Category: Journalism

(News reports, analysis, editorials, commentary, interviews, features etc from India and the world)

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Journalism

I Belong to a Minority Group. So Does Everyone Else!

‘Minority appeasement’, ‘minority bashing’, ‘minority rights’, ‘minority educational institution’, ‘minority vote bank’ and a host of such ‘minority oriented terms’ assault our senses every single day – especially if you tend to watch or read news. So what is the issue here?

Apart from articles 29 and 30, which make provisions for religious and linguistic ‘minority’, there is no definition of minority in the Indian Constitution; nor is there a definition in United Nations resolutions or a universally accepted definition in international laws!

How far can a conversation go when the definition of the subject itself is not crystallised? The only way ahead for us at the moment is to pick and take as reference the most general and consequently (hopefully) most universal of all definitions:
A minority or subordinate group is a sociological group that does not constitute a politically dominant plurality of the total population of a given society. A sociological minority is not necessarily a numerical minority — it may include any group that is disadvantaged with respect to a dominant group in terms of social status, education, employment, wealth and political power. To avoid confusion, some writers prefer the terms ‘subordinate group’ and ‘dominant group’ rather than ‘minority’ and ‘majority’.

In socio-economics, the term ‘minority’ typically refers to a socially subordinate ethnic group (understood in terms of language, nationality, religion and/or culture). Other minority groups include people with disabilities , “economic minorities” (working poor or unemployed), ‘age minorities’ (who are younger or older than a typical working age) and sexual minorities (whose sexual orientation or gender identity differs from the sociological norm).

Sociologist Louis Wirth defined a minority group as “a group of people who, because of their physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out from the others in the society in which they live for differential and unequal treatment, and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination.”[3] This definition includes both objective and subjective criteria: membership of a minority group is objectively ascribed by society, based on an individual’s physical or behavioral characteristics; it is also subjectively applied by its members, who may use their status as the basis of group identity or solidarity. In any case, minority group status is categorical in nature: an individual who exhibits the physical or behavioral characteristics of a given minority group will be accorded the status of that group and be subject to the same treatment as other members of that group.

The term ‘minority group gained currency in the 20th century during the course of discussion on civil rights and collective rights.

By definition or understanding of the notion, members of minority groups are subject to differential treatment in the society in which they live. This discrimination may be directly based on an individual’s perceived membership of a minority group, without consideration of that individual’s personal achievement.

Now put that in India’s context. In India every single individual person becomes a minority the moment he or she steps out of home. Simply because India is such a heterogenous union of cultures that it becomes difficult to come to any finite number of segregation. In a land where the dialect changes every few kilometers, at what number would you stop in your bid towards classification of the various social groups?

But then, whoever said that we’ve ever tried to come at an exact definition of the term ‘minority’?

In 1992, India’s Parliament enacted the National Commission for Minorities Act, but did not define a minority in it! Section 2(c) of the Act merely states that minority is what the government of India will notify in the Gazette!! The government has notified, without reason or explanation, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis as religious minorities. Why they are so has not been explained. Even the State Minorities Commissions have not bothered to define minorities.

The recent ruckus created following the judgement of Allahbad High Court on “Muslims no longer being the minority in UP” and the later correction of the same court on it, we can now conclude that if a group is numerically small, and substantially below 50 per cent of the population, then although it has the necessary attribute of a minority, that attribute is not sufficient for it to be declared a minority for the purpose of constitutional or statutory protection. Such a group must have sufficient other attributes as well, to be identified as a minority.

So then, why are some religious groups not only demand – at loud voices – their right to be deemed a minority group but also, in the bargain, extract great concessions from the government on the issues of education – merely on the basis of their religion? And why do they go ballistic the moment someone even mentions the need for arriving at a standard definition of minority and / or reviewing the present status of all the ‘designated minority groups’?
If there’s not more than what meets the eye, then why don’t we have a healthy discussion on the subject?

Oddly enough, it is equally surprising why more number of individuals and groups do not claim to belong to a minority group? In a state that has 70% reservations, Brahmins are clear minorities in Tamil Nadu. Parsis are minorities everywhere, while Christians are majority in Tripura. Are Sikhs a minority group in Punjab too? (Because the subject is a matter of central government)

The fact of the matter is that religion and castes are the only two attributes that gives maximum votes to politicians and hence they play those two cards effectively. Your being a Gujarati-speaking linguistic minority in Arunachal Pradesh would not cut much ice with authorities, simply because you’re not going to change the government there, are you?

What puts the subject on a very dangerous road is the issue of ‘Minority Educational Institutions’, which are exempted from reservations, have the freedom to decide their own fee structure and other such ‘minor issues’. If student life – the most impressionable age – is subjected to this politics, things can only be expected to get worse over the years.
All things majored and minored, the fact of the matter is that either everyone or no one is a minority on a national scale in India. So, the very concept of ‘minority groups’ should be dumped. Or it should be extended to at least a dozen more groups including those who can’t vote. Are you game, India?

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Journalism

Whose Secularism Is It Anyway?

“India seems to be fighting about secularism, without first deciding what it does or should mean”

“There is evidence that the slump is not cyclical but secular”, illustrates Oxford Dictionary of Difficult Words to explain a ‘difficult’ word, secular. While the aforementioned talks of Secular as an economic fluctuation or trend that persists over an indefinitely long period, it is uncanny how it could well have been talking of the debate on secularism in India.

Fortunately, or otherwise, the predicament surrounding the concept of secularism is a universal phenomenon.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey, which almost always votes for Islamist parties favouring the Sharia, is currently facing unprecedented pressure from within to undo its secular character; something that it has acquired over 80 years at the point of the army’s gun. A little away in France, Nicolas Sarkozy, chief of President Jacques Chirac’s UMP party, has argued for amending France’s law separating church and state. It is to be noted that the 1905-born law bars any state funding of religious groups and is the cornerstone of French secularism. USA, of course, has become the driver of an urgent debate on secularism by virtue of its “either you’re with us or you’re with them” laced ‘war on terror’.

The cultures cited are significant because, apart from India, they, more of less, represent the concept of secularism in the most significant contexts viz. the world’s only example of secularism in an Islamic society, extreme secularism in a western society and secularism in the melting pot of the free world.

Evidently, the aforementioned interpretation, where the state tries to either assert itself over or stay exclusive of religion, is quite unlike the Indian reading of secularism viz. ‘Sarva Dharma Sambhaav’ or equality of all religions.

However, what does equality of all religions mean anyway? Does the state have a bit of all religions or is there a split between the state and religion, wherein the state is merely a moderator between the various religions? If the state does have a bit of all religions, would the chosen doctrine of one religion then be binding for a conflicting doctrine of another religion? Similarly, if the state does not have a religion, would it supercede the ideals of all religions, under all circumstances?

But the most fundamental query is why must the state be distinct of religion? Moreover, is it possible in India?

Nothing illustrates the logic behind the separation of State and religion than the present debate in the United States about the appointment of John Roberts as the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Roberts, the liberals fear, might make abortion illegal and lift the ban on school prayer because of his strong Catholic upbringing. Clearly, State is not an inanimate entity; State too, after all, is its people. And people who form the governing arm of the State too have individuality; individuality of preferences and prejudices.

Yet, the answer to the latter query is ‘no’; unless, we decide to alter religion’s status in Indian polity with French ruthlessness. That seems improbable; for, the Indian State not only recognizes the right of expression of the various religions in polity matters but also has a stake in religious institutions.

Interestingly, none of the many religions of India has ever had reservations about this proximity of religion with the State. The conflict has primarily been about the nature and extent of the State’s relation with one religion vis-à-vis other religions; thereby, probably, indicating the failure of the Indian State in executing the idea to everyone’s satisfaction.

Adding to the dissatisfaction is the fact that even 58 years of myriad experiments with governance have not managed to throw up the root of the State’s failure. All the same, the Indian State might want to study a recent editorial in the Daily Telegraph of UK and reassess its own methods of discharge. Published in the wake of the recent bomb attacks on London’s subway system, the editorial had outlined the following as the fundamentals of law in that country: rule of law as defined by common law and Parliament; upward flow of political legitimacy, from the will of the people and the traditions of the constitution (not downwards, from interpretation of the will of God); the monopoly of state in matters of coercion (with violence by individuals and groups being illegitimate); nation being ultimate object of political loyalty (not religion) and free expression of a plurality of religious beliefs.

India, unfortunately, has not been blessed too often with straight answers. Partly because it is not always possible to achieve that in a nation that is a complex union of cultures; and largely because we don’t really excel in finding answers. Almost every discussion on the issue of secularism in India leads to a couple of, now drained, addresses like 1947, 1984, 1989, 1992, 2002 etc. In the process, not only is the present context buried under a deluge of influences, newer interpretations of and further hardening of history is achieved.

Late Dr. Rafique Zakaria, the eminent social scientist, in his book ‘Indian Muslims: Where have they gone wrong?’ had suggested that till a reconciliation happens with Pakistan, specifically a reunion of the two countries but with sovereignty vested in both along the EU model, the Hindu-Muslim chasm would remain. In other words, Dr. Zakaria had diagnosed the partition of India as the root cause of the problem.

The thing with theories, like that of Dr. Zakaria’s, is that no one quite knows how much they can be stretched! Injustice done anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, Martin Luther King had once remarked. And lo behold, there are human bombs going in every part of the world to avenge the injustice of Palestine, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Where the argument fails is in recognizing that blood was cheap for the proponents of the present mayhem even before any of those addresses of discontent were born.

Religious fanatics, ironically, quite like the Communists, possess total disregard for political boundaries. Alas, it does not bloom out of any poetic dream of a world sans boundaries. It is born out of dangerous obsession with power; power of not only living according to the whims of one’s doctrine but also of making the entire world follow the suite.

A classic example of how ‘one’s doctrine’ is never the absolute form of any ideology comes from M. A. Muqtedar Khan, author of ‘American Muslims: Bridging Faith and Freedom’ (2002) in his write-up ‘The Myth of Secularism’. He states that the extremists (have been brainwashed to) believe that portion of Quran which says,

“…And if one seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted from him; and he is among the losers in the Hereafter” (Quran 3:85)

In the process, Khan continues, the extremists completely disregard the voice of reason, which has been mentioned twice in Quran to override the aforementioned decree. The voice of peace says,

“Those who believe (in the Qur’an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians,- any who believe in God and the Last Day, and do good deeds, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve” (Quran 2:62 and 5:69)

Clearly, selective interpretation of an ideology in the garb of the ultimate tenet is the ill that is trying to swallow the world, and indeed India. It holds just as true for the Islamic extremists as it does for the ‘white man’s burden’ psychology of the Jesuit Missionaries, the nauseating militancy of VHP, Bajrang Dal, Babbar Khalsa and also of all of the thousands of religions and religious sects of India.

Making matters worse, in the clutter of noises, rituals or symbols of religion are getting confused as the soul of religion itself. And there lies India’s present waterloo. Ideologies-sans-reason are coming thick and fast from all quarters – all laced with suspicion for the ‘other’ and the personal and political agendas of their own. The fatal consequence of that can be seen in the form of perceptions taking on the garb of truth. To each perception, its own truth has become the order of the day.

So while the idea of the ‘common law’ is taken by a vocal section of India’s Muslim community as a hidden agenda of the ‘Hindutva brigade’, their opposite numbers take the refusal of the concept as the Muslim community’s resistance to assimilating itself into the mainstream.

The final nail in the coffin is put through a blatant attempt by an alarming number of media houses in propagating their own viewpoint as the solitary truth; a tendency that arguably traces its roots to gradual aligning of various members of the fourth estate with political parties of their interest. So, we have ‘feelings about an issue’ that is fueled by a 24X7 bombardment of selective portions of truth. And who can argue against a hearsay-turned-into-a-folklore-turned-into-a-tenet, right?

Amidst the entire din, one would expect a heartfelt urge for a dialogue and resolution of the conflict at the earliest. What one comes across, however, is at best an alibi and at worst, an accusation across the table from every single soul who has a stake in the state of affairs. And that’s when every August the 15th reminds the country of the vacuum left by the tall leaders of yesteryears. Admittedly, in today’s age of high-risk transition, there is not a single leader of national stature and/or acceptability who can take a lead in belling the cat of religious intolerance. And with none visible in the distant horizon too, it is time to start worrying.

Unless there is a unanimity over the nature and extent of the Indian State’s role in religious matters, the current imbroglio stands to last. A few coercive changes of law and few persuasive offerings to all the concerned should go a long away in achieving the ideal multi-religious nation that we had set out to become.

Finally, it would be worth reminding ourselves of the time when Kings and religious heads used to consult each other but temples were invariably built either on distant mountain-tops or in the middle of nature. Are we game for a little relocation of mind, matter and material?

(Originally written in 2006, published in League magazine in 2007)

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Cinema Journalism People

“Zero Percentile is a Story Which has Never been Read Before”

Interview with Neeraj Chhibba, author of ‘Zero Percentile – Missed IIT Kissed Russia‘

The beauty of literature is that it often enables our soul to live something that neither has our body experienced nor has our heart ever breathed before. Unfortunately, very little of what goes in the name of literature these days manages to do that. However, every once in a while, comes something that lifts us from our couches and transports us to an exotic or completely different life. A little bit in this manner:

My taxi arrived at the Shermetyeva Airport. It was not  really a taxi – Russia had developed a unique culture where you could  flag down any passing car and strike a deal at a mutually convenient  price to be dropped off at your destination. The system worked well in  those uncertain times when many car owners converted to drivers-for-hire  to supplement their income. I had even been fortunate enough to travel  in a huge Mercedes 600 once. The owner-turned-driver said he was an  opportunist and never missed the chance to make a quick buck.

Taken from Neeraj Chhibba”s Zero Percentile – Missed IIT Kissed Russia, the paragraph stands for all things interesting about the book. Adding to a fast burgeoning tribe of Indian writers in English, Neeraj comes up with a racy tale of the fascinating adventures of Pankaj, a less favoured son of destiny  across two completely different countries, India and Russia.

And it indeed appeals to both sides of us Indians, one that is rooted to the continuing traditions and the other that is ever so impatient to try out newer shores.

Here”s an interaction with the promising author:

ANSHUMAN RAWAT (AR): Tell us a little about “Zero Percentile – Missed IIT Kissed Russia”.

NEERAJ CHHIBBA (NC): Zero Percentile is the story of a survivor who continuously finds solutions to his problems, braving destiny along the way. Though thoroughly deserving he always finds destiny looking the other way. The story takes you through the life of the protagonist from the time he is born and till the time he finishes his education in Russia. Life in Russia is harsh, the climate is not conducive, you have to study as well as fend for yourself. Add to that the unstable political climate in the 90s and you are ready for a roller coaster experience.

AR: How much did the book evolve from its genesis to the final draft? Was it, in any manner, owing to market considerations?

NC: When I began to write the book I was clear about Phase II and III of the book (which cover the life of the protagonist in Russia) and that I had to convey a couple of messages to the readers such as – not getting into IIT is not the end of the road, there is life beyond IIT and the best one can do is to piece his life together and move ahead as fast as he can, one should be very careful with his sex life; and break the myth that Russia is a bad place to live in. So, keeping these things in mind I began to write. It was difficult initially to put all the ideas together as a story and so I had to do a lot of rewriting. But in the end it came out well. I will be honest with you. The book was indeed written with the intent that the reader should like it and like it to such an extent that he recommends it to others too.

AR: Which are the principal points of appreciation and criticism that the book has earned thus far?

NC: It may seem funny but the same thing has earned me both appreciation and criticism. Some people have liked that I have written the book in simple words and it is fast-paced but others have criticized the book for the very same reasons. Apart from that the story has been appreciated for the freshness it has brought to college stories and I have been overwhelmed with responses even from 60 year olds who have said that they liked the book immensely and saw some part of their own lives reflected in the story.

AR: In your opinion, does the book conform to the present style of Indian writing in English or does it add another dimension to it?

NC: There is no such thing as present style of writing. There are writers who are identified with different genres of writing and they have co-existed for a long time. What has happened now is that a new breed of authors (who do not have a literary background) have come out and started writing stories on subjects close to their hearts. The younger generation has taken a liking to them instantly and have made them into successful authors. I would love to be liked by the younger generation, but at the same time, I would like my works to be appreciated by people across different age-groups, and regular and not-so-regular readers. I am happy that I can see this happening with ZP.

AR: Do you believe that writing in English, which seems to be the natural expression for new-age authors like you, helps in acquiring more attention in India these days?

NC: Yes, like with everything else in this fast-paced world, you are bound to get instant attention if you have written a good story. But then, you are forgotten instantly too if you are not repeatedly able to come up with good quality writing every time.

AR: Do you look forward to Zero Percentile getting turned into a movie? And, do you fancy writing stories/scripts for films?

NC: Yes, that will be the culmination of my dream. If you read ZP it has all the ingredients to become a super-duper successful Bollywood film such as friendship, innocence, betrayal, struggle, mafia and off course love.

AR: Finally, tell our readers in one statement, why they should be buying your book. Also, how and where they can buy the book?

NC: You should read ZP because it is a unique story, something which has never been read before – like life outside the IIT, story of an Indian student in Russia etc. You can buy it online at Flipkart or Infibeam and at all the leading stores in India such as Crossword, Odyssey, Reliance and Landmark.

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About Neeraj Chhibba: Born and raised in New Delhi, Neeraj Chhibba considers the eternal memories of his school and college days to be the real inspiration behind hi maiden book. After doing his schooling in New Delhi, India, he went on to study engineering at Volgograd, Russia and is currently employed with a software company in Gurgaon, India.

Interestingly, (in his own words) his single biggest claim to literary honors as yet lies in a ‘Highly Commendable’ Certificate in Class X in an English Essay Competition organized by the Royal Commonwealth Society. He was the only one in New Delhi to have received it that year.

Though Neeraj believes that but for the pressure of earning bread he could have done more, the success of Zero Percentile has made sure that he is now ready to write more books.

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Cinema Journalism

Film Review: Road Movie

Excerpt: In, what seems to be, yet another attempt to sell ”Indian Exotica” to western audiences, ”Road, Movie” becomes a largely contrived and entirely self-indulgent cinematic exercise. If you really must go on a journey today, take some other road.

Spoiler Alert: Since the film is more about a collage of instances than a story, the review mentions a few scenes in their entirety. If you wish to not know anything except the verdict, you may leave this page now.

Review: It has become almost fashionable to have logos of many international film festivals on Indian movie posters these days. One thread, however, that binds them together is that irrespective of the cinematic quality of the ”festival appreciated” (often with “5-minute long standing ovations”), most of these films exhibit an unsaid lack of confidence with regards the box office.

In the case of ”Road, Movie”, the fear is quite understandable – for neither the ”Road” (read “the journey”) looks for real, nor the ”Movie”.

”Road, Movie” presents most things, which the western audience  (only at the festival circuit at that; rest still doesn”t care), look forward to seeing in an Indian fare – vibrant colours; poverty; a distinctly distant life and way of life et al. It even has a widow of rural Rajasthan (played by Tannishtha Chatterjee) break into an impromptu, possessed rendition of a folk song on the first night of her journey with three strangers in truck. “Oh, such an exquisite piece of Indian folk music” – someone in Berlin might have uttered. But Dev Benegal (the writer-director) would have been shattered beyond redemption, if he had witnessed the audience reaction to that portion, here in one of the major cities of India.

Maybe, the reaction was exaggerated because the film had already lost the audience by then!

Or was the audience ”exaggeration” was quite in sync with the film”s exaggerated definition of ”chic”. Sample this: Abhay Deol, driving a truck, is stopped by a dhaba kid (played by Mohammed Faizal Usmani), in the middle of nowhere. He then gives Abhay tea and biscuits. When Abhay makes a face after tasting the tea, the kid remarks – “Toh yeh STARBUCKS hai kya”!

Maybe when uneducated kids, who work at tea stalls by rural India highways, know their CCD from Starbucks, they become worthy enough to earn appreciation at film festivals! “Oh look, the kid is so poor and uneducated, but he is so intelligent and knows so much”, did we hear a western lady say that?

The above two are only a couple of an entire ”road” of contrived situations.

The biggest of them all is a sequence about a ”Mela” – right in the middle of absolute nowhere. Maybe this author is intellectually challenged, by can anyone please inform him (and the entire audience, with which he watched this film) whether the ”Mela” was for real or a dream sequence! Ideally, when one reads a statement like that, the instinct is to give up on the person who utters that. You may do so for this review. Unfortunately, however, for the makers of ”Road, Movie”, the audience too decisively gives up after that sequence.

This is not a vindictive rant, but one must add one more of illustration of how the film meanders in and out of nothingness: A ferocious leader of the water mafia (played by Yashpal Sharma), who is also mentioned to have killed the husband of the film”s heroine, hunts the ”road team” down, captures them, takes them to his work site, beats them and then lets them off in exchange of a few bottles of hair oil! Yes, you read that right. Apparently, after Abhay Deol massaged his head with the oil, combed his hair and told him of the oil adding to male virility, the water mafia don “becomes a man”. “Maine aapko mard banaya hai”, Abhay Deol tells the goon – if you must know exact dialogue!

A rural Rajasthan widow walking away with some stranger kid after traveling and making love to a truck driver, as if nothing ever happened; a water mafia man talking of corporate philosophy …

The only saving grace of the film is Satish Kaushik. Though hindered by abstracts, he delivers a seasoned performance as a mechanic-cum-showbiz passionate old man. He looks the part; talks, walks and acts the part with the ease of a master.

What however his performance does is that it tells the audience the inadequacies of others. Tannishtha Chatterjee looks and acts more like a hottie doing the ”ethnic round” on ramp than a Rajasthani widow. Mohammed Faizal Usmani does better than her, but still does not manage to convince.

That brings us to Abhay Deol. How many more movies would he do in which he plays the cool dude – irrespective of the socio-cultural roots of his character? He looks and acts precisely like the Abhay Deol that the audience came expecting. Never mind if an actor is loud or subtle, if he or she knows just one way of delivering, he would end up being predictable. We are sure that Abhay Deol is way too good to end up becoming that. Or lets say, we hope so.

Dev Benegal should take a call on the kind of films that he wants to make. Because both Split Wide Open and Road, Movie belong to the “neither here, nor there” category. He looks confused at the moment. Maybe he should just make it for festivals and not worry about box office release. Or maybe he should move around the country a little more and meet some real people.

Verdict: Wait for the DVD to come out in the market, if you must.

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Cinema Journalism

Film Review: Teen Patti

Excerpt: Ever played a game of three cards, where the first card provides undefined promise; the second card makes a potentially victorious pair with the first; but the last one, just as your heart longs to hit the jackpot, lets the first two cards down, decisively?Teen Patti stands for an enticing promise that never quite delivers beyond threatening to do that.

Review: Probably bound by self-inflicted demands of plurality and morality, the writers of Teen Patti (Shivkumar Subramaniam and Leena Yadav) try to wade through an ocean of cinematic opportunities in all directions, till it becomes clear even to them that the only way to end the stylish zig-zag is to drop anchor right in the middle of deep sea.

In Teen Patti, the plurality act is played out by trendy music (by Salim-Suleiman), glitzy cinematography (by Aseem Bajaj) and the selection of often irresistibly sensuous bodies to, firstly, support Bachchan”s old and Madhavan”s ample frames and secondly to offset the often-abstract-and-aimless interaction between Bachchan and Sir Ben Kingsley. The morality act is provided at the climax via, once again, by an Amitabh Bachchan speech – probably to put all that goes earlier in the movie in perspective!

Unfortunately, neither the chic tools nor politically correct explanations work in totality.

In the end Teen Patti is a film that could have been a razor-sharp, pulsating film devoid of any reasoning or an incisively intelligent film full of cerebrum. The key phrase, however is, “could have been“. It is not.

Teen Patti is a film that is better than the majority of trash that we see everyday, but fails – by some distance – to become a film that we can watch any day.

Teen Patti is about a soon-to-retire math genius Venkat Subramaniam (Amitabh) and his research paper on probability. A simple game of ”teen patti” on Internet convinces him of the potency of his findings. When he shares his thoughts with a fellow lecturer Shantanu (Madhavan) and 4 of his students, he gets sucked into the bait of trying the theory in a real life situation – across underground gambling dens. But before anyone can utter ”mathematics”, all of them get caught in a whirlpool of greed, deceit, ransom and finally, murder.

While the premise looks fresh and interesting, it doesn”t quite pan out that way.

Some of the reasons are unconvincing acting by new actors, often verbose moral talks, sprinkling of known actors (Ajay Devgan, Jackie Shroff, Tinnu Anand, Shakti Kapoor, Ranjit etc) with characters that barely look more than annoying caricatures and, most of all, less than purposeful script and direction (by Leena Yadav).

But what makes up for the above is the freshness of story / scenario, stylish execution of frames and an impactful performance by Amitabh.

And that is the problem with this film. Even in the “impactful performance by Amitabh”, one can clearly ask – “How come he never, ever exhibits any south Indian accent?” Well, maybe because he never lived in his native state. The example is a mere illustration of how nothing fits to the ”perfect T” in the film.

Madhavan is a huge star and a very competent actor. But if it was not told clearly, and enough number of times, he would have been misunderstood for one of his own students. In fact, it might even be a “Five Years Later” portion of 3 Idiots.

Ben Kingsley is an utter waste in the film. So is the special appearance by Ajay Devgan, which does nothing to the film – except making it feel long and labourious. Jackie Shroff”s portion in the film is a disgrace to his own “Hero” legacy.

The newcomers should thank their stars for getting to work with Bachchan, Sir Ben Kingsley and Madhavan. All of them, except Vaibhav Talwar (as Abbas) look raw and need to work on their skills.

What makes the film tick at all times is some pleasing cinematography by Aseem Bajaj. But if camera were the only thing, YouTube would have long killed cinema.

As for the two most important aspects of the film, script and direction, what better illustration can sum up the confusion than the putting together of Amitabh Bachchan and Sir Ben Kingsley – for actually nothing. In fact, and this may seem an exaggeration of sort, Teen Patti can still be the same film, even if you completely remove Sir Ben and all his portions.

And if you do a similar treatment to portions like Mrs Kale”s (Mita Vashisht) scene with Venkat, along with Ajay Devgan”s and Shakti Kapoor”s portions, you might actually have a much tighter and impressive film.

Get the drift?

Verdict: Teen Patti falls short of the promise it held – but can be viewed once, for the sake of trying out a fresh and different story.

Categories
Journalism

Let’s Not Allow Ahmedabad to Become Another Bengaluru

Life has come a full circle. An year ago, when we just about started this journey, we had talked about the need to reflect on the reasons behind Ahmedabad been left behind by Bangalore and Hyderabad.

An year later, there is not even a city by the name Bangalore! And that is not the only reason for our re-think on the subject.

Bengaluru, as Bangalore is now known as, now resembles a victim of its own success. The sleepy town of the 50s, when it was about half the size of Ahmedabad, is now realising that success is a double-edged sword. Every reward of rapid growth comes at a price. Unfortunately, the price that technological and commercial success is demanding from the city is far greater than what the city ever had prepared for. There is no contingency fund left. Even scary is the general fear of analysts that there might not be a Plan B for the present state of affairs.

This is not a doomsday theory by Nostradamus. For, as elementary understanding of civilization tells us, every society goes through a cycle of explosive growth, stable maturity and slow decline. The latter two stages of Bengaluru – as indeed of every other town or city of India – would comfortably outlast all of those living at the moment. Hence, the issue here is not whether Bengaluru would eventually be able to survive the stress at its seams. The issue is whether the citizens of Bengaluru deserved the hardships that they are presently made to endure everyday.

No one is arguing against the wonderful strides made by the city in the fields of technology and research. In fact, the success story has long moved beyond saturation coverage in all sort and arms of media. And that contributed in no less amount the exodus of young talent from all parts of country to ‘India’s silicon valley’. Yes, at least some portion of the rush towards Bengaluru had to do with the ‘perception of Bengaluru’ as a vibrant, science and technology-oriented, liberal, progressive and westernised Indian city. (We in Ahmedabad know all too well about the disdainful comments that ‘dry’ cities like ours attract from the ‘young and restless’.) Some of the aforementioned perceptions hold true for Bengaluru; but some others are just a part of a popular folklore.

Anyone who has any idea about life OUTSIDE the IT belt would tell you that Bengaluru is NOT any more progressive or liberal or westernised than any other major city of India. Which global city across the world calls for banning of English in primary schools? Which major Indian city outside Tamil Nadu sees attack on All India Radio because of transmission of Hindi programs? Which city faces a riot-like situation as a part of ‘mourning’ by the ‘fans’ of its biggest movie idol?

Even if we dismiss those aspects as that about psychology or politics, the fact of the matter is that Ahmedabad has better roads, better power situation and a better airport – apart from having just as good educational and research institutes.

Ahmedabad has been built in 500 years. The present Bengaluru was built in the last 50 years. And there in lies the difference in the foundation of the two cities. And there in lies the real reason for not emulating Bengaluru.