Thursday, June 28, 2012

Movie Review: Gangs of Wasseypur

Wasseypur no different from Munshi Premchand’s India


By Himanshu Shekhar

With emotions over melodrama, intensity over acting - Anurag Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur is a deft narrative of an India which the suburban middle-class have conveniently chosen to ignore.

Wasseypur is set in the backdrop of the Bihar-Jharkhand border where coal mining, smuggling and gang wars are not just rampant but an integral part of life.

So, any movie based on the coal mafia and gang war is bound to draw parallels. The question you will ask is: Is Anurag Kashyap trying to match Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece - The Godfather? There’s uncanny similarity between the two plots. But to stretch that logic beyond a point would be grave injustice to one of India's most talented directors. The movie, in flashes, takes you to the plight of the coal workers in the region and showcases how youngsters take to arms if deprived of a respectable living. 

From Birju in Mother India to Sardar Khan in Wasseypur, not much has changed in Indian villages. If ever there is a re-birth of Munshi Premchand, he won't have to search for plots. Struggle, hardship, the poor and bahubalis are in abundance in our villages.

That's exactly where Wasseypur gets its hero - Sardar Khan- astoundingly portrayed by Manoj Bajpai.
Sardar Khan injects the common audiences with doses of Biharism (Bakaiti).

Not just the protagonist, but each single character in the movie has been carefully crafted and little details attended. Jaideep Ahlawat as Shahid Khan, Richa Chadda as Nagma Khatoon, Mukesh Chhabra as Nawab Khan, Tigmanshu Dhulia as Ramadhir Singh, Anurita Jha, Jameel Khan as Asgar, Harish Khanna as Yadavji, Piyush Mishra as Farhan, Huma Quershi as Mohsina, Reema Sen as Durga, Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Faizal, Raj Yadav, Raj Kumar Yadav are names which will be taken seriously by Bollywood from here on.

It will be very surprising if Gangs of Wasseypur fails to be the watershed year in career of these extremely promising actors.

Sardar Khan talks in Bihari, his one-liners, his love scenes with his wife and his extra-marital overtures makes you laugh out of your seats. On the other hand, his extraordinary rebel stare and liberal use of swear words, packed by some scintillating dialogues - Bajpai raises the bar for acting, as far as quality goes.

He kills people, fights Ramadhir Singh (who also happens to be the murderer of his father), cheats on his wife, goes to jail but still you don't want to hate him.

His denial to accept the hegemony of Ramadhir Singh - the Bahubali politician - leads to a war which involves killings of innocent and provokes retaliatory fire, leaving the town in a lurch. All this while Khan's wife Nagma Khatoon's presence is constant in the background. Played by Richa Chadda, Nagma's resolute character is reliable and steady. Demonstrative, if not dominating. Don't be surprised if she walks away with the best female actor award.

Like any Shakespearian plot, revenge and treachery is one of the characters of this movie. That's where Nagma brings a trust factor in the movie.

How often you have seen women happily accepting every injustice meted out by her husband? Unlike Durga - Sardar Khan's extra-marital love interest, played by Reema Sen - Nagma loves her husband unconditionally. Durga on the other hand, cheats Khan and virtually conjures with the opposition gang and successfully plots her husband's (Sardar Khan) death. 

However, with so many sub-plots running simultaneously, one logic of the narrative occasionally starts meandering from its theme.

Harsh and heart-wrenching socio-political realities had often set the narratives in Indian cinema. Wasseypur is no different.

However, there are two types of movies. One, those which present the exact truth regardless of whether it attempts to break the stereotype and leave you optimistic at the end or not. Also, there are movies which leave you with lot of soul-searching but give you hope. Taare Zameen Par and Rang de Basanti are examples.

The background score and the songs in the movie are simply amazing. Interwoven with the script, at no point it attempts to take you away from the reality. Manoj Tiwari after a long time has come from the benches to Bollywood’s actual playground with his song ‘Jiya tu Bihar ke Lala’. Songs in this movie are a blend of Bihari and Bhojpuri and is a refreshing change from the loudness of Mikka & Co.

There are other good songs too in the movie which have an earthly touch. Proper care has been taken to load everything with the taste of the regional diaspora in mind. Woh womania and Keh ke loonga catch you with their folksy boisterousness.

As audience and reader, you have every right to differ with what I feel, but I must say that as a common man, I would wait for something extraordinary from the immensely talented, versatile and perfectionist - Anurag Kashyap.

Monday, February 13, 2012

The Wall was not built in a day

By Sajal .K. Patra

Whoever said that public memory is short must have visited India a couple of times before reaching this conclusion. Just a year ago, when India were in South Africa, Mahendra Singh Dhoni was still the best captain India ever had. Dravid was still the ‘WALL’ and Laxman was still known to be Very Very Special’. A year down the line, Dhoni seems to be Villain Number One in the country who can easily replace Gabbar in Sholay.

Rahul Dravid is no longer the Wall. The word going around is that there seems to be a five-and-a-half inch peep hole in the wall now and Laxman from being very very special is now on the verge of getting dropped.

It was one of those days that have become all too common on the Australian tour — gloomy, depressing, demotivating -- as India were rolled over by the Aussies and went on to lose the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 0-4. That raises a lot of questions about the effectiveness of some of the senior players.

Dravid and Laxman have been put under the microscope which, to an extent, is unfair as the entire batting line-up failed to deliver.

Dravid, a man who first stepped into international cricket when unorthodoxy was at its peak with pinch-hitters scoring runs defying the standard shots of cricket. He was head and shoulders above everyone technically and has scored more than 13000 Test runs. Add to that the over-10000 one-day, not to forget the number of catches he has taken in the slips.

When you say 13000 Test runs, one has to pause for a second and understand the magnitude of what it means. Dravid, unlike Tendulkar or Ganguly, was not that gifted. He has maximised his talent through long hours in the nets and hard work, amazing power of concentration and determination. Every time India were staring down the barrel, Dravid stood out like a lotus in the mud or a solitaire among insipid batting.

His brilliant performance over the years have always been overlooked as every time he had taken the ship out of troubled waters, there was somebody who came out and played a classic. We remember the famous Kolkata Test match because of Laxman’s heroics but we forgot that there was one man who gave him able support and scored 180 runs before Harbhajan Singh ran through the Australian side.

India had their backs to the wall in the 1999 World Cup after losing against Zimbabwe. They had to win every match after that to keep their hopes alive and when the moment came, Ganguly stole the show by scoring 183 runs and once again the man at the non- striker’s end was Dravid, who scored 148 in that same match.

Dravid has always been the unsung hero of Indian cricket, be that Adelaide in 2003-04 where he scored a double-century. However, Ajit Agarkar, who grabbed six wickets, stole the limelight. Or in Headingly, where Dravid, Tendulkar and Ganguly all got centuries but it was Dravid who weathered the initial storm.

How can it be that one of the greatest players in the world can go from being the best to be talked about in unceremonious terms?

As and when Dravid takes a call and decides to hang up his boots, the country will lose the greatest No 3 batsman it ever had. The media and the fans will be robbed of the privilege of watching this artist at work; we will mourn that he never got his due, even more so as his exodus from the game would take away the gentlemanliness of the game which the game still tries to potray as its devoted element.

When you reflect at his career, it is a reward for intelligent planning and determined execution, a man who always put a price stag before his wicket, one who bats with the tri-colour and has the hallmark for being remembered as one of the greatest players India has ever produced.

Dravid is the tour-de-force of technique and application and deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the mightiest efforts of Tendulkar, Brian Lara and Steve Waugh, almost all of whom I have seen. His achievements are nothing less than any of these great players and the time has come for each one of us to appreciate his contribution to Indian cricket which spans over a period of 15 years.

Rahul Sharad Dravid was not the product of our system but a product in spite of our system. When the man decides to call it a day, the country will realise what they have lost and with that, probably his importance.

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