An Open Letter To Bollywood: Mission Amangal Bollywood

I wonder if Bollywood had to make a ‘Zero Dark Thirty', they would

necessarily show Akshay Kumar fist fighting with Osama Bin Laden, before strangulating him around his arm. To a loud cheer and whistle from the audience Akshay Kumar would deliver, "Osama ye Bharat Maa ke betey ka haath hai, isse bach pana mushkil nahin naamumkin hai".

Why can’t Bollywood give a serious and an honest treatment to any story that deserves serious storytelling? Why it is always that in the name of showcasing true events on screen the Stars show case their own grandeur? Why do they forget that the story is always bigger than the storyteller?

Why not the star studded skills are left in vanity vans and a fair and sincere justice is meted to the stories likes Mangalyaan- ISRO's pioneer space mission to Mars The mission was a magnanimous achievement by a prestigious institution and it deserved more than just a commercial movie treatment as is shown in Akshay Kumar starrer Mission Mangal. The public does need entertainment while watching a movie but entertainment is very much possible without a song and dance sequence too or without few dumb sense of humour or showing over the board sequences like Akshay Kumar jumping across the table to reach ISRO chairman and deliver his words. Do you think in real life the esteemed scientist portrayed would have jumped across the table when he could have sublimely walked around it? Do you think the scientist would have carried a LPG cylinder over his head inside a meeting hall with full meeting going on to fry puri for practical demonstration on fuel saving? Why the scientists would mop the floors and paint the walls as is portrayed in the movie, instead of focusing entirely on the project? That, too, dancing? In the accent of Akshay Kumar "hainn?". They actually showed scientists dancing with brooms and all! Come on Bollywood grow up. Either you show a fiction with all your masala or show a movie based on real life story with real well researched events. You don’t mix up nonsense with sense and then say that's a sincere storytelling. Was it necessary to show a Muslim woman unable to get a rented accommodation because of her religion? Was it necessary to drop in a Saas-bahu angle, even when it was no where connected to the actual Mission Mangal? Why do you try to dole out same social message in stereotyped manner in movies which are based on real scientific endeavour? Don’t make your movies feel preachy every time we sit inside a theatre. There are far more people doing that now a days on social network. The first half was such a khichdi around the Mars Mission it felt as if we were watching a family drama based on lives of five women and not a movie based on space exploration. Just when the script went out of control, and as if to assure us that we are actually watching a movie based on Mars exploration, the director dropped in a song.  No points for guessing the words of the song. It was Dil me Mars hai. And because Mangal grah sounds similar to sanskrit word mangalam so there was also a background chorus of Om Mangalam Mangalam Mangalam. Ridiculous! Mars my foot.

There were few moments during the movie when I wished I was struck out of the theatre by an asteroid or consumed by a solar wave. During the launch when the communication was lost with the satellite, Tapsi Pannu switched off and on the entire communication system as if it was a desktop computer. Guess what? The communication was re-established as well. Kudos! Well it just doesn’t happen dear. In the end I was waiting for Akshay Kumar to tilt the rocket to 60 degree before firing the propulsion like a Bajaj scooter in Patiala. I am sure he would have suggested that before dropping the idea as too scientific. The movie used the word ‘home science’ very often. Rebudgeting a project is actually rebudgeting and not just home science as is portrayed in the movie. Well in their word they should understand that you don’t add masala to all the vegetables at home. Some vegetables can be cooked without the staple masala and still tastes good. And if all you have is MDH masala in kitchen then you better don't add it to Maggi and say that's Maggi. Maggi deserves a special treatment and so does few stories. By the way , what was the need to show a safety-pin prickled on the legs of Akshay Kumar during an irrelevant fight sequence inside the metro. Did someone laugh? I didn't. 

Trust me, public is far more intelligent now a days. You could have done away with that typecast American accent English speaking character, portrayed by Dalip Tahil, to show he is more inclined towards NASA. As if, in entire ISRO, the only English speaking scientist is the one who talks about NASA.  

Instead of absurdly making a more than two hour self tell tale, Bollywood should make one and half hour intense movie on such topics. The public in India is smart enough to lap it up. A serious treatment to such topics can be more engrossing and entertaining. It is time Bollywood try to sincerely compete for Oscars and not just eye the 100 crore collection. If all that matters is box office collection then please maintain the sanctity of such magnificent stories like Mangalyaan. Leave it to the fate of documentaries. We don’t need your farcical movies to realise the women empowerment in our nation.

I suffered from intense strokes of indigestion while watching the so called Based-on-true-events Mission Mangal. The next on the offer that week was Batla House, based on a true and much debated police encounter. But I felt sorry for my stomach which would have flooded out the moment a serious plot was interjected with the O saaki saaaki re saaki saaki. An item number in between a controversial encounter based story. Isn't that strange?

Well, back to Stranger Things on Netflix.

The Story Of My Mother

“During days of emergency”, my maternal grandmother had once said to me “your mother had become a firebrand in her college. She used to address large number of students outside her college about the ills of emergency. A rebel she was then”. I loved this narration of my mother. I had heard this many a times from my granny. Every time I portrayed my mother in my mind as a young and courageous rebel girl, firmly standing with her chin up, shouting  aloud from atop a truck, refusing to cow down against anyone.

This very image had come once again vividly before my eyes on the day her husband died. With all courage and might she pulled her chin up against the tyranny of life. She refused to be cow down, again.

A month earlier our parents celebrated their 25^th anniversary. About a month later her life’s companion had parted ways forever. The road of life has its unexpected bends and my mother happened to negotiate the sharpest and the toughest turn of her life on that bright summer day. My brother, sister and I were about to reach Dhanbad, from Delhi, where we pursued our graduation. My mother was preparing breakfast for all of us. My father was ecstatic with the prospect of a family reunion. He was washing his car when he suffered a terrible heart attack. In a minute he felled down as my mother rushed to hold him affirm. She and a maid held him firmly as she shouted for help. A neighbour arranged a car and holding his head on her lap she took him to a hospital only to find that the past few minutes that she spent with him were the last few minutes that they spent together. She had already lost him. The news was broken to her by my brother, after we reached the hospital an hour later. In my entire life that was the only day I saw her crying. She had seen enough struggles before and she would see many struggles after, but never ever I saw the lady shed a tear again. But that day when the dearest person to her was gone forever, she cried. She cried till she realised that we would need her all the more now. So she sat there on a bench, held three of us close to her, calming us, caressing us, protecting us, assuring us in quivering yet firm voice that all will be good, that she will be our father henceforth and sobbing incessantly for the largest void created in her life, that will never ever be filled again. Against the life’s plan for devastation, on that fateful day, she showed defiance. Amidst sea of sorrow on that day she chose happiness for us.

HURUNGA : Holi Festival

If Holi is festival of colours, then here you could breathe Holi. And if you open your mouth, eat it as well. 30 km away from main town Mathura, lies the village named Baldeo. Named after Balrama, elder brother of Shri Krishna. The much festive weeklong Holi celebrations of Brajbhoomi concludes here. And it did with all the ingredients for which Holi is called the festival of Joy. Colours, more colours, water, flowers, crowd, more crowd, song, drum, dance, cheers, sweet and what not. As if everything what I had read in those Holi essays in school had come alive in full spectacle. The event is called Hurunga and is set inside the temple premises of Lord Balrama, Dauji Maharaj Temple. It is an age old tradition here that the women and men come to the temple here and seek permission from Dauji to play with the colours for the last time before concluding the Holi.

It is also said that after a weeklong festivity, women come to Dauji Maharaj to complain about Kaanha's playfulness during Holi. And in front of Balrama strip their men off clothes and beat them with wet clothes. This version is celebrated so beautifully and with such an aplomb that you would wish you were down there. What started with a dry gulaal and songs and dance went on to a water draping Holi as water was artificially poured from above. The temple floor was packed to an inch, colour and flower was all around sprayed from the top. The air was booming with braj songs and dancing along in various colours. As men poured gulaal and splashed coloured water over women, the women left no effort to beat the men. And all this with a spirit of Holi with no nuisance around. People perched on every space around the temple to watch this spectacle .It was a sight I had never experienced in any Holi earlier. I was a little sceptic initially as to whether go to such a far off village all alone. But, then I was determined to devour the feeling of the famous Braj ki Holi. The Hurunga celebration and Holi at Dwarkadheesh a day earlier has made me miss Holi for the first time in my life.