Jahannam

Jannat had all the essential ingredients of a Hasmi flick - a bland storyline full of loopholes, feeble performances, lots of bedroom scenes and a sleazy new nerve grating heroine who failed in her minimal requirement of providing "eye-candy" to the audience.
Yet, these are things that are unsurprising and expected, though what prompted me to write about Jannat was that yet again the Muslim terrorist/gangster/don/villain/bad guy found his way into a Bollywood flick, this time under the guise of the enigmatic "Abu Ibrahim" (a possible amalgam of Dawood Ibrahim and Abu Salem; he had Dawood's glasses and Salem's looks) who is a vastly rich South African "beach magnet" who specializes in match fixing, betting, etc, and of course all of this ill earned wealth has to go into the funding of "terrorists".
All of his Igor-like cronies are muslims, as are the cricketers who are part of the match fixing nexus. One of the cricketers, an apparent sex maniac, keeps saying mashallah whenever supplied with fresh (possibly Serbian) feminine stock.
I was getting increasingly irritated, as the usage of words like salaam waleikum, khuda hafiz, etc in such contexts was really sad to watch. Just a week ago I had watched Iron Man, where once again the bad guys are Afghan Muslim terrorists, whose portrayal is curiously very similar to that of the Russians in Rambo 3.
Sick.

The Left Front

Going through the latest article of Frontline, indeed the recent few months of Frontline beginning with "The March of Neoliberalism" (March 28, 2008) have been very enlightening on the topic of the agrarian crisis that the country is currently facing and the recent I - word (inflation) that everyone seems to be talking about.
To put it in layman terms, ever since the greatly hyped globalisation and liberalisation of the economy in 1991, all the governments, whether they were Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, or A.B. Vajpayee and Yashwant Sinha, or Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram, all of these governments have faithfully implemented a neoliberalist agenda that has been spelt out by the WTO and indirectly the U.S.
Hmph. So much for sovereignty.
The policies have been largely aiming at driving the domestic agriculture into extinction and ushering in the new era of MNCs and corporates. All very good, but the problems that follow along with them are considerable. Shortly, not only does a large part of our economy fall into a few hands that are immensely powerful and near autonomous- and that too something as vital as agriculture - the majority of these hands are imperialist hands.
And I think you will agree with me when I say that this is something that can never, ever be allowed. Thus, take a close look at how our rural farmers have been either killing themselves off, or being killed due to hunger, or simply moving away from agriculture as a whole. Public assistance has been increasingly denied, and the new policies that are being formulated such as the Essential Commodities Act are wolves in sheeps clothing that allow further exploitation. Naturally, production takes a beating, and in steps the corporate, ready with his deep pockets and "marketing strategies", exuding the assurance of salvation.. or so it seems.

Anyway, so while the Congress has been relentless pursuing its agenda of neoliberalism, and making great changes to India's foreign policy and licking American buttholes clean (whatever happened to the days of Nehruvian Non-Alignment?), cringing and cribbing for the nuclear deal to go through (something I am dead against) and basically taking all they can from the poor aam aadmi, the BJP as usual has stuck by its guns of extreme Right-Wing politics, fighting for the Sangh Parivar ideology of Hindutva, and basically ensuring that the status quo of upper caste hegemony (domination by consent) remains untouched and unchanged, and the Muslims and Christians and other minorities will remain as punching bags for them to use at leisure when in needs of votes. Their policies have still to emerge from the emotional into the rational, and that is something that India cannot have right now; we need action.
Into this political quagmire comes one alliance (its the age of coalition politics after all) that seems to offer a glimmer of hope.
When in my first year of mass media (im about to go into third year now.. God Damn it I feel OLD!) I was quite unaware of terms such as manipulating public opinion, and behavioural control, and still believed in things such as freedom of speech. Exposure, research and insight have bitterly changed my opinions, though my ideals remain thankfully untarnished... I still have hope.
So what I'm getting at is how the media has been utilised by the Powerful Ones (U.S, U.K, the whole gang) to forward their agendas and policies by trying to manipulate public opinion in their favor. Remember when the Left first opposed the Indo-U.S nuclear deal? The next day the Times of India slammed the Left, saying things like "the public has spoken.. we have recieved thousands of mails and sms and whatnot saying that they are sick of "regressive" and "backward" parties like the Left.. we have a power crisis on our hands and the nuclear deal is the only way out.." Things like those.
I was brainwashed, and falling into the spell of the media, thought "oh these goddamn comrades. All they do is jump about and protest for no reason. Why do they are so unhappy about everything?"
However, I realised over the following days that very few papers had given the Left's opinion as to why they were protesting against the U.S nuclear deal. HT, TOI, DNA, and all other papers that were part of media conglomerates vociferously argued in favor of the deal, and their papers were full of either power shortages faced by the country (hint hint) or atrocities committed by the CPI (M) in West Bengal and Nandigram and wherever else. A few papers like Indian Express, Free Press Journal, Asian Age gave voice to both sides of the issue, but they were woefully few. Further study gave me the knowledge that in fact it was the powers that wanted the deal to go through that used the media as a weapon to push public opinion in their favor and against their opponents.
I have been increasingly following the policies and strategems proposed by the Left Front, whether it is regarding agrarian crisis, or inflation, or unemployment or illiteracy or casteism, and cannot help but admiring the pragmatism they display, and how they go about things without any fanfare whatsoever.
The three states currently under Left Rule are West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. With the exception of Tripura, which isn't doing too badly either, West Bengal and Kerala have progressed outstandingly, in economic, social and cultural terms. Bengal has always been a communist hub, but has also produced India's greatest minds and continues to do so owing to its excellent public facilities. Same for Kerala, which has been under Communist rule from 1957 under the leadership of the great E.M.S Namboodiripad and has the distinction of having complete literacy and doing very well on the economic front.
Some of the policies the Left is striving for are very much the need of the hour. The old days of capitalism vs communism are almost gone, and the Left is very much for privatisation and liberalisation, but they are staunchly anti-imperialist and anti neo liberalist, and on that at least I support them completely.
The Left is planning on making a coalition and contesting at the national level seriously, and I hope that they put up a strong case for themselves. They'll have my vote for sure.

A Romance Ends

Epic.
It's been the end of a long journey, a long romance that had many twists and turns and surprises and highs and lows and joys and sorrows. Yet, at the end of the three volume, six novel, 4,000 page long journey through Ashok Banker's retelling of the Ramayana, the only emotions I feel are awe, and unease.
Awe.
Why? For the simple reason that this retelling of the Ramayana is nothing less than an epic work of art, with every letter, every syllable, every word, every metaphor, every description showing the boundless, boundless love that Banker has imbibed into his creation. Like the sages of lore, who would go into trances that would last for years on end, lost in the rhythm of their lord's name on their lips, or legendary artists like Tulsidas, who felt God in every incomparable raag they uttered, or other singers and painters and sculptors and writers whom we have seen through the ages, who go into trances, unaware of anything around them, and awaken to see a masterpiece created. That is the league of which Banker is rightly a member, for his work of the Ramayana is a testament to his devotion, to his pure love expressed through the magnificent prose contained in the series. Right from the moment I opened the first page of the first book, it was as if a hand grabbed me and took me right into the world of Ayodhya and Chitrakut and Panchvati and the Bhayanak Van and Lanka and many, many other places and adventures, standing right beside Rama and Lakshmana watching them carry out their epic feats.
Unease.
A simple enough emotion to feel, in view of the rather disturbing ending of the book, and the hunger for more. A hunger that will soon be satiated, i wager, as he is currently working on the Mahabharata!

While reading the series, I came across a number of surprising facts:
1. That Maruti, that all-too-popular car we know of, is actually another name of Hanuman's?
2. That Vajradanti, of the "Vicco Vajrandanti" fame is the name of Ravana's Commander in Chief who had brilliant, indestructable teeth?
3. That Akshay Kumar was actually Ravana's youngest son who was famed for his skill in the martial arts?
4. That 'arth' originally meant wealth, instead of truth as it means today, for the ancients believed truth to be the greatest wealth?

There are also a great deal of references to pop culture and contemporary politics, which are amusing.

Overall, despite the rather jarring end, Ashok Banker's Ramayana is an absolute must-read, for if you want to know your culture, if you want to see your sanskriti glorified in a way that will make you stand straighter the next time the national anthem is played, and if you want to truly discover India's second greatest literary epic without the hackles of learning Sanskrit, then do not look further.

Thank you, Mr.Banker.