Swabhimaan

She made her presence felt today
Along the crack that threatens
Arangetram, the moss comes out
Does her first dance today

Footsteps that come out of the dark
Silent, purposeful only to walk away
The anticipation or the farewell
Kept me awake many a night today

In a blink the wall is all green
A mural, a silent testimony
To the years that have passed
In toil, in pain and in slumber

I sit in the dark, ruminating over what I have just seen. I decide to (write a) blog. It’s not going to be pleasant. I’ve seen a very disturbing movie... I’ve seen Matrubhoomi...

I’m really quick at fixing responsibilities... usually...
For an hour and a half I’m unable to write anything...Im even unable to decide the structure of the “review” I’m going to write. This sort of a movie leaves you so unsettled that you question the very basis of “life”
Was I by choice or was I coerced into existence?
I’ll never know…
As the years that have passed have changed the equation forever... forever rendering the potency of a man to the status of a screwdriver or a tool that is needed to get the job done or more fearfully so into one of blighted force … instead of co-op
The kaleidoscope is displaying its myriad hues as I turn around for the battle …..
I settle for a smoke and by the light of the screen as the smoke is conveniently dispatched to the corners of the room a question forms itself.
What did Manish Jha REALLY want to talk about?

The honest (and easiest) answer is I don’t know. However I did watch the movie intensely, and at different stages I formed different opinions and when I pressed “off “on the remote I was confused ...was that perhaps the original idea?

First the structure of the movie... a story it is not... a description of a society… it very well might be
And if parallels really insist upon testimony, then “Nishant” was a story.
For those who have watched the movie it is an intense statement on the society of its times... more scathing than any statement about a “yet to be born” society aided by a “2URDE4CE” (tour-de-force) performance by Shabana Azmi... (I really had to interpret that no. plate)
Lest I trivialize, there are two scenes that stand out in my mind... in nishant I mean

Shabana azmi lies on the ground, having been physically overpowered by three men , in a yellow sari , and the moment is one of extreme poignancy , one where when the mind capitulates under repeated assaults, and a few frames later, she calls out to the domestic help as if the house were her own.. She asks, even nags for a kitchen of her own... sanity in an insane world

And the other, where the villagers commune under one rash action by the village-teacher to give the zamindars the boot... Naseeruddin shah looks for Shabana azmi “first” and then Smita Patil...the moment of death and the choice of the place is weird though …Sham Bengal chose a staid rock under whose backdrop the two lovers choose to die... not a rock for their love/affection/infatuation was anything but …

Contrast matrubhoomi --- where the subject is female infanticide... remotely related to the movie I am talking about... however it is definitely about redefinition... of one world into another.
And the vehicle that the author chooses is not one of subtlety where the idea haunts the viewer...instead the weak cast seeks subterfuge in repetition... until a concept is ( for the lack of a better word) hammered in …she is raped …she is raped …she is raped …multiple times..(Thank god for redundancy)
Here in my mind is a perfect example of a “can/can’t do “being sacrificed for the greater cause... For Mr. Jha when you depict a scene like that for public viewing, you cannot run away ...” I cannot be caught up in the details” cannot be an excuse…for no matter how uncomforting it is...each violation, EVERYTIME ,has a different connotation for the victim. Though her frightened eyes ask the same question every time...you cannot hide behind the same answer … namely circumstance.

Matrubhoomi fails in making you think about why… instead it succeeds in making you think about what if ?.. No matter how rhetorical the question might seem
For however logical the movie might seem, it fails in its primary purpose…
It assumes that man is beyond redemption... it fails the simple test of causality
It fails the viewer...
It seeks to burden him/her with a share of the guilt that is not adequately shared. Though I am one for noble ambition, am not one for perjury.

And maybe my limited knowledge obfuscates me

Maybe it blinds me to the many truths that women face everyday and the multitude blurs the face that spurs me to action, my mother my sister my lover

It does not blind me from the sense of judgment that I am pronounced to... my responsibility …and therein I hope Im one of MANY
And to that end I say


Hope while we missed it
Instead of the lines in green
Envy/ravage you say?
Beauty/damage I say

In damnation I find true blue
The colors that seek and
The colors that flew
I seek my colors true
And I for one refuse to give up on that.

.wither??? Said the “war of the words”?


PS - Tulip joshi is a gutsy woman(IMHO) for having agreed in the first place... for that , kudos.. if she has any sensitivity that I credit women with ..she took it out of a sense of responsibility over everything else..
and That demands commendation and every measure of international acclaim that the movie is receiving.
PPS - being the anarchist that I am i do hope the movie reaches your shores and does Disturb you ..it antagonises you, it insults you ..and maybe then..
there is hope for a common consensus