Well Done!

Politician Ram Vilas Paswan's son Chiraau is breaking into acting. Someone asked Paswan as to why  his son is going for acting and not for Politics. Paswan answered ," there is no difference.They are just performed on  different stages."  For once  I have to agree. Although  Politicians have proved terrible actors; actors on the other hand have  acquited themselves better as politicians. 

 Recently I saw two very forceful examples of politicians acting and actors making a political statement. Firstly some politician from India went to Pakistan and participated in a joint venture with a local politician in the show called "let us pretend talk". It was a farce that as expected turned into a tragedy. All actors in the play  willfully forgot their lines and finally said all kinds of things that were not in the original script. Show failed as a drama but  the actors did address their respective political constituencies by their grand standing and  their complete neglect of all  norms of civility and diplomacy.  In the end both the audience; actors and  the US show management company ; all nodded their heads , patted each other on the back and went home to prepare for another similar stage show for later sometime.  This  edition of the venture of course got thrown into a well. How I wish that well could vanish.

As if on cue a friend lent me  his copy of "Well Done Abba". The movie about about a vanishing  well .  vetern director Shyam Benegal has directed the movie and as is his won't made a lot of socio -political statements. Film is a director's medium but I must say that all actors in the movie starting with Boman Irani in a double role have been a force multiplier to Shayam Benegal's directorial effort. Very surprisingly even Minissha Lamba has done great justice to her role as a spunky  young woman.  This film is a satire primarily highlighting  corruption in implementing social  programs. The story  has been told in a refreshingly humourous tone and Shayam has avoided dark and heavy tear jerking treatment that mars such works.  In the movie eventually Lost wells are finally found back. A la bollywood style although in real life it is not easy to get such justice. Anyway It is really a movie of hope and comes with the message that we can achieve things and we can correct things if we decide.  Very good stuff! His other sub texts about  importance of Girls education; problem of sham marriage of young Indian girls to doddering Arabs; futility of of using your birth religion as your identity; are all very important statements that are made as a matter of fact.

Things that I did not like so much were a sub conscious attempt by Shayam to avoid showing Politicians in their correct avatar. He has made the officialdom the villain of the piece. In reality the politician is the fountainhead of corruption. Another jarring piece  is the engineer's  character. The fact that he is recently married  with his wife's charms  rather than his job on his mind got established in the first instance .Too many scenes of his conjugal bed were probably a little "peeping tomish".  

But hey I am not the director of the movie and there is something called commercial demands, so we'll let that slide. Even though there is a surfeit of political and social commentary ;Overall it is a movie that's well done! 

 Someone should tell the politicians that there is a difference between well done and burnt! At least they should watch this movie.

Stamps

31 st October is the day when both Indira Gandhi and Amrita Pritam left this world. Apart from both of them being contemporaries I find many parallels in their gritty and rebellious lives.

Amrita's life was a typical artist's life. She seems to have channelized both her personal sadness as well as public grief into an exquisite creative expression. So while her early work is driven by the loss of her mother at a young age and the colossal human suffering resulting from the partition of the Indian sub continent ; her later work drew more and more from her personal life. Her collapsing marriage , her unfulfilled relationship with Sahir Ludhyanvi and her eventual common law relation with Imroz probably firmed her feminist perspective. Her writings are intense and manage to take hold of you even in translation.

Indira Gandhi also lost her mother to TB at an early age . That fact seems to have shaped her personality to a large extent. Not only did this tragedy bring both father and daughter closer and made them interdependent , it also built a tough autocratic core to her . Again like Amrita she flayed convention to elope with Firoz ; not only many years her senior but of a different faith. That could not have been easy but obviously she got her way even in her youth. It is another matter that her marriage eventually was put on ice as she moved in to run her father's household. Leaving Firoz to his own devices. So both these women seem to have confronted personal relationship challenges. Great turmoil is a constant subtext of their life stories . Partition in case of Amrita and anti- sikh riots in case of Indira Gandhi.
As far as her life's work is concerned she has left an indelible stamp on modern India. Three things mainly stand out. Bangladesh war - the credit for winning that war has to go to Sam Manekshaw; Gen. Jagjit Singh Arora and the soldiers . One must say though that Pakistan did not stand any chance . What with open revolt in Bangladesh , most likely given enough time even mukti vahini alone would have done the job themselves. The political decision of helping Bangladesh to secede on the other hand is Indira's alone . In retrospect that has proved to be a poor decision. East Pakistan would have been a constant nag and a huge drag on Pakistan which suited Indian interests;. Instead now we have an ungrateful and hostile independent Bangladesh. Which is only another headache for India. However to be fair to Mrs. Gandhi it seemed like a good thing to do in '71.
Next in line is emergency that she clamped down in '75. Really no comments are necessary. It was a rank bad dictatorial move by her. A serious blot on her political sagacity. The last highlight of her political career is her Punjab policy which in association with Akali politics created terrorism in Punjab and culminated in Operation Bluestar. Aftermath of that ill thought action is still felt from Canada to HongKong. And of course that terribly shameful riot in '84,; that was more a handiwork of her legacy since she was already gone by then. Tragically felled by the bullets meant to protect her.