Defeating Ra.One

Diwali or Deepavali in India is associated with the return of Lord Ram after 14 years and celebrates the homecoming post the defeat of Evil. Every time across the World the question has not been whether good can triumph over evil, it has always been ‘when’? Ra.One turns the question on its head where Sekhar Subramanium develops a computer game where the villain at all levels is more powerful than the hero as his son believes villains are “Kick Ass”

Ra.One when written in Hindi pronounces Raavan – the first of the great Indian mythical anti heroes, supremely powerful, who is destroyed every Dushhera in India to celebrate the triumph of good over evil. But Ra.One asks the question – if he could be killed, why would we need to destroy him over and over again?

If there is an anti hero, there must be a hero and for us, it’s G.One, again pronounced in Hindi as Jeevan meaning Life. And he is not super powerful, he just has a 0.01% chance of winning against Ra.One and yet he fights, to ensure the shadow of evil does not fall on us.

I feel very tempted to tell you the story, but that would be unfair as this is one of the most original stories I have seen coming out of Hindi Cinema in recent years. It is worth a watch and definitely worth your money, many times over. And here’s why –

1. The dialogues –witty, funny, sometimes forced but so very Bollywood. You are tensed in your seats watching SRK enter the screen as a super hero and he says – mere saamne Bruce Li ke teen behne – iski Li, Uski Li aur Sabki Li. “Size does not matter, Ask the person who spent one night with a mosquito” They are not thought provoking deep ones i.e. not like Swades perhaps, but has their own rustic charm.
2. The Special Effects – the best in Indian cinema so far, even beating the likes of Spiderman and Batman Returns. The scene where CST in Mumbai is destroyed should go in as the top 100 scenes in Indian cinema. Ganpati Bappa Moriya
3. The storyline – gripping and yet so Bollywood. Imagine an intense situation as the Joker has a knife held at Rachel’s throat and suddenly Bruce Wayne goes into flashback and a song starts about their childhood! Has fantastic twists and turns that keeps you guessing and makes you laugh just after an intense fight sequence.
4. It does not preach – it’s an entertainer, it remains so. Easily it could have fallen into the trap about giving gyan (it does on quitting smoking. Apparently SRK has promised to quit smoking after Ra.One) but it remains what it is – a Diwali Potbolier
5. It’s classic SRK all the way – he shows us again that he can act better than most, but at the end of the day – he’s King Khan. He’s who both the class and the masses love. After Raj Kapoor, here’s our showman.
6. Kareena Kapoor looks more beautiful than ever before – All Shiela, Munni, Jalebi Bais can take a break when Chammak Chaalloo is on stage.
7. SRK and Rajnikanth share the space as G.One and Chitti and the adoration we have for Rajnikanth is documented and accepted and all of us bow before Chitti – Our Superhero Number 1.
8. It could have been a fantastic Sci Fi story with mind control and form change. But it remains simple so that everyone who watches the movie in any of the 5000 screens worldwide understands what’s happening.
9. It’s SRK after a year. Last time I heard so much cheering in an SRK movie was in Om Shanti Om.
10. We all need to know that even if there’s a 0.01% chance of good winning over Evil, it still will. Always. Every Time

Happy Diwali.

In the Land of Ram

Keh Gaye bhaiya suno Seyane
Ram ki batein Ram hi Jane.

Ram. Maryadapurushottam Sri Ram. The one name that evokes the figure of God in Human form. The one story that forms our great epic. The one story that perhaps also chronicles the Aryan intrusion beyond the Vindhyas. But leaving aside who he was, for the average Indian Ram remains one of the most revered names and for them utopia is still called Ram Rajya, the kingdom of Ram.

It’s said that we mortals barely understand the wills of God. While the old human civilizations attributed our misfortunes to the whims and fancies of their primitive Gods, the Indian Philosophy describes a larger scheme of things, a cosmic design, by the will of the One, which we are yet to understand.

In the Hindi heartland, the name of Ram can be heard even in the breaths of the person who has just passed you on the streets, yet his Godliness comes into question at times. Our old Indus Valley Civilization worshipped the Mother Goddess, the old Vedic texts spoke of the female power as the source of all energy, Shakti. But in our first epic, we see our God asking for a trial by Fire, Agnipariksha from his female counterpart, Sita. I do not know Cosmic Design, I do not also know the will of The Gods, but it seems to me that it is unfair. Ram was the ideal ruler, the greatest son one could hope for, but to me he was never the perfect deity.

If we look closely at our other epic, the Mahabharata, we see much more powerful characters. Starting from Satyavati, to Kunti, to Draupadi and ultimately to my most favourite female character Gandhari, we see a different place for women in the matters of the kingdom and society. Draupadi does not meekly accept the decisions of her husband, she vows to destroy a dynasty, something we do not ever see Sita doing.

Perhaps that is why we never worshipped Draupadi.

The main reason why I wrote all this was simply because of the stark contrast I have seen between the metros and other parts of India. In Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai or even Calcutta, I have seen more women on the streets than I have seen here in Muzffarpur or other parts of interior India that I have visited recently. I do not know the reason behind the same. Maybe it’s a self imposed or society imposed ‘purdah’, maybe it’s just that we are going through a phase like the America of the 70s, where women were mostly confined to the houses.

But as I thought more about it, two not so recent movies came to my mind. The first one Lajja, though suffering from highly clichéd themes and dialogues and forced into a Happy Ending as demanded by Bollywood, was one of the most powerful depictions on the atrocities against women by society. The other much much scarier was Matrubhumi. If any one of you have not seen the movie yet I beg you to watch it for the sake of our future.

A nation without women... if steps are not taken immediately, we might become one very very soon.