Skip to main content

Wrong Question - Natha Kab Marega?

Spoiler Alert: May contain brief description of a few scenes from the movie which will not impact the viewing experience.

Finally, got time to spend a nice Sunday and decided to watch the much hyped Peepli [Live]. Needless to say, it is totally worth it. Anusha Rizvi dished out a very tight script and directed the movie almost to  perfection. The only sad part - this sort of a movie is a wasted effort with most of the Indian audience. Why would I say that? Do I consider myself to be the only smart one out there? Not really. But here is why.

As we all know from the trailers, this movie is a satirical description of the disturbing trend of farmer suicides in Vidharba and other agricultural belts in the country. It is a tough ask to depict something painful with humor thrown in and the movie does complete justice to the cause.



The character Natha pulls off an amazing role representing a farmer whose land is sold off due to his inability to pay the debt. He has no money to feed his kids and wife. Along with his elder brother, he runs around finding solution to his problem and the only solution seems to be suicide which would then lead to a handsome compensation by the government. Even this thought is disgraceful, when a man has to resort to  killing himself for his family's survival. Throw in some politics, favors, media, dirty strategies by ministries we all are so aware of - and it leads to a heady concoction. However, the plight, morose expressionless faces and the message behind the human survival instinct is as lost to the audience who is  busy laughing at the abuses hurled by characters in the movie as it is depicted to the media in the movie itself. A mockery of a mela when someone is about to die in the movie is strikingly similar to the mela watching the whole show.

And, in the end, nobody actually cares whether Natha lived or died. Both in the movie and in theater. In the movie, it was their job. In the theater, they just wanted to enjoy.

The real shame is - even in 2010, we as a nation can still accept the existence of countless Nathas without any qualms.   

Comments

  1. A very insightful review and yes, it is a shame that even though such films depict reality to an extent...people get done with their popcorns, get up and leave the theater, smudging the lines between fiction and reality.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Neha Verma17 August, 2010

    Nice article !!! I agree.. as much as I hate to say this, people seem to have become so accustomed to seeing misery around, it dos'ent stir them up anymore...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saraswati to Laxmi!

 Image Courtesy: http://www.thehindu.com/ Now that MBA is over and I am considered an ounce wiser, being back home means work. There are so many pending things that are just waiting in the attic to be dusted and made to work again. One of them is the mammoth task of physical share transfer and dematerialization. Though stated in one pretty sentence, it takes months of effort and work. And of course, money!  My brother has been painfully going about the motions of this work for a couple of months now and nothing much yet seems to have resulted out of it. We struck a good deal with a certain Saraswati something shares. I asked, "How much would this one fetch us?". He replied, "Enough to recover the money you spent on your MBA degree". I exclaimed, "Really! Waoh! Even after they have been dormant for like 15 years??!". He quipped, in exasperation, "Weren't they supposed to teach you all this in B-School?" I did shut up and let him do this pain

Were you sleeping?

How irritating is it to get a phone call when you are in that last hour of your sleep on a Saturday morning? Worse, if it turns out to be your mobile service provider wanting to confirm if you would want to upgrade your 3G plan (which in any case sucks with most providers in India!) Even worse, what if it turns out to be someone important, like your boss? Now you don't want to sound totally sleepy - do you? What would he/she be thinking of you if he were to ask, "Were you sleeping?" at 11 am in the morning? (And, this is judgmental attitude is especially true of older white haired balding bosses!) Well, here are a few tips to sound all alert & morning crispy when actually you would have killed him for ruining your sleep on a Saturday morning. They have worked well for me, hope they would for you too! - Take a deep breath, let the phone ring for a few seconds so that you get a chance to clear your head (hope you did not have much alcohol last night). T

Continuity called Nature

Other not so important news is as follows. I am limping with a completely removed nail from the finger next to toe on my left foot, heat is getting unbearable as it is supposed to be, work is hectic as usual, I don't find time to exercise, I like to sleep more and I am hopelessly stuck in a rut of work-home routine with minor hiccups like the stupid freak toe injury. Pretty uneventful as usual. What we tend to forget while ranting like I just did is that these continuous monotonous processes in life are also the driving force for us to graduate to newer and widened laws of nature - even though we may tend to resist them. It is hard to realize the importance of these circles until you find few precious minutes for yourself to think and look around. There is nothing new with spring and summer. We hardly have spring season though - summer conquers spring quickly and brutally. I happened to be loitering around lackadaisically on the terrace and found the beautiful burnt orange on t