Ashamed of being an Indian

I feel dejected and ashamed of being an Indian as much India is ashamed of its more than seventy per cent impoverished population.

How elite organizers of the CWG are looting tax payers’ money has been widely discussed and it has jolted the conscience of even the more affluent and urban people.

A very urbane friend of mine, who always lived in Metro cities had foreign trips and is well placed financially, feels embarrassed about how marginalized pupation being driven away from East Delhi so that CWG rosy coatings are not distorted . She has never been to any village. What she knows about village life is through her friends from rural backgrounds. I tried to get her convinced about how CWG has exposed India expecting well polished contradictory arguments from her owing to her pure urbane background. To my utter surprise, she did not contradict me, and, for the first time, was in full agreement with what I had to say. As a human being she was hurt on the sight of policemen driving away rikshawallas, thelawallas and hawkers.

My point is that at personal level, we all human beings are concerned about plight of average poor fellow and would never want to drive them away and rob them of their daily earnings just for the sake of any elitist and corrupt Games show. This is basic human nature. Contrary to this, when we collect our egos in notion of patriotism, which has no virtue, we tend to forget to dissect our various issues and identities. India is primarily identified with its rural masses where majority of populations live in countryside, survive on agriculture.

We forget that these hawkers, rickshaw wallas, population living in bed of Yamuna represent more than seventy per cent of Indian population and their pride don’t lie in successful CWG. Driving them away from Games’ surrounding amounts to depriving them from rights of being Indian.

Here I find the concept of nationalism and essence of being Indian faltering. Precisely, nation is an imagined community which is very taxing and demanding. That’s why unknown taxpayers and marginalized will have to bear the expense of an elitist show which will never bring any change to their life anyway. Rather they are going to suffer.

This is a street in Patna. A street full of hoardings, banners advertisements and billboards reflects how Mc (Mcdonalds), cell and market culture taken sway over a poor state like Bihar. It seems an imposed development......

साँसों की सरगम...

हम आदतन ही सांस लेते हैं और ज़िंदगी चलती रहती है
चुपचाप अपने आप शकलें बदलती रहती हैं...

कभी जीत कभी हार और कभी कभी ढेर सारा प्यार
ज़िंदगी इन्ही लफ़्ज़ों मे ढलती रहती है…

कभी तुम्हारे कदमो से गुज़र जाएगी, कभी हमारी राहों मे अटक जाएगी
और कभी कभी अजनबी बनके खो जाएगी...

एक दिन साँसों की ये सरगम भी ख़त्म होगी
फिर ज़िंदगी वहीं रुक जाएगी…चुपचाप अपने आप...

माँ कहां हो तुम!

हताश हूँ, निराश हूँ, उदास हूँ… माँ कहां हो तुम
खुद अपने और लोगों के झूट से थक के, और चिलचिलाती धूप मे तप्के
जब भी मैं घर आता हूँ….तुम याद आती हो…

दिन चढे तक सोता हूँ, मन ही मन मे रोता हूँ कभी कोई तो मुझको डानटे
मेरे दुख को कोई तो बाँटे
अक्सर यही सब सोन्च्ते सोन्च्ते सोता हूँ…

मेरा ज़िद्दी होना, पेसिल काग़ज़ अक्सर खोंना पैसे न मिलने पे रोना
सब कुछ अब तो छूट गया है…
मेरे बल्ले से तुम को जो चीड़ थी वो बल्ला भी अब टूट गया है….

खवाब मे ही बस एक बार आ जाओ अपनी ममता दिखला जाओ!!!

'Any film made is a political statement given'

Few weeks ago, I had attended a lecture on films studies where many Bollywood movies were discussed in political perspective. At the end of the lecture I was fairly convinced that no film is made in isolation, without any political influence. In fact, stories are told at the backdrop of major socio-political developments. I was on a high about my knowledge of Indian cinema, especially after attending that insightful lecture. To flaunt this newly acquired knowledge, I had put my gmail custom message as “Any film made is a political statement given.’ Only to be rebuked by a movie bug friend of mine with whom I share common fondness for films, food and SRK. She bombed me with name of movies in which you can, at surface level, hardly find any element of politics. She was furious as for her it was a sweeping statement which undermined the entertainment values of cinema.

I was forced to agree and changed my custom message.

In the pursuit of knowing more about Indian cinema, I came across “The Muslim Others of Indian Cinema: Questions of Nation and Narration’, the book by Nadim Asrar, a working journalist and Ford scholar. The title itself made me curious not because I am a Muslim and wanted to know how Muslims and films are related. Neither I was excited to read a book written by a close friend. Rather out of vengeance, I was in search of few books on politics and cinema. As I was bogged down by my friend I wanted to avenge her on the same topic. And, vengeance is like a fire, the more it devours the hungrier it gets.

In the book in question, the author discusses few popular Hindi movies in a political perspective. The author discusses films at the backdrop of two major incidents: demolition of the Babari Masjid by Hindu extremists and the attack on the World Trade Center by Muslim 'terrorists'. While the book doesn’t dwell on the specific details and interpretations of the two incidents, this study draws from the way these two incidents have influenced the representation of Muslims in contemporary Indian cinema.

The study takes serious note of films not only as a means of amusement, rather puts emphasis on textual analysis of the scripts, characters, semantics and symbolism. He sees politics in how a negative character like Gunda, Bhai, pimps, drug peddlers are often given a Muslim name, sometimes skull cap and quite occasionally beard too. Even certain notorious streets in films have to be Salampur, Khanbadi etc. These names create stereotype image of Muslims.

It’s interesting to note that the author charges Bollywood of depicting Muslims in a negative way, despite of the fact that the entire cinema industry is ruled by Khans and they are so powerful that the entire government machinery is put to use so that release of a Khan’s movie can’t be disrupted…..

Well, the book makes an interesting reading and it reinstated my faith in my own saying ‘Any movie made is a political statement given.’ But still I may not be able to make my apolitical friend believe in my statement as the book does have cinematic relevance, though very limited, to the politics of religious identity assertion only.