Rang De Basanti
It took the might of the British to bring all the warring princely states of the subcontinent and give shape to the country that we call India...it is interesting to note that the commercial and administrative interests of a foreign power brought states that to a large extent were culturally similar and were bound together by a common religion and a history. I often wonder if a few traders had not seen profit in a business of spices and textiles would this nation state ever exist?
What is the India that we know today? A country with a majority of its population in the 20's and having their own aspirations and goals.... But does this thick slice of our population even feel that they belong to one entity...do we need a revolution to increase our levels of adrenalin and consequently our patriotism? This is what this movie explores and brings out beautifully.
No tragedy if not personal affects any human being. The transformation of a few Yuppie Indians into a gang of revolutionaries is fascinating. Issues like Mig crashes, Defense scams, terrorists attacks need to be there - right at our doorstep if we have to be woken up from our slumber and do something about it. Jingoism is at best fleeting.... it leaves no permanent scar on your life...
Yet the movie is not without its own subtle ironies.... Do we still need to be told by the Caucasians that our forefathers were people like us and yet they sent shivers down the spine of the Raj and made them sweat in the dusty terrains of our country while waging our War of Independence? Isn't it a shame that somewhere in our psyche we still have the remnants of a servile nature?
But even a Marlboro smoking Indian does have a conscience...He has it in him to wash the guilt of corruption by committing fratricide. And he can still meet his death Smiling...
If all of us remember correctly the British Jailor had said..."I have seen two kinds of men --- one go to their death crying and the other go their death silent.... today I met a third kind........."
Lets complete it.... "Men who go their death smiling...."
Can we ever do that?
What is the India that we know today? A country with a majority of its population in the 20's and having their own aspirations and goals.... But does this thick slice of our population even feel that they belong to one entity...do we need a revolution to increase our levels of adrenalin and consequently our patriotism? This is what this movie explores and brings out beautifully.
No tragedy if not personal affects any human being. The transformation of a few Yuppie Indians into a gang of revolutionaries is fascinating. Issues like Mig crashes, Defense scams, terrorists attacks need to be there - right at our doorstep if we have to be woken up from our slumber and do something about it. Jingoism is at best fleeting.... it leaves no permanent scar on your life...
Yet the movie is not without its own subtle ironies.... Do we still need to be told by the Caucasians that our forefathers were people like us and yet they sent shivers down the spine of the Raj and made them sweat in the dusty terrains of our country while waging our War of Independence? Isn't it a shame that somewhere in our psyche we still have the remnants of a servile nature?
But even a Marlboro smoking Indian does have a conscience...He has it in him to wash the guilt of corruption by committing fratricide. And he can still meet his death Smiling...
If all of us remember correctly the British Jailor had said..."I have seen two kinds of men --- one go to their death crying and the other go their death silent.... today I met a third kind........."
Lets complete it.... "Men who go their death smiling...."
Can we ever do that?
posted by Shreerang at 10:03 AM
2 Comments:
I have a few criticisms.
- The movie is really mediocre. To think of patriotism like people did in 1947 would be absurd and stupid and naive today. As we grow as nation and years of freedom struggle become history, shouldn't we reanalise our definition of patriotism.
-It is very irresponsible to say that the threats should be at our door steps for us to keep feeling patriotic. If only through such threats one feels patriotic, its not patriotism at the first place, its merely saving your ass.
- I agree that we don't feel sad except when we lose something on personal level, and hence feel that patriotism as a thought is over hyped and dishonest. If somebody is really honest, one would call the feeling to change things around a selfish act, and not patriotism. You don't do things for country. Don't give yourself a place of a hero! You merely do everything you do for yourself.
-Anyways, the movie hardly addresses any of this. It is infant really terrible movie. Youth is shown to do drunk driving. And when they stir up to do something for nation, they consider brain-less murders. It is a poor lifting of ideas from the history! Why couldn't they show that they did something like Tehalka. That would have been something I would call an act of patriotism. Why do we draw such lame analogies? When tehekla did what it did, it should have been awarded as most patriotic act, which went absolutely un-noticed. And some brain-less murders in most main stream commercial movies impress a mob. I am sad, that Rang de Basanti is being appreciated on grounds of philosophy it gives. I would at the most consider it a good entertainment in the first half and nothing more! I hope, such movies under the name of pseudo patriotism are never made. Only by dying for country you don't become patriotic. Paying taxes at the first may be done instead!
Rang de Basanti is wonderful in that it explores the psyche of the urbanised youth in India, who need a personal tragedy to trigger in them a desire to do something....
But what surprised me was the biggest irony of the whole thing...something that even you, a careful observer, seem to have missed out...
The generation needed that tragedy to awaken....but what does it really do? Kill a minister and then smilingly die with the sense of an achievement fulfilled? What kind of an achievement is that anyway? It is no solution at all! The men definitely realise their own potential and their latent faith in themselves and their nation, but do they really achieve anything worth achieving? Or does it become as futile as just another act of terrorism? Because terror is their chiefest instrument, and that fact is undeniable. And if we rise as a nation, applauding their action, even within a frame of fiction, are we subconsciously condoning acts of terror?
I hope you reply to this. I see that you think deeply, and you think a lot, and I would love to hear what you say.
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