There have been a couple of movies in the recent past that have really made me thinking and of course has pushed me to write again. Yes, it has been more than a year since i wrote my lost blog-post, but this time i just could not be without writing.

The first one that got my attention was the newly Released Holiday, starring Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha in the lead. Akshay kumar plays the role of a army officer on leave, but is also part of the Defence Intelligence Agency which acts as the Intelligence unit of the Military. This is the copy of the film Tamil film Thuppakki and there is hardly any difference in the story-line. The movie is about busting what one calls the sleeper cells who are pawns for terrorist activities in big cities. You can read the plot of the movie on wiki or any other review will be good enough for one to understand the plot.

Am not going to be writing an entire story-line of the film though i would like to confess that i have watched both the movies, one on the computer and the other in a cinema hall in Hyderabad. When one has nothing to do in a city with a friend one does indulge in doing mindless things. But, I am glad I decided to go watch this in a cinema hall.

In the movie, most of the Sleeper cells aka terrorists have been branded in a particular fashion, now this fashion resembles one particular community in this country, most or all are wearing kurtas and phatani suits, they all have beards and there mastermind is somewhere in the Northwestern province of India or could we say India occupied Kashmir!

The movie throughout pictures that the sleeper cells are the ignorant ones who would do anything that the mastermind says and asks them to do. And the final icing on the cake, we have the defence sec coming from one of the other minority community who has joined hands with the other minority community to being down this ‘great’ country and the majority community as these bombs that they tick off can only kill the people of the majority community.

Now that i have given a bit on the plot and what one can see of the movie, let me tell you, that when i stepped out of the movie hall, i had quite a few people staring and giving me a few more looks than i deserve. What do i acknowledge it to? The fact that i was wearing a Kurta, or that i had a beard or both? And i think i would go with both! The impact that this movie created on some people’s psyche is what chilled me to my nerves, as even though the stares and looks could have been normal and a usual thing, it brought in me the thought of connecting it to the film and the portrayal of the people as terrorists in it.

A lot of us think that this is an over-exaggeration of the impact that the movie might have on the larger public, but most time regressive ideas are best reached through mass movies like these.  Remember A Wednesday! and what it had to say to a lot of people, that as a concerned citizen its ok to kill a ‘terrorist’ cause the larger collective conscious needs justice. ‘Collective conscious’ wait, have we not heard this before, ah, Afzal Guru and his trial that was a farce in itself! Now how is that someone like Afzal guru was hung to death based on circumstantial evidence, but somebody like Swami Assemanand who himself confessed to the Malegaon blasts and many other terror activities is still undergoing trail? No no… our keepers of law and justice do not see movies, nor do they base their judgement based on the religion and caste and class of the person who stands accused. They solely base their judgement based on laws and the lawbook, nothing else! just that this lawbook and law is a thinner for those from the oppressed castes, classes and the minority religions. This is just one of those instances that I am citing, but there are many more similar ones across the country.

This is truly a ramble, i have come to Justice and law from a movie like Holiday! that too in less that a page! The impact that cinema has on people including like myself is just too amazing!

The next one that came to my mind was this documentary, The World before her, which shows two different poles of the feminist struggles in India. One, the ultra cool, Miss India pageants the other the training at the Durga Vahini camps for girls held by the RSS and VHPs. Now, i understand that there have been a lot of people who have written and have their own opinions about the film and the portrayal of the women in the film is not something that they might agree to, i do subscribe to what you have to say, i also subscribe to the fact that the director/filmmaker has moulded replies the way she wanted it, but does that mean brush off what is being said? Or even say that it was a manipulative interview which had leading questions in the direction that the filmmakers wanted the interview to go?

Regardless all these questions, one of the things that caught my attention was how the during the training at the camp there was emphasis on how should one live in the society and how one must be willing to give their lives for the sake of a larger Hindu rashtra. There are other things as well which would talk on similar lines, but what the documentary did to me initially was to out on those suspicious lens on and look at almost every girl/women around me there as somebody who has been to a camp.

The power of Cinema is such that it can influence ones thoughts more than what one thinks it does to people. Hopefully, there can be more cinema that is far less regressive and far less stereotyping people and communities in a particular manner!

I should thank Bhamati Sivapalan for the discussion that has also pushed me to start to write once again, even though these are ramblings of a mind thats wanting to explode!