Saturday last week was my second trip to Jaipur in less than a month. The earlier occasion was to help do the CIO100 event, IDG's biggest event initiative in India and this time I's there to get my parents to Gurgaon. They come once in two months to stay with us but the condition is that they'll have to be picked from Jaipur. This time around, they're here for slightly longer duration to help me deal with Vasudha's pre and post pregnancy woes. Anyway, the purpose of writing this edition is not to narrate who is here for what and why! I encountered a very interesting person during this trip which gave me a fair idea of how the youth - especially those living in the rural India - are either misguided or have no idea how to look at their future.
Meet Vimal, a small but certainly a true representative of rural India, who due to lack of guidance or direction, lead an aimless life without any window to see where they are going to land in the future. This time, as I was driving Jaipur (250 kms from Delhi) the second time, I thought it would be a good idea to be driven rather than drive on my own. Secondly, I wasn't feeling well too (I was in the grip of the seasonal viral, which can be damn irritating during driving etc.). So, Vimal, was the driver. Vimal works as a contract driver with GAIL (a public sector unit of Government of India, dealing with Gas). He’s one of the 120 drivers that company hires for driving their officials to and from office. This is typical of India's 'Babudome' (a British legacy still continued) to be driven. In private sector, it comes at a cost and only after a level but in government jobs, its part of perks.
Vimal comes from a rural family residing in a small village near Kanpur (a prominent industrial district of Uttar Pradesh - otherwise a filthy place to be in). He is the only SON in his whole family (read Joint Family) and that is no less than an achievement for anyone in India. being a boy/male/son is considered to be so auspicious here that even today thousands of girls are either mercilessly killed by their parents or are subjugated to worse living conditions, which include subhuman conditions and substandard treatment. Due to this male child fascination India is currently reeling under tremendously erroneous male-female ratio that can distort the whole social fabric of India. And it is more evident in the North Indian states as compared to south where the better literacy rate has worked in favor of treating girls on par with boys. So, Vimal is a single male child of his generation. His father has two brothers - one elder and one younger to him. The elder one has 6-7 daughters and the younger one hasn't been blessed with a child. Vimal has two sisters too.
Because there's some awareness in the rural areas too about education, at least the male children are sent to schools (its not that females don't attend school at all but still the ratio is in favor of males). Vimal went to school too. Out of sheer anxiety and to break the silence in the damn car, I asked him, "How much have you studied?" "Sir till 10th," he promptly replied and then he took chose to take up a monologue without even waiting to breathe for a moment. It wouldn't matter to him whether I was keen to listen to his story. Probably, he got an outlet in me to whom he could narrate his 'not so eventful' story of how he ran away from his village only to become a driver in Delhi. He told his entire story in those four hours that we were driving back to Delhi and I, out of sheer curiosity, didn't discourage him to stop at any stage. His tale was a creation of an amalgamation of absolute rural upbringing minced with his 6-7 years of urban touch. Vimal is now 25 years old and not yet married. I was astonished to know despite the abject poverty of knowledge and scarcity of other essential resources to sustain in a metro, Vimal ran away from his house to find a life in this inhuman city. My mother knew that I was going to Delhi but that too was half truth. I told her that a few friends are going to Delhi and will come back after seeing the capital. She didn't resist. But I didn't tell my father or any other person in my family," he said. I was still clueless why he chose to run away from his home leaving studies and probably a few comforts and assurance of food, which he wouldn't be earn without undergoing tremendous pain in Delhi? "Sir, I felt exploited at home. As a young child I was quite curious to drive the tractor in my village (believe me it doesn't require to have a valid/invalid license in India to drive a tractor and especially in the rural areas)," he said. That habit of driving tractor for no reason landed Vimal in a soup. This passion of Vimal was observed by all elderly mails in his family and very soon he was asked to plow the fields in his village. This continued for some time before Vimal started hating it. "Soon I realized I was only good for plowing fields. Everyone would ask me to do just that. The tractor gave me nightmares - so much so that I even lost the battle on my height. I am barely five feet one inches sir," he told, with a grump on his face. But Vimal didn't stop. "Not only that sir. My father and his brothers are so united with each other that they don't look beyond a collective life. We grow a lot of cash crops in our fields but the yield we get at home is not distributed according to the labor that we contribute. It's the elder brother of my father (who is the eldest in the clan) who calls the shots as to what will go to whom," said Vimal. By now his tone had changed. What appeared to me as an interesting story a few minutes ago was turning out to be a calamity and Vimal was just a sample case (representative) of millions of youth in India who, in quest of life, not only loose their youth but also remain deprived of education, knowledge and foresightedness for all their life. But as I said, this was just the beginning of the ordeal which was being unfolded by Vimal. He proceeded with his tale and I was, as ever, again curious to know more. It appeared to me as if Vimal was just better than a slave/bonded labor who, despite having lot of wishes, are not given a single opportunity to fulfill them. The slaves, as they appeared in the due course of history, around the world are considered to be the most resounding examples of how humans are exploited by humans. This is not a new practice at all and specially in developing countries where a large part of rural population neither has land to plow nor has anything else to sustain themselves. Post independence the tradition of slavery may have slowed down but it still exists in a few forms. The poor, landless laborers are exploited to the hilt and there voice is suppressed if they raise it for their rights. Anyway, this is not the platform where I would deal with slavery and its impacts. So what Vimal said so far was giving me a feeling of how his entire family crushed his youth and compelled him to become a tractor driver (mainly to plow his field). "Sir my passion of driving a tractor was actually misused by my family members." Now Vimal was going all out to convince me that life was not all that good in his village. By now he'd shed all his inhibitions and was telling me everything as if I am going to act as a messiah and instantly give solutions to all his problems. By now I was getting a good sense of how, in the absence of any proper guidance, can ruin themselves. And specially the ones living in rural areas are more vulnerable than the once living in the urban areas. Although this boundary is blurring today (I mean youth from both rural and urban areas are vulnerable to threats of getting mislead by external influences). By now I had got a fair idea of the rebel that Vimal was planning and what would have been on his mind before he took a decision to revolt and run away. But imagine if he had trained his guns and energy towards attaining a level of education and tried to make his career in some damn field. In India, there are millions of youth who, despite having great educational background, remain unemployed. But that doesn't give us the right to decide against getting any kind of education. This would be the highest form of pessimism otherwise. Now Vimal was unfolding another set of reasons which prompted him to leave his clan and run away to be on his own.
"In my family, there's nothing called individual wealth. I have seen my father and uncles spending money on different things. We don't have any right to own individual wealth. I felt so deprived and dependent on them for everything," he said. Now I was smelling something even more rebellious. In India, we'd nurtured the tradition of joint families and common wealth. With the influence of time and the tradition of nuclear families (which we've inherited from western influence) proliferating into the rural India, this is an outcome, which was inevitable but not so solicited. If I have to believe Vimal and the likes of him, they all are vying for their personal wealth bank. It may not be very dangerous but it certainly takes us away from the values of history, wherein we were more prone to common wealth and united families.
"Sir, I wanted to earn money for myself, at best for my core family. I told my mother very clearly that I can live in poverty but can't see the unequal distribution of wealth," said Vimal.
That brought him to Delhi. Although he was not a dumb ass to come to Delhi without any platform to fall back upon but the end result and the great message hidden in this story is to know how badly our youth wastes its potential. Today Vimal lives in a small one room set paying close to 1/4th of his salary towards rent. He pays another 1/4th of his salary to feed himself (that's food) and some more expenses here and there would see him spending his entire salary in just sustaining himself. But he is slightly more intelligent that I thought he would be. As a contract driver he works for five days a week and the two days of weekend are his own. Though killing his instinct, Vimal prefers to work on weekends for his small set of clientele, which includes me as well. As part of this deal, he earns an additional sum of money and saves his salary for good. By the time this story got to an end, we were already entering the hustle bustle of the bust express highway. Vimal concentrated on driving and I was occupied thinking something else. We reached home, I paid Vimal his due and the story ended there. But I can say it with great conviction that millions of youth in India are following what Vimal did - escaping the tough route to get isolated and get lost in the crowd of millions just for a fake experience of freedom and independence.
Monday 22 September 2008
Sunday 21 September 2008
Reformed Parallel Cinema
It seems the face of the so called Parallel Cinema in India has finally decided to change its mode of messaging to the masses. The movement, which started with the legendary film maker, writer Satyajit Ray by making of his film Pather Panchali in 1955 (the genre of films which were popularly known as the 'Indian Parallel Cinema'), seems to have entered into a new era. I am of the opinion that it was long overdue. By bracketing it for a particular class, the deep social message, communication for the masses and subsequently its impact was lost because the medium was either not suitable for the masses or it didn't have a binding appeal so that the masses could get attracted to it.
Finally Shyam Benegal, who made films like Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975) Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977) and created a new wave in this genre of parallel cinema, has decided to break away from the elite group of cinematic directors who only want to remain on the discussion boards (rather gossip groups) of a few pseudo-intellectual class/s. Welcome to Sajjanpur! Don't be shocked. This is the name of the latest experiment of Benegal, which I saw day before on 19th September 2008. And to my surprise, the movie which was running amidst urban crowd but in a language popularly used and understood only by rural populace of Easter Uttar Pradesh, was a massive hit. If the maestros of Indian Parallel Cinema were alive, they would have given a standing ovation to Benegal for his new experiment - An experiment, which is not done using the Parallel Stream but Mainstream and still keeping the messaging as intact as it should be.
Although Benegal's experiment with this alternative approach started way back in the 1990s when he made a trilogy on Indian Muslim women, starting with Mammo (1995), Sardari Begum (1996), and Zubeidaa (2001). But it was probably Zubeidaa, when Benegal decided to breakaway from the so called 'elite group' (far away from reality and not interested in addressing to the masses). Even if the messaging is anti-establishment, anti-government and pro-proletariat, it doesn't have to be through an isolated medium, which only appeals to a certain class or I would say pseudo intellectuals. I think Benegal realized it and revived the old, dead tradition of Satyajit Ray, who must have died in aghast despair having no successor to his popular, parallel yet very appealing cinema for masses. Though Ray made a lot of it for a regional viewership (mostly West Bengal) but still those movies had mass appeal.
The so called parallel cinema (also known as Neo-realist) which got the somewhat desired acceptability through the makings of Satyajit Ray, followed by Shyam Benegal, Mrinal Sen, Govind Nihilani (not of the same generation but greatly inspired by Ray, Benegal and Sen) and Adoor Gopalakrishnan (in South) did not last longer than two decades (mostly 702 and 80s) Later, it got severely overshadowed by the glitz and glamour of the commercial cinema, which ultimately pushed the parallel cinema into history except a few aberrations where we saw a couple of releases here and there.
This parallel cinema, which gave careers to a whole new breed of actors including Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Amol Palekar, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Pankaj Kapoor (who now form a brigade which either decided not to act or succumbed to the massive push from commercial cinema), seemed 'dead' without a reason to me.
The socio-economic conditions remained the same. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that conditions have worsened since then. The political situations have drastically changed - more towards negative side. Earlier, when this cinema was born the political ideology of India was still left to the center. Today, we are not just right to the center but also embracing the capitalism in totality. When the Neo-realist cinema could got accepted in 1980s and 90s, today's conditions are more ripe than ever for such kind of cinema. Then why did it disappear? I think there were a few very important reasons behind it. One, the onslaught of the commercial cinema on the minds of non-thinking masses was too strong for their resistance. The glamour of the commercial cinema, depiction of unrealistic things in an almost real way, idealizing the whole world for those two-three hours (normal duration of a movie) compelled an average Indian to opine that Cinema is ultimately cinema and one should not relate it to reality. There is a huge class (i would say vast majority) of people who don't see cinema for any kind of messaging but only go there to step out of the real world and go into the world of fantasy. Exploiting this are our dream weavers (the producers and directors of cinema) who, knowing the psyche of Indian masses, have started serving them totally unreal stuff - made after taking a misconceived inspiration from the Supernatural Powers. Without naming the films (as almost all of them belong to the same genre), I can say that Indian cinema, instead of created an awakening, created apathy and lethargy amongst the masses. The average cinema viewer, as I mentioned earlier, started believing that best cinema is the one which leaders him/her to fantasy than provoke him to think or believe in reality.
With Benegal's experiment with 'Welcome to Sajjanpur' the wave of parallel cinema (with a new dimension and way of messaging) seems to be back. The characters are chosen from mainstream cinema (all good artists - mostly from National School of Drama) because to appeal the masses, its the first condition to have an acceptable faces and not the aliens. The set up of the film is not at all unusual. There have been umpteen number of movies made in a village set up with rustic surroundings and folklore, so that was the second stroke of Benegal to make sure that the movie doesn't remain confined to a particular class, which I suspect even exist in India today. Third, the messaging is not done using an elite style. It is subtle using the trusted mediums and styles. For example the nationwide furor over the Nuclear Deal and left's resentment over it (Benegal belongs to that ideology) is very craftily depicted in the film. Another very drastic deviation from the erstwhile parallel cinema was inclusion of a couple of songs in the movie. Generally the Indian parallel cinema had been serious, one-set, one location kind but welcome to Sajjanpur was shot in a vibrant setting, breaking away from the monotony. Whether it was Mahadev's (the key character of the movie who acts a letter-writer) desk or the election campaign of Munni Bai (the eunuch who wanted to contest the election using the democratic right to contest an election) or the style of living of Bhayya Ji (the typical local goon who uses his might over the rights of people), everything looks transformed and engages the audiences - importantly not disappointing them.
Another minute observation that I made and was very relevant was not prolonging any particular shot to the stage of boredom. If the cinema was reaching to a level of seriousness where an average mass viewer would like to get agitated with this new experiment, the scenario changed.
And the topmost change (according to my evaluation) was that the film is not shot in a gloomy environment. If there is a barber or a cycle repairer working in poverty, they are not depicted as people who have lost the right to 'Laugh'. Don't we see the 'rickshaw-pullers' enjoying and launching? Sure, they don't have everything that they desire but they do have a desire and aspiration to attain a decent lifestyle one day. This is normal and Benegal has changed this perception and has depicted it very well.
As a conclusion, I would say the stigma that parallel cinema is meant only for classes and can appeal only intellectuals, is broken by Shyam Benegal. I salute the film maker.
Finally Shyam Benegal, who made films like Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975) Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977) and created a new wave in this genre of parallel cinema, has decided to break away from the elite group of cinematic directors who only want to remain on the discussion boards (rather gossip groups) of a few pseudo-intellectual class/s. Welcome to Sajjanpur! Don't be shocked. This is the name of the latest experiment of Benegal, which I saw day before on 19th September 2008. And to my surprise, the movie which was running amidst urban crowd but in a language popularly used and understood only by rural populace of Easter Uttar Pradesh, was a massive hit. If the maestros of Indian Parallel Cinema were alive, they would have given a standing ovation to Benegal for his new experiment - An experiment, which is not done using the Parallel Stream but Mainstream and still keeping the messaging as intact as it should be.
Although Benegal's experiment with this alternative approach started way back in the 1990s when he made a trilogy on Indian Muslim women, starting with Mammo (1995), Sardari Begum (1996), and Zubeidaa (2001). But it was probably Zubeidaa, when Benegal decided to breakaway from the so called 'elite group' (far away from reality and not interested in addressing to the masses). Even if the messaging is anti-establishment, anti-government and pro-proletariat, it doesn't have to be through an isolated medium, which only appeals to a certain class or I would say pseudo intellectuals. I think Benegal realized it and revived the old, dead tradition of Satyajit Ray, who must have died in aghast despair having no successor to his popular, parallel yet very appealing cinema for masses. Though Ray made a lot of it for a regional viewership (mostly West Bengal) but still those movies had mass appeal.
The so called parallel cinema (also known as Neo-realist) which got the somewhat desired acceptability through the makings of Satyajit Ray, followed by Shyam Benegal, Mrinal Sen, Govind Nihilani (not of the same generation but greatly inspired by Ray, Benegal and Sen) and Adoor Gopalakrishnan (in South) did not last longer than two decades (mostly 702 and 80s) Later, it got severely overshadowed by the glitz and glamour of the commercial cinema, which ultimately pushed the parallel cinema into history except a few aberrations where we saw a couple of releases here and there.
This parallel cinema, which gave careers to a whole new breed of actors including Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Amol Palekar, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Pankaj Kapoor (who now form a brigade which either decided not to act or succumbed to the massive push from commercial cinema), seemed 'dead' without a reason to me.
The socio-economic conditions remained the same. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that conditions have worsened since then. The political situations have drastically changed - more towards negative side. Earlier, when this cinema was born the political ideology of India was still left to the center. Today, we are not just right to the center but also embracing the capitalism in totality. When the Neo-realist cinema could got accepted in 1980s and 90s, today's conditions are more ripe than ever for such kind of cinema. Then why did it disappear? I think there were a few very important reasons behind it. One, the onslaught of the commercial cinema on the minds of non-thinking masses was too strong for their resistance. The glamour of the commercial cinema, depiction of unrealistic things in an almost real way, idealizing the whole world for those two-three hours (normal duration of a movie) compelled an average Indian to opine that Cinema is ultimately cinema and one should not relate it to reality. There is a huge class (i would say vast majority) of people who don't see cinema for any kind of messaging but only go there to step out of the real world and go into the world of fantasy. Exploiting this are our dream weavers (the producers and directors of cinema) who, knowing the psyche of Indian masses, have started serving them totally unreal stuff - made after taking a misconceived inspiration from the Supernatural Powers. Without naming the films (as almost all of them belong to the same genre), I can say that Indian cinema, instead of created an awakening, created apathy and lethargy amongst the masses. The average cinema viewer, as I mentioned earlier, started believing that best cinema is the one which leaders him/her to fantasy than provoke him to think or believe in reality.
With Benegal's experiment with 'Welcome to Sajjanpur' the wave of parallel cinema (with a new dimension and way of messaging) seems to be back. The characters are chosen from mainstream cinema (all good artists - mostly from National School of Drama) because to appeal the masses, its the first condition to have an acceptable faces and not the aliens. The set up of the film is not at all unusual. There have been umpteen number of movies made in a village set up with rustic surroundings and folklore, so that was the second stroke of Benegal to make sure that the movie doesn't remain confined to a particular class, which I suspect even exist in India today. Third, the messaging is not done using an elite style. It is subtle using the trusted mediums and styles. For example the nationwide furor over the Nuclear Deal and left's resentment over it (Benegal belongs to that ideology) is very craftily depicted in the film. Another very drastic deviation from the erstwhile parallel cinema was inclusion of a couple of songs in the movie. Generally the Indian parallel cinema had been serious, one-set, one location kind but welcome to Sajjanpur was shot in a vibrant setting, breaking away from the monotony. Whether it was Mahadev's (the key character of the movie who acts a letter-writer) desk or the election campaign of Munni Bai (the eunuch who wanted to contest the election using the democratic right to contest an election) or the style of living of Bhayya Ji (the typical local goon who uses his might over the rights of people), everything looks transformed and engages the audiences - importantly not disappointing them.
Another minute observation that I made and was very relevant was not prolonging any particular shot to the stage of boredom. If the cinema was reaching to a level of seriousness where an average mass viewer would like to get agitated with this new experiment, the scenario changed.
And the topmost change (according to my evaluation) was that the film is not shot in a gloomy environment. If there is a barber or a cycle repairer working in poverty, they are not depicted as people who have lost the right to 'Laugh'. Don't we see the 'rickshaw-pullers' enjoying and launching? Sure, they don't have everything that they desire but they do have a desire and aspiration to attain a decent lifestyle one day. This is normal and Benegal has changed this perception and has depicted it very well.
As a conclusion, I would say the stigma that parallel cinema is meant only for classes and can appeal only intellectuals, is broken by Shyam Benegal. I salute the film maker.
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