An open letter to Mrs Kamal Batra

Respected Mrs Kamal Batra,

As  the AAP candidate for Lok Sabha from Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh, you were very upset with Mr Narendra Modi invoking your son, Late Capt Vikram Batra in one of his election speeches ‘Yeh Dil Maange More-I want 300 lotuses’ he said. You called him a pseudo patriot and accused him of politicizing a martyred armyman’s name.

Maataji, is 'Mera Rang de Basanti Chola' copyrighted by the families of Bhagat Singh, Shivram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar? Are the songs penned by Vinayak  Savarkar copyrighted by his family? As far as I know, 'Yeh Dil Maange more' is copyrighted by Pespico, as it was the tagline of their product in the late 1990s. 

Your late  son was a son every mother in this country would be honoured to have. Capt Vikram Batra of 13JAK Rifles, a posthumous PVC  awardee. The brave warrior , who quipped ‘Yeh Dil Maange More’ on the capture of  Point 5140 and who was mortally wounded by sniper fire while rescuing  a fellow officer on Point 4875 on 7^th June 1999. He was just 24.

Secular, Socialist Republic of  India is one of the worst nations in this world when it comes to honouring their fallen soldiers or even respecting the ones who are alive. News reports don’t go beyond ‘Major and two jawans killed’ , not bothering to even give their names in many cases, as if its taken for granted that they are paid to die.In overwhelming instances, civilian interest in the army does not go beyond knowing about subsidized canteen liquor and perks. These ungrateful clowns do not deem it necessary to even know what kind of pain, inconvenience and agony our security forces go through so that the likes of them can snore peacefully. The left dominated media and academia demonize any sign of nationalism and hail the subversive forces as intellectuals who paint the army as  rapists and murderers.

 Why are then you doing your son’s memory a disservice by joining an anti national outfit that masquerades as a political party, whose ranks are filled with separatists and Maoist sympathisers, who are out to spread chaos and demean every institution in the country?

Isnt AAP commercializing and politicizing Capt Batra’s name by hoping to win a Lok Sabha seat by using your name? Have you asked them by what other motive did they offer you the poll ticket?

You ask for BJP to withdraw their candidate against you and give you a cakewalk  to show proof that they respect your son. Have you asked your party AAP to withdraw its candidate Raja Muzaffar Bhat from Srinagar , who is a known separatist sympathiser  and charges against whom in addition to sedition include rape?  Did you ask Arvind Kejariwal on what basis did he call the Batla house encounter fake? Or what is the source of their party funds? 

Your son fought and died for reconquering strategic Kashmiri peaks from Pakistan Army and you have joined a party who wont hesitate to gift the same Kashmir to Pakistan on a platter if they have their way. You had said that for Modi a martyr’s family should be like god. But your actions and utterances prove that are not god, and not immune from committing mistakes. And trust me, had Capt Vikram Batra been alive today, he would never have allowed you to represent such an organization. 

Did we hear any statement from AAP when Lance Naiks Hemraj and Sudhakar Singh were ambushed and beheaded? Will you please clarify what is AAP’s agenda on national and internal security and strengthening the armed forces? How many times have AAP evoked the contribution of the armed forces? 

We have all seen the pig circus which was the 49 day AAP government in Delhi. The holier than thou leaders took support from the same corrupt people they claimed to fight against.In the end they were shameless enough to call the final escapism as sacrifice. Do you want such scenes to be played out in the rest of the country as well?

Hundreds of paramilitary jawans and thousands of civilians have been killed by Maoists over the years. Have we heard anyone in AAP condemning them? Instead they recruit naxal sympathisers like Kamal Chinoy and Binayak Sen. Not a word from your party about Bangladeshi infiltration or cross border terrorism but instead they view the former as a votebank. These are the people who view people like Afzal Guru as innocent and want AFSPA to be revoked so that terrorists and naxalites can have a free run in the affected areas.

If you are so eager to serve the people, you should have stood as an independent candidate. But since you have joined a self righteous party who thinks that honesty originates from them , there is no question of anyone withdrawing any candidate from contesting against you.

But as far as I'm concerned, if at all the memory of martyrs like your late son is to honoured, parties like the one you have so erroneously joined have to be removed from our country's scene.

Sincerely,

An Indian.

Fandry: A review

Fandry (2013)

Language : Marathi

Director : Nagraj Manjule

Sometimes, films made with minimalistic elements leave  a mark on you which cannot be achieved by any kind of magnum opus or razzmatazz. This little gem is one of them.

Set in Akolner village in Ahmednagar district, the  film is a tale of naïve dreams crushed by harsh realities. Fourteen year old Jambuvant Mane (Somnath Avghade) , called Jabya by his friends ,comes from the lowest strata of the society with an additional curse of being from a lower caste. His father Kachru (Kishor Kadam), his mother and two sisters, the family ekes out a living as manual labourers. But what sets their place among the lowest in the village is that the family have the job of being pig catchers in the village. 

Jabya is the youngest in the family and only one able to go to school . He has set his heart on his classmate Shalu, who sadly for him happens to come from a much more prosperous household . Only his classmate and best friend Pirya knows this secret and encourages Jabya to do something to attract her attention.  Jabya dreams of being with Shalu all the time , who of course is unaware that he even exists. He is deeply shaken when Shalu refuses to touch another girl because a pig had brushed against her.He shirks at every given opportunity to indulge in the family’s job of pig catching and avoiding work, which leads to him being berated by his father Kachru. Kachru has the additional responsibility of getting his daughters married off. He fixes the marriage of the eldest with great difficulty after negotiating to bring down the dowry from Rs 50k to Rs 20k.

Jabya and Pirya are chummy with the village’s eccentric cycle shop owner Chankya (played by the film’s director Nagraj Manjule), whose wild hobby is being a tantrik. He advises Jabya that if he catches hold of a particular black sparrow  and scatters its ashes on Shalu’s head, she will be his. Simpletons Jabya and Pirya then keep scouting for the bird, to provide for many comic moments in the film. Jabya aims to buy a pair of jeans and a t shirt to attract Shalu. Along with Pirya, he starts selling popsicles in the city for that purpose , in addition of earning much needed extra income for their poor families. That hope is dashed when Jabya’s rented cycle is crushed under a truck due to his carelessness. A touching scene in the film has Chankya deciding to forget about collecting damages  for the cycle from a tearful Jabya, knowing about his family’s condition.

A crazed pig (Fandry in the local dialect) disrupts the godesses’ procession during a fair. Kachru is immediately ordered by the  village sarpanch to catch it.Next morning, the family starts with it. Jabya instead of catching the pig starts searching for the black sparrow, for which Kachru beats him publicly. The entire village gathers around to watch what it considers to be a freak show entertainment, deriding and ridiculing Jabya’s family , as they chase the pig, stumble and fall and hurt themselves. Finally the pig is caught and the jeers from the crowd continue. Jabya notices that Shalu is also one among the jeering crowd. His whole world comes crashing down in a moment as he realises that, for her and for the other people in the village, he will always be a pig catcher’s son and a lowlife, no matter what he does. The naïve love that dominated his mind for most of the film’s narrative vanishes forever, replaced by anger and bitterness. 

While carrying the tied up pig , one of the village louts passes snide remarks on Jabya’s elder sister. This enrages him and he lashes out at the perpetrator, pelting him with stones. The lout after a while, charges at Jabya again. Jabya picks up a rock and throws it with all his might towards the screen (from the louts vision), which cuts to black and the film ends.

The film received critical acclaim which includes Best Film in Mumbai International Film Festival, Abu Dhabi International Film Festival, BFI London Film festival, International Film Festival of India, Goteborg International Film Festival. It won the best debut  feature for a director and best child actor in National Awards of 2014.

We are all used to the romanticization and disneyfication of village life by most Bollywood films and TV serials. This film shows a backward village for what it is, filthy all around, with deep differences existing between the people. It also shows a society which is beyond repair, in scenes where Kachru pleads for the dowry amount for his daughter to be lessened, the way he is made fun of wherever he goes because he is a pig catcher, or where he is reprimanded by the village headman because Jabya refuses to catch a pig stuck in cesspit. This is the India which we choose to conveniently forget and ignore because its very easy for us. Nagraj Manjule’s direction is astonishing for the fact that except Kishor Kadam and himself, most of the cast including the film’s protagonist Somnath Awgadhe, are non actors. He stays away from filling the film with needless melodrama, or instilling false hopes and shows very aptly that naivete and futile hopes always have an unpleasant end. 

Like Jabya, a huge number of us are foolish at that age , idolizing the boy/girl who is unaware that we even exist. The only difference is that we can move on but for Jabya this foolish love was the only comforting factor in his wretched existence. The film chillingly shows the caste and class divide that exists in most of the villages, particularly in one scene where Jabya goes to ask about the syllabus which was covered on the day he was absent to his classmate’s house. He doesn’t dare not cross the courtyard and the classmates mother calls him ‘Vedant, come outside, the pig catcher’s son is here’. The rock that Jabya hurls towards the screen hits our conscience which somehow allows this evil divide to continue or ignores it altogether.

This is certainly not a film for an evening out or for a couple of hours of entertainment. But watch it to have a different cinema experience.

http://theviewspaper.net/fandry-a-review/