Film review: Dhoom3, an Indian Circus with ‘not so’ Great performance

Money is currency to power, and bank that stores this power is supposedly the powerhouse. The people, therefore, who run a bank are exceedingly powerful. To them, the job of lending and borrowing is entirely guided by sole interest of obtaining profit. That inherent nature of banker allows him to chase un-apologetically the sheer financial profit giving no importance to issues like social justice. Hence, bank as institution holds the monopoly of violence of various nature to subject especially on its borrower to extract the payment of any unpaid loan; which is why certain sections of the western middle class call bank an “empire of vampire”.

The theme of Dhoom3 is inspired by the above expressed perception about the bankers. The story starts with a sordid event where the Western Bank of Chicago decides to shut down a circus house (The Great Indian Circus House) owned by Iqbal Khan, played by Jackie Shroff  because the latter fails to repay the loan. That leads to the suicide of the owner of the circus house leaving his two young sons, Shahir and Shamar, orphan. The plot revolves around these two twin brothers played by Amir Khan, whose sole mission in life becomes to rob, and then destroy all Chicago based banks to take vengeance for his innocent father’s death. In their self-proclaimed crusade against the banking system, they turn out to be surprisingly victorious so much so that the rich bankers of Chicago end up developing cold feet against them. It appears highly unrealistic and droll to see that Chicago police have been shown being helpless in nabbing the super thief of Indian origin leading to a situation where they sought help from Indian police. That allowed the entrance of the Indian super cop, Jay Dixit played by Abhishek Bachan and his no-good, girl chasing, tapori colleague, Ali played by Uday Chopra into the plot. Both of them are called to Chicago to play a key role in tracing the super-smart thief. Though not so essential but it’s required to add that the story accommodated a female protagonist too, played by Katrina Kaif whose only business in the story was to perform acrobatic dance on the stage of magic, and finally to create a quite repairable rupture between the twin brothers. In the end, the twin brothers get caught by Jay Dixit et al; but instead of surrendering to police they choose to commit suicide like their father.

The film starts, and ends with Amir Khan. Vijay Krishna Acharya, director and writer of the film, has left very less scope for other characters to play any influential role. Abhishek and Uday are made to play their usual characters but this time with less charm and dynamism vis-à-vis previous sequels of the film. Katrina Kaif seems to be forcibly inducted into the script just to fill the vacuum of an unavoidable ingredient of Bollywood films which is glamour. That won’t be wrong to say that in Dhoom3 there’re three characters, one main actor which is Amir Khan; and two supporting characters are his high-tech motorbike and the Chicago city itself.

  So far as the script is concerned, the primary job of a story-teller is to polarize the emotional orientation of viewer in at least two directions, good and bad or rather less good. It helps a narrator to navigate the story effectively, and to take it to its logical conclusion. In case of Dhoom3, the story lacks nuanced approach of character bifurcation in between the negative and positive pole. In such a story, the role of a script writer becomes tough to justify any act or event performed by a particular character that leads to ambivalence in viewer’s mind. Nevertheless in Dhoom3, that ambivalence was watered down thanks to the presence of popular stars. In general, Indian cine-goers do not look for a constructive character pay but they rather wish to see their favorite stars on screen doing usual stuffs. Secondly, the story does not show much scope for a sequential narrative content either; because apart from the central character, no other protagonists need any especial explanation of their personage as the audience is very much familiar with them considering the fact it’s a sequel film.  That probably may be the reason Acharya neglected the story narration, and entirely focused upon cliff-hanging stunts and ungracious display of car crashing events that drag the movie to its end. 

 The film showed a nice piece of cinematography. As the theme permitted the cinematographer and director to use bright coulour and acute light which was done very magnificently. The challenge for the choreographer was supposedly to make Amir Khan do the tap and ballet dance with dozens of tall limbed dancers  on an immensely, spacious stage. The director has used camera quite faultlessly by keeping a safe distance between the actor and his fellow dancers, and by showing the spectacle from much above the ground. In a nutshell, Acharya as director may have succeeded in stretching a short story up to three hours but for that credit goes to cinematographer, stunt director and above all the star-power of Amir Khan.   

To sum up, Dhoom3 is a quasi-entertaining film that can be seen once by siting with the entire family as unlike other movies of these days, it does not have any shoddy, double meaning songs accompanied with indecent, smutty scene; nor does it offer any unpalatable display of bullet and blood. It’s a one-time watch that may garner the commercial success by cashing in-on the brand of being sequel of ‘Dhoom’ and thanks to the aggressive marketing style of Yash-Raj films. The audience should go to theatre to watch an expansive film with full of adventurous tour de force but he should not expect thrill and excitement of the same degree which he may have had while watching the previous sequels of Dhoom otherwise he’d have more disappointment and less pleasure.    

How to rethink India’s Foreign Policy!

We’re living through one of the most exiting periods of human history, and that fascinating time is called globalization, a continuous process of to and fro movement of money, goods, ideas and people. This on-going process of globalization throws opportunities and challenges both for today’s Nation-State’s political structure. It can be considered as opportunities when it comes to analyzing the structure of power in global scenario. It’s worthy to recognize that power is no more concentrated within uni or bi-polar world but it’s seen to be distributed among many countries coming from northern and southern hemisphere which, in a way, suggests that power is being democratized through globalization. Growing influence of multi-lateral institutions like G20 validates this observation. Secondly, when it comes to challenges posed by globalization then today’s Nation-State can no more act as a sole carrier of power at international stage; in other terms, they can no more pursue its foreign-policy in traditional fashion as they used to do pre-1989-91 era. In this changing global scenario India, a 66 year old nation-state with growing multi-dimensional influence in today’s world, has to rethink its foreign policy reflecting the reality of the world she lives in.

How do we deconstruct the idea of foreign-policy of a sovereign republic? How is it challenged by today’s globalization? What should be India’s approach in promoting its national interests at international level?

Foreign policy and its fundamentals

Foreign policy is, in general sense, the political project of a country to influence another country or over-all international environment in the context of promoting its national interests. The distinction between inside, the domestic policy and the outside, international environment is the raison d’être of foreign policy. In other words, foreign policy is the reflection of one’s domestic policy. It’s because everything that a country does outside its political frontier is either to satisfy the needs and wants of domestic situation or to present a specific image at the comity of nations. The reason for any political intervention taken or not taken by a specific nation lies broadly under these two reasons. For example, the US entered into Kuwait to drive out Iraqi army in 1992 during the first gulf war. The first objective, as it was projected, was to liberate a weaker state, Kuwait, from the clutches of a relatively stronger state, Iraq which is supposedly the moral responsibility of a super power nation like America to play key role in establishing peace and justice in the international community. But let’s not feel so squeamish about a veiled fact that US went into that region in search of oil to bring business for its domestic oil companies. Thus, America’s intervention responds to both its objectives; first, it’s to project its image of a leader nation championing the cause of democracy and human rights which a super power (even a medium sized power) should always do; and secondly, it was to gain material wealth of petrol to appease its domestic constituency. Any foreign policy decision, therefore, is made by keeping both angles in mind; first, it’s overall gain of power in the form of wealth, natural resources, market or even territory (which is very rare in our post-cold war world); second, it’s equally important to present a justification for that decision in front of the international community as a tool to establish peace, justice, prosperity in the concerned region. Because without providing enough justification of achieving any one or all those three virtuous objectives, even if you’re a super power, your decision or action will not find a legitimate ground at international stage. We’ve plenty of examples since Second World War where any such intervention made by western powers; and, they were justified in the name of establishing peace, justice or self-defense which includes US and western allies’ intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.  

What are the elements that guide a nation, be it US or any medium size power, to formulate its foreign policy in a particular fashion? What are the analytical underpinnings of foreign policy?

According to the traditional form of foreign policy, there’re three arcs around what foreign policy gets unfolded.

Ø  Actors (leader, the political ideology followed by the party in power, and to an extent the opposition party in a parliamentary democracy only);

Ø  Capacity (Instruments of implementing a decision or influencing a country) ex: hard power and soft power;

Ø  Interest and objective (short and long term goal) establishing oneself as a powerful actor in the world order, projecting oneself as an influential nation with an image of championing just cause

Under the very first arc, we keep the actors who make foreign policy decision. It includes temperament and intellectual depth of a head of state; the political party that is in power as to how it perceives national interests; its political party ideology brings different perspective to foreign policy. All these three can be seen clearly in the American foreign policy. As Obama’s approach to foreign relations is completely different from Bush’s one. As the former is completely different person from the latter; secondly, it’s important to underline that Democratic party has always had distinctive approach to achieve any goal in international affairs as compared to its Republican counterpart. The reason for this distinctive approach between them is that Democratic Party relies primarily on liberal and constructivist theory of international relations for formulating its policy whereas the Republicans guided by “neo-cons” are known for laying emphasis on realist perspective of IR which is dependent upon “balance of power” strategy. 

Let’s move on to the second arc of analysis which is the capacity of a nation-state to put in place a decision. It’s mainly constituted by hard and soft powers. Though former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has been heard using a Joseph Nye’s term “smart power” but that did not attract much attention among the international relation theorists. Hard power is basically represented by all the tangible elements of exercising power which includes the size of an army, its capacity of sophisticated arms, carrier aircrafts, sub-marines etc. We need to understand that in the post-cold war era, this form of power has almost become irrelevant. In present time, actually, soft power is ruling the world. That is represented by the size of a national economy, its capacity to trade, its culture power.  United States exerts exceedingly high degree of influence by its culture power over the entire planet through its Hollywood films, its multi-national companies (like Google and Microsoft), universities and junk food restaurants like Mac-D.

So far as the third arc is concerned, it’s always in the first place to secure its territory, its people, then promoting its national interests on foreign soil, and ultimately to pose herself as a nation championing the cause of democracy and free society (these are the causes that todays’ large number of countries stand for in the democratic word; needless to say this category does not include the Islamic world). Every country desires to be seen as a model land fighting for the cause of the values, ethos its nation hood stands upon.  Basing upon that, a nation drafts its objective of foreign policy. By and large, the objective of a nation is always to belong to an elite club like G7, G20 and permanent member of Security Council of the United Nations, and to influence the  political, economic temperature of the globe.

All these three arcs namely actor, capacity and objective, are to be accommodated according to the international political scenario. This is also true that the latter is created by all these three elements of a super power or a group of powerful nations however public opinion of a powerful democracy like United States matters too up to an extent in molding any critical foreign policy decision. The result of that collective public policy initiated by western block is globalization. It is basically unification of international financial market which took its full momentum since almost two decades ago after the EU came into its full bloom along with India and other developing nations opening up its market for foreign players. Globalization, based on the theory of free market economics, has made the political frontier porous for a free movement of capital and labour. Therefore, state is no more the only actor in international relations. There’re various non-state actors coming in-front for manipulating power; ex: multi-national companies, international NGOs, inter-governmental organizations like IMF, World Bank and many other influential public intellectuals and corporate personalities. In the light of the present scenario where the state losing its sovereign capacity of influencing power in international environment, it can no more exercise foreign policy on its own in traditional form. Hence, how should the policy makers in India put in place its foreign relations to promote her interests?

India’s foreign relations in a globalized world

We observe that in the 21st century foreign policy appears to be driven by neo-liberalism and quite less by realism. In todays’ world guided by implacable force of globalization, India’s biggest export is, and will continue to be its vibrant and dynamic economy. So in India’s case too, it will be very much decided by the degree of robustness that the Indian economy would show to the world. On one hand, India has to continuously grow, and to attract the foreign direct investment towards her land and on the other hand she has to further deepen the network of trade with US, EU and East Asian countries. Market dependency of these countries on India will make the South-Asian region more stable because the peace and tranquility of this region will be in the interest of the western powers. 

That’s true that world is increasingly becoming a market place, and India is very much a part of this game. However, she’s to put a fine balance between market friendly reforms and protectionism. It should always keep in mind the interests of a vast labour pool which lives in this country. 

India’s relations with US: United States is undoubtedly the strongest nation, and will remain one till many decades to come. Economically, it may lose in a few years its first position to China as many financial institutions believe, but it will continue to play the most important role in the political and economic development in world affairs. India needs to strengthen its relations further with the US not just to become only a market for US retail giants like Wall-Mart but should also be able to convince Washington not to consider the anti-outsourcing policy either.

Both political parties, democrats and republicans, follow a different foreign policy approach in asserting US leadership. So, India figures quite differently in their strategy chart. For the Republicans, who base their foreign policy on the Morgenthau theory of “balance of power”, see India as a potential country which is fit to be pit against their economic rival China. Be it economy or defense and security, India figures as an important country with whom they would like to do business in their own national interest. 

For Democrats, India is a unique country with liberalized economy sharing the common value of democracy and pluralism. To them, India represents a romantic experiment of federal democracy where more than one billion people of extreme diverse nature in language, religion, race and more importantly extreme economic inequality live under the umbrella of parliamentary democracy. So, India can, and should play bigger role, as they believe, in the region in promoting the ideals of democracy with a blend of capitalism especially to the third world countries. India has to work strategically to win equal consideration and cooperation from democrats’ side as well to get all her concern better addressed at international forum especially when it comes to dealing with Pakistan and China.

India’s relations with China: amongst neighboring countries, China is a real challenge to deal with not so much because of its jumbo size, dynamic economy but because of its closed political system which does not give any chance to peep into their mind to anticipate as to which way they may go on a particular development. If China were a functioning democracy, then it could have been much easier to deal with the dragon nation but its’ being one party communist system and unfading obsession with territory generate more fear not just for India but also for other neighboring nations which include Taiwan, Japan, South-Korea. Direct dissuasion policy with this giant will neither work nor does India have the capability to do so. So the wise way will be to develop and deepen the trade and economic relation with mutual interdependence that it should create an atmosphere of trust and cooperation than confrontation.  History tells us that the market economy based on free choice and rational leads mind to liberty. Similarly, if it happens then the Chinese would ask for open system of multi-party democratic governance; in that case, it will be one of the most interesting events of 21st century to see as to whether the communist party choses to surrender itself to seemingly rosy but messy land of democracy or it chooses to crush the heads of its own people as they did in 1989 at the Trainmen square. 

  

India’s relations with Pakistan: Indian leaders often show their fake desire to improve the relations with a country which is abnormal in nature because it houses various power centers, ex: army, intelligence agency, religious leaders and lastly, civilian government. Needless to say that army and ISI, these two institutions do not want any friendship with India because any such positive atmosphere of peace with India will ultimately lead to a time where not only their army will get reduced to just a regular defense organization with no political power in hand but even one day the idea of Pakistan itself will be put to question by their own citizens. Although a nation which is so fragile politically, economically should not merit much attention; nevertheless, because of security issues India has to deal with Pakistan, and it  should be done with firmness and arm twisting approach. The central problématique is that the Indians should work upon that how to pressurize that country to close the entire sector of jihadi terrorism. It’s undoubtedly an up-hill task for India that can’t be done without United States’ help. There is no copy-past solution to this migraine like problem. It can only be done in various sub stages, and will take years to complete. The question of concern is that if India has a political will and grand strategy to put that project in place which will solve the entire problem of terrorism. Will US provide its logistic support in dealing with those terror leaders because we know that they’ve very selective approach in dealing with terror network affecting other countries? Will China like to see a Pakistan devoid of terror schools? There’re many questions which will be answered only by time and circumstance that the US and China will go through in coming times. No one has ever thought that US drone attacks will happen in the North Waziristan region to kill jihadi leaders in Pakistan but it’s been going on despite all protests happening in the country itself. Similarly, China too has been witnessing the Islamic terrorism in their Xinjiang region; so, the Chinese have to draw a larger picture of dealing with the root problem of this problem. So far as the Kashmir issue is concerned, Pakistan knows it well that there is only one solution for the Indian Kashmir which is in the interests of Kashmiri people and the entire Indian sub-continent; and, that’s to convert the Line of Control into international border. Seeking friendship unilaterally with a nation like Pakistan who’s no vision for its people, and who runs its foreign policy using tools like cross-border terrorism is not wise but even a kind of political foolishness, and can be equated with an idea of milking a bull. 

    

India’s relations with EU countries: It’s interesting to see that despite having a turbulent political historical past India always shared cordial relations with Great Britain with a degree of mutual trust. In fact, in recent years, in the words of David Cameroon, prime minister of UK both the countries share “special relationship”. One should recollect that earlier the term “special relationship” used to be applied only for US-UK relations. India with other important western European countries namely, France and Germany share pretty friendly relations primarily because liberal economy of India offers new horizon of economic ties for both sides’ benefits; secondly, we share the same value system which is democracy, rule of law and composite culture. There is always a possibility to deepen the relation further, and to take it to a new level which is needed especially in the field of trade, finance, science-technology know-how and cultural cooperation.

India, asserting leadership at world stage

India recognizes the fact that time of Nehruvian moralistic vision of foreign policy is over because since then the world has changed a lot; and, in today’s multi-polar, globalization driven world, India requires to adopt “realpolitik” based pragmatic approach to assert herself at world stage. The relationship with United States is indeed the pivot point for India’s interests in coming decades; but, old allies like UK, EU countries and importantly old friend, Russia, should be kept in equal prominence so far as the mutual cooperation in various fields especially defense, sciences and technology is concerned.  

India does not need to attach much importance to her candidacy for the permanent membership of the UN Security Council. This institution has almost become a “tiger paper” which acts as a subservient to the interests of United States. In order to become part of real centre of global power India should play key role at the forum of G20. This is the platform which anchors the interests of the most industrialized nations of the globe.

India should actively work along with other BRIC partners upon the idea of setting up a development bank for the four nation club. The institution would allow investing massively in infrastructure project in all these four countries which is the need of the hour for them to accelerate the economy and put it on sustainable path for a longer period.

On security front, it’s in India’s interest to develop closer relation with Israel because merely remaining sympathetic with the Palestinian cause, it did not earn her anything concrete. A close cooperation with Mossad, the intelligence agency of Israel, will bring great advantage to RAW in dealing with both kinds of terrorism, home grown and emanating from our neighborhood as well.   

  

The policy of decentralized cooperation in between different federal states of India and with various regions of countries like US, UK, France, Canada and Mauritius should be encouraged to strengthen the ties at regional level. There is a huge number of non-resident Indians living in the western countries can play constructive role in such decentralized cooperation. Thus, foreign policy should not remain restricted to only New Delhi but regional state capitals should also participate so that regional interests could be taken into account as well. Once diplomacy used to be a business amongst heads of state only; but now thanks to decentralization, regional power pole needs to be involved in foreign policy as well. Ultimately, it’ll give a new platform of progress and emancipation to federal structure in India.

It’s in the Indian interest to work upon the cultural aspect of soft power. India being one of the oldest civilizations with a rich culture and history did not place herself strategically to create a window in people’s heart internationally as the Alliance Française for France, the Goethe Institute for Germany, Confucius Institute for China have been doing successfully in spreading the culture of their respective countries in the foreign land. On that model, the cultural cell of Indian embassy should also promote officially the Indian art, music and especially yoga and different schools of meditation. India is perceived in the western hemisphere as one of the fountain heads of eastern wisdom and knowledge. India needs to consolidate that perception not only amongst the foreign public intellectual class but to ordinary citizen as well.  Diplomacy is no longer about winning war and conquering territory but it’s rather getting triumph over hearts and minds of the people of even those countries who’ve not been so friendly with your country.

The author is a graduate from the prestigious institute of “Sciences-Po” of France

Film Review: D-Day, a Saga of Revenge

Fear is the strongest emotion which runs through human mind. This emotion has the ability to make someone do what he’d probably not do under a normal circumstance. Fear gets generated against  a place, situation, community or a particular person.  If fear is embodied into a mortal human character then it’s certain that people hate that individual deeply. And, if the situation turns in favour of people then they’d like to take revenge to that particular person.  History is full of such characters who, through their ability of generating terror, have ruled on human mind. Ex: Hitler in Nazi Germany, Mussolini in Fascist Italy, Stalin in Communist Russia or recent face of terror, Al Qaida leader Osama Bin-laden. What is interesting to observe that no matter how much we hate those frightening characters but we remain irresistibly curious to get a glimpse of their guarded life.  That’s the reason even today Man Camp ( Hitler’s biography ) or a book with Osama Bin-Laden’s picture on its cover do not stay for a longer time at book-stall,  because such books find their buyers very quickly. The same observation can be made about the celluloid world too where film makers most of the times successfully manage to captivate their audience for three hours in theatre by telling story of a modern day mafia baron.   

D-Day is one such artistic attempt made by the director, Nikhil Advani. It’s judicious to note that the story may revolve around the character, Goldman (character inspired by Dawood Abraham) but overall objective of storytelling is not at all the depiction of Dawood’s character but it’s to show the never ending struggle between RAW and ISI, the two national intelligence agencies of India and Pakistan. And, the denouement of the film highlights the triumph of the former on the latter by showing the killing of Goldman by Indian agents within the Indian territory.  Like any other film director, Nikhil Advani has tried to exploit the popular Indian nationalist sentiment to its fullest. 

  

The entire drama of blood and bullet gets unfolded in the Pakistani city of Kranchi where Wali Khan (played by Irfaan Khan), an Indian agent is on a secret mission under the direction of Ashwini Rao, Chief of RAW.  The objective of the mission is to trap the most wanted man of India, Goldman (played by Rishi Kapoor).  Goldman lives under close security and supervision of the ISI. In the eyes of the world, Wali Khan leads life of an ordinary married man who by his little earning of barber shop provides happiness to his lovely wife and his little son. Another main character is an ex-army officer, Rudra Pratap (played by Arjun Rampal) who keeps mysterious quietness on his face with eagle like vigilant eyes . The story has a female protagonist in lead role as well, Zoya, a London based explosive expert, played by Huma Qureshi. All these three characters, a little different from each other in their personal life, but are commonly linked by their ultimate mission which was to catch Goldman. Apart from these three main characters, there’re a few secondary characters. One of them who merits our attention is Suraiya, a prostitute ( played by Shruti Hassan) whom Rudra Pratap visits very often.  In that frequent interaction of satisfying each others’ needs they discover a common human side which binds both of them  together till the end of the story. In the end, she has to pay a very heavy price for that brief camaraderie with Rudra Pratap, and gets brutal death at the hands of the nephew of Goldman. 

In the end after all action packed thriller episode, three agents escaping death at every moment, manage to capture Goldman through their joint mission. Though in making the mission successful  Wali Khan has to lose his family and  scarify his life.  The story ends at a very exuberant note where Goldman is very cleverly brought into the Indian side of territory through border area. After being captured, Goldman mocks the Indian judiciary system which kept Azmal Kasab, a militant involved in Mumbai terror attack, for four years in jail before awarding him the capital punishment, then he goes on to say that he would find a way out through the loopholes of lengthy legal procedure of India. Immediately after this, Goldman gets killed after receiving a bullet in his head from Rudra Pratap.  

 The film showcases a true versatile, directorial talent of Nikhil Advani. It is surprising to believe that this genre of film in its realistic covering is coming from Advani who made “Kal Ho Na Ho”, a fascinating, regular, colourful film dealing with triangular love story in 2003. In D-Day, songs and music have not been allowed to do any tampering either with the nature of the characters or with the plot of the film which is very rare to find in a Bollywood movie. The film rests on strong script, powerful cinematography and crafty use of light treatment. Characters have been treated very gently by remaining within the parameter of the script.

One scene that seemed unnecessary was the brutal physical torture, and subsequently killing of Suraiya. Not even that, after slaughtering the girl, the killer, nephew of Goldman, tried to wipe off the blood with the shirt which Rudra Pratap was wearing that time.  And thus, the beloved’s shirt gets stain of blood of his old flame. It seemed Advani wanted Rudra pratap’s character to win extra sympathy from audience. No one could see any demand of the script for inserting that scene. Whatever be the reason in embedding that utterly violent scene, a director should take caution in adding such sequence which offers such sexist display of bloodshed subjected on the body of a woman.

A curious question which may arise in the mind of audience which is that what made Nikhil Advani to pick Rishi Kapoor for the role of Goldman. Many times, it showed that Kapoor did not fit into the character. As we perceive that a devil like character of Dawood’s  stature required a ruthless face, eyes with devoid of sentiments, and accompanied by a robust voice; Kapoor lacked all these components in his personality.  Only by walking with his arms distancing from his waist as a person with great authority supposedly walk in underworld and by putting extra weight to his voice do not make him a cult figure of fear on screen which was desired from a character that he was playing.

Rishi Kapoor should recollect that he’s basically known as “Bobby, Sagar, Chandani and Deewana” boy. Throughout his carrier he played mostly Romeo sort of character who danced with heroin in exotic location of Western Europe. It was not that he only got such kind of roles but it was because he could do only such roles considering his face, voice and acting style.

Advani probably did not want to cast any Tier-1 popular star to play those characters in the film, and to highjack the overall plot of it. That may be the reason he chose to cast actors of secondary commercial value so that the director could have complete grip over the script and liberty to make or mold his film the way he’d like to. This grip is very much evident throughout the film.

Above all, D-Day is a nicely narrated story with considerable amount of gun-play and a tinge of nationalistic sentiment which gets underlined forcefully in the end after Rudra Pratap shoots Goldman in the head, and claims that he’s the face of “new India”.

Sharif, though fortunate but how to move on bumpy road ahead?

We all know that politics is called “the art of the possible” but we rarely witness that unthinkable, dramatic change happening in the political landscape of any country in today’s post cold war world. Let’s wait a moment there is a country in the Indian sub-continent which sometimes does provide such unthinkable political narrative which can be remotely considered as turning impossible thing into possible one. Be it a democratically elected government being ousted by a military man in 1999; or a tragic assassination of a  woman leader in 2007, after what her greedy business man husband goes on to grab the chair of president of the country; or be the case of untraceable terror leader, Bin laden, being found and killed by Americans in a military town of the country in 2011. All these stories come from our neighboring country, Pakistan. The recent news floating from there is rather positive and testifies the triumph of electoral democracy.  

    

The result of the recently conducted general elections in Pakistan threw a decisive mandate to Nawaz Sharif’s party, a man whom the people of Pakistan hated deeply in 1998-99 following the Kargil debacle with India. Due to that growing hatred and unpopularity in people’s mind, the then army General Musharraf succeeded in imposing the military coup, and dethroning the democratically elected government of Sharif without any bloodshed. In 2013, the table of political landscape in Pakistan has turned in Sharif’s favour so much that the man who was once to be awarded death sentence by the Pakistani military court in 2000, but fortunately got a safe escape from the country only thanks to the blessings of Saudi King; fourteen years down the line “that” ousted man, Sharif, is newly elected prime minister of Pakistan; and Musharraf, ‘that crowned military dictator’ is under quasi arrest facing the charges of assassination of political figures like Benazir Bhutto and the old Baloch  leader, Akbar Bugti. Not many leaders meet such a welcome turn in one’s political carrier like Sharif; it’s hard to believe that it is a real story of politics of a sovereign nation but not a plot of a thriller Hindi film.

On being sworn-in, Sharif spoke in very emotional tone using Punjabi expressions of reviving the relationship of his country with India during an interview with Karan Thapar, an Indian journalist. That gave a wishful reason to policy makers and journalists sitting in New Delhi to believe that Pakistan is really changing this time. His party has got a clear-cut mandate which allows his newly formed government to take important decisions; but does that mean that Sharif will be able to deliver or rather will he be allowed to deliver when it comes to improving the ties between the two countries?

,

To answer this question, we need to delve slightly deeper into the troubled past of the Indian sub-continent, the time when this region was trying hard to get rid of British colonialism. Pakistan came out of Jinnah’s political genius, as an experiment of a nation-state formed on the basis of religion, Islam. As Jinnah himself termed it as “home of south- Asian Muslims”, and called the “Quran” the constitution of the Islamic state of Pakistan. On the other hand, Indian leaders sensed it very well that if India had to survive and flourish as a united, civilized, modern society then it should opt only for secular democracy. Because in their view that was the only solution available to administer a society like India  being so diverse on basis of region, religion, language, caste and economic well being.

Over sixty five years of its existence Pakistan did survive as an independent state but could not become a nation. And even in its statehood, there are many holes; first and foremost it has developed an incurable disease of various centers of power which means that power is hardly ever fully concentrated in one hand which is under the control of civilian leadership, in fact power in Pakistan dances amongst many hands from army, ISI, parliament to religious Mullahs where the military establishment has the largest stake to claim. The people of Pakistan are very much comfortable with this fact that if a civilian leader fails to deliver, which happen quite often, and then they have no problem in being ruled by the men in uniform. It is worthy to note that with the help of ISI, army has successfully created a secure space in people’s mind that if any institution which exists in the country that can save them from India and the West then it is only army. It is necessary to add here that ‘false’ fear and hatred for ‘no-reason’ against ‘Hindu’ India was manufactured deliberately by those institutions so that the latter can remain relevant in the eyes of the people, can enjoy the unconditional support from their side. Army has cleverly attached that fear with the idea of the very survival of Pakistan; thus in orders to save the country, people have to restore their faith in one institution which is army.

All these ground realities help us understand that if a civilian government wishes to rule, then it should act in accordance with their military masters but never against them. Sharif has been probably the most senior leader in the country after Benazir’s exit, it is his third time at the helm of affairs so he would show more wisdom and will not repeat any earlier mistakes which include his turbulent relation with army during his second tenure and the Indo-Pak ties under Lahore declaration. It is true that his government, as he stated, would take measures to improve the relations under the same treaty but what methods, what degree and up to what extent his government would move will not be decided by Mr. Sharif’s office but  by General Ashfaq Kayani’s office. In addition to that, Sharif and his well-wishers have to keep a very vigilant eye over military sector, and to ensure that “no Musharraf” is in waiting for a coup d’Etat.   

Bombay Talkies: celebrating the never-ending relationship of cinema with Indian society

Cinema is not merely a pictorial, mobile narration of a theme, but also a medium through what a society expresses itself about the changing time that it goes through. The film “Bombay Talkies” is one such initiative where four film makers (Karan Johar, Deewakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar and Anurag Kashyap) commemorating 100 years of Indian cinema  try to tell a story of various strata of Indian society and its never ending relationship with Bollywood films. The movie is a compilation of four short films coming from four different social class of the country. Each short film focuses on the ultimate quest of the characters of discovering their own identity and desire to live life on one’s own term and fighting with the world that they find themselves in.   

The first short film, directed by Johar, shows the life of a young homosexual man, played by Saqib Saleem, being disowned by his parents, is hunting for love and recognition in the outside world where he comes in contact with a fellow senior colleague, played by Rani Mukherjee, in a media company and  later her husband, Randeep Huda. The story ends when she gets to know about the hidden sexual orientation of her husband, and she decides to get out of that relationship. The director tried to shed light on a fact that how modern, educated, upper middle class men, women are trying to live life on their own term. The film indicates that that urban class is moving towards individualistic style of living on the detriment of traditional, social norms of respecting relationship emanating from marriage and family.

The second short film, directed by Deevakar Banerjee, is a story of a chawl man, played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui. As Banerjee tells a story of a father who wants to tell a new story to his daughter every evening; and the second passion that he carries in his mind is to be recognized as an actor. This story ends at a point where after playing a very small role in a film, he hurries to his place to tell the story about that role to his daughter.  This story underlines a fact that in India the desire of being an actor in Bollywood gets nurtured in every mind, be it a man living in a chawl or in a chateau.

The third story, directed by Zoya Akhtar is a tale of a young boy who dreams to become a dancer like Katrina Kaif and to become famous. But he was constantly discouraged by his father who wants him to choose a mainstream boyish carrier which can make him feel proud of his son. Despite all that discouragement, the little boy keeps nurturing his desire with the help of his sister. And finally, he got his moment when he manages to partially fulfills his dream by giving a dance performance in front of his neighbors and friends.

The last story, directed by Anurag Kashyap, is about a young man from a small town of Uttar-Pradesh who, according to the wish of his sick father, travels to Mumbai to meet the iconic star, Amitabh Bachhan, and to offer him a half piece of “murabba” (Indian sweet jam pickle ). The father believed that by tasting that remaining half piece of sweet pickle, he would get well soon, and would even live longer. The entire narration revolves around the struggle that the son goes through in order to meet the actor, and finally he meets his target.

Out of the four directors, Johar turned out to be a confused one who is not able to tell his story clearly probably the kind of films that he makes largely deal with high society family drama where dance, songs and beautiful faces and high sounding background music fill the gap of any directorial fault. He  has given a grey shed to both of his male protagonists who are delinquent in their behavior, whereas the female protagonist, played by Rani Mukharjee, is shown as a woman who wants more love out of her relationship . The want of that love made her a woman who extracts pleasure by seeking attention from every male colleague who works in her office. Johar could have told the story without using any star in the film. Deevakar Banerjee has narrated the pain of a failed dreamer and struggling father in a rather convincing way. Zoya Akhtar has succeeded in showing the child emotion driven by ambition, but she needs to delve deeper into the behavioral style of a lower middle class family which as it appears in the film seems to be missing in her craft. Whereas the last story told by Kashyap goes well with Indian mind as we live in a society where a super star is regarded as nothing but a God. He knows how to make a character look like someone coming from Uttar-Pradesh, Bihar, but the way those characters are made to react to any situation appears to be unrealistic on screen.   

Except the first one, all the three stories show the influence that Bollywood has on the Indian minds, and how it offers a mean to dream to every aspiring singer, dancer and actor irrespective of their social class and geographical placement. In that sense Bollywood is a mirror of Indian society where one can see all the colours in its full diversity. But we must realize that most of films that come out of the industry hardly show the dream of an ordinary Indian, it portrays the character of either a high class society or of an underprivileged one who struggles with daily injustice committed on him by the system. In showing that high upper and deep lower, the people remaining on the middle level do not get any voice. That unheard voice of the huge middle-class India hardly find any place in the mainstream cinema of Bollywood. Considering that fact “Mumbai Talkies” is a welcome start from a group of known filmmakers who want to tell story in a new way with seemingly realistic middle class characters  without taking any help of dance and songs.