story of Bhagat Singh and his comarades, who fought and died for the independence of this country. Let us take a step back in time to the year 2002 when five films on the very same story were made. None of the films were successful. One of the reasons for this is obvioulsy that if there are five films made on the same subject available to the audience, the individual impact of each is bound to get diluted. But also, that the ideals shown in all five films are something that most of today's audience (60-odd years after Independence) will simply not be able to identify with. This thought struck me, in fact, when I was watching a much older version of the same story, Shaheed (S. Ram Sharma, 1965). I can appreciate the film as a history lesson and a good film, but the rhetoric and the driven behaviour of the characters, I cannot relate to. This is also the same reason why films like Wake Up Sid and Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na do well. These are young people we actually may know in our real lives too.

So, making a film only on the Bhagat Singh story is not enough. One remixes it with a contemporary track, and there in you have a hit formula. In order to so this, you take characters who resemble the contemporary scenario and have them play Bhagat Singh and the rest of the freedom fighters. By doing this two things are possible - the young people in the film are able to imbibe their ideas, live their emotions through role play, and get the feeling that the people are different, but perhaps the problems are still the same, and in spite of living in a democracy, we are perhaps not completely free. Not only do the actors on the screen play the dual roles, but we as the audience do too. So DJ and his group act as a binder between the audience and the Bhagat Singh story.

Another message the film is able to pass on through this kind of inter-mixing of the two stories is that even if ours is a free country, complacency and indifference is not acceptable. We still need to make a noise against what is wrong and at least attempt to fix it.

When the film released, a common criticism of its ideology was that it promotes violent, sporadic action against injustice in our country. Simply put, it promotes murder -- an eye for an eye -- in a country force-fed the passive values of Gandhigiri. My response to this is no, the film does not do that. The shooting of the Defence Minister in the film is a symbolic action. It replicates the shooting of Saunders in the alter-ego narrative of the film, and that's about it. If the film truly promoted murder then the last radio station scene of the film would not have been included at all, in which the characters explain that what they did was only a means of revenge for their friend's death, and by no means a war cry.

In fact, if one watches the last scene of the film when DJ and the others are killed by the police, the police actually come off as far more violent and blood-thirsty than the young people -- a scene reminiscent of the Jalianwala Baug massacre depicted earlier in the film.

Compare this to another film, where maybe the solution depicted is more practical and usable -- a film like Yuva (Mani Ratnam, 2004) -- which advocates an entry into politics as a mode of bringing about change. Yet, even in that film violence and arm-twisting is something that cannot be completely left out. Compare this to yet another classic like Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (Kundan Shah, 1983), where the end shows that the common man is ultimately silent and powerless in face of the behemoths of policits and money. Contextually, this solution may work, but in the larger picture, silence may also imply acceptance. And this is exactly what a film like RDB does not want to preach.

RDB is by no means a flawless film, but it is also a film one need not take literally. Everything in the film has been positioned so as to pass on a message. In the end, a film like this needs to be made and watched because it says some important things about our country and makes us think, and then maybe, act.

** I owe the germ of the ideas in this blog to a discussion in my M. Phil. class and also to an essay called 'Outside the Whale' by Salman Rushdie, available in the collection Imaginary Homelands.

Original Copy - Thoughts on 'Ek Phool Char Kaante'

I believe that literature is the most resonant creative form. So much of what we see in a movie, or read in a newspaper article, or even experience in our lives, seems to be familair because we remember it from a book. I experienced an instance of this resonance recently when I picked up a copy of a book called Major Voices: 18th Century Women Playwrights by Michael Cains. Now this book was a revelation to me. I had no idea that women wrote plays in the 18th century, much less staged them. The introduction of the book informs me that some of these plays had to fight to see the light of day, and when they did they went unnoticed or flopped. A few of them did receive critical and commercial success. Some of them even had to be released anonymously, as theatre in those days in England was "corruptible" and not considered the "proper" occupation, especially for malleable-minded women!

The very first play in this collection is one called A Bold Stroke for a Wife by Susannah Centlivre, written in early 18th century. The play tells the story of a girl by the name of Anne Lovely, who is rich and of marriageable age. She is courted by Colonel Fainwell, whose overtures she reciprocates. Her deceased father's will leaves four guardians incharge of her. Moreover, the will stipulates that she can only get married to the man who her four guardians approve of. The catch is that all four are poles apart from and fiercly derisive of each other, not to mention difficult to please. One is a preacher, the second a stockbroker, the third a pseudo-connoseur, and the fourth is a rich fancy pants. So Fainwell sets out to impress all four guardians by morphing into the type of man each one would like for his ward.

To those of you who have seen the 1960 Waheeda Rehman-Sunil Dutt starer Ek Phool Char Kante (dir: Bhappi Sonie), this plot will sound very familiar. I always thought that this film had a very interesting story line, and it is one of my most favourite romantic comedies. And now, after reading this play, I come to know it's not original. Anyway, I'm not disappointed - I still love the film. It's entertaining and Sunil Dutt is the best part of the film. What prompted me to write this blog is the way in which both the play and the film use this 'four guardians-one female ward' structure and the ideologies they bring forth.

Susannah Centlivre is writing out of a strict patriarchal set-up which even frowns upon her writing. It seems to me that this is her inspiration for creating a character srtucture of this type, which replicates the claustrophobia of the soceity she lives in. The men have total control - the father of Anne Lovely, even after his death does not leave her free to marry a man of her choice. Her guardians do not only track her actions, but also expect her to do what they tell her when she is with them. In fact, she even has to dress according to their whims - in a unrevealing head-to-toe dress when she is in the care of the preacher, and in bright, fashinable clothes when she is with the fancy pants. So obviously it is Fainwell's job (another man!) to rescue her from her constricited existence, and make her his wife. We are also told that she has thirty thousand pounds at her disposal after her marriage, which means that anyone who marries her will be that much richer. Fainwell clearly mentions in the play that he is marrying her not only because she's pretty, but also because she is rich.

Centlivre satirises every patriarchal convention and manifestation in this play. She ridicules the traditional male occupations into which women were not allowed entry at that time, like preaching and trade. She ridicules men who have money, but no taste, and cover up their lack of intellect with expensive clothes and possessions. She does not even spare her hero, Fainwell, who is gallant and clever enough to "rescue" our maiden, but whose motivation for wanting to marry her seems shallow and superficial. The structure of the play itself is a indictment of the system of patriarchy and the manner in which it tries to bind and mould women. And I also feel that a criticism of patriarchy is an inherent quality of the structure - it has been designed for this purpose.

What happens when this structure is transposed onto a Hindi film made in the 1960s? The film also could easily have been a similar critique of patriarchy, since male oppression of women is not an unfamiliar concept even to our culture. Instead the film changes genres and what we get is a romantic comedy in place of a satire. The film does lose the political edge of the play here, but does not fail to make subtle comments on the man-woman relations in society. Take, for example, the very first scene, where the film mocks the manner in which some women may feign helplessness to be dependent on men to get things done from them. The man is question, Sanjeev (Sunil Dutt), refuses to be chivalrous when Sushma (Waheeda Rehman) asks his help in changing a flat tire. Instead, he says that he would help, but only with instructions - she would have to do the actual dirty work herself.

The relation between Sushma and her four uncles is harmonious - she willingly, not forcibly, changes herself according to the preferences of each uncle. They genuinely love her and care for her happiness. Here, the film inverts another custom of our society were women have to prove themselves to be sarvagun sampann to be accepted as brides. It is the man in this film who has to prove himself to be religious, physically strong, social and flamboyant all at the same time. The film needs to be seen for the performances of the four uncles - David, Johnny Lever, Dhumal and Rashid Khan (who in fact are quite "theatrical" in their acting styles), and for Sunil Dutt.

The film and the play are both equally funny and enjoyable to watch/read. It does not matter that the film isn't original - it brings its own unique take on the structure that Centlivre creates. This unique quality is what differentiates a mere copy from what I termed "resonance" at the beginning of this blog.