After a hurried dinner on my part and hardly any on my wife's, we managed to reach the movie hall with 10 minutes to spare. While waiting for our friends (they had the tickets with them!!), we noticed a lot of small time celebs waiting to catch the same show. It sure looked like it was heading for a packed hall. Well, soon our friends arrived and then armed with popcorn and some fizzy drinks we settled down in our seats. I noticed that the whole row in front of us was occupied by college kids who also maybe worked in some call centre. I was hoping that they'd behave themselves during the screening and not spoil my movie show for me.
Right on cue, the screen flashed "Please rise for the National Anthem". To me, this is one of the best things to have happened to our cinema halls lately (obviously the movies are getting better too). I mean, when was the last time you sang the National Anthem after those compulsory school assemblies?
Going off on a tangent, for a country in which millions of people over 200 years struggled to achieve "independence", we are sadly lacking in any real love for the motherland. The most common arguments one hears are listed below:
1. What's worth loving in this country anyway? The roads suck, the government sucks, corruption, violence, poverty, terrorism are rampant, dirt & filth abound.
2. Crowded trains, buses, even apartment buildings so close to each other that it seems they are supported by each other.
3. If the above were mostly urban problems, even life in villages are nothing great - all the age old practices like child marriages, sati, girl infanticide etc still persist.
4. Brutality on the part of police and goons go hand in hand.
5. We still have one of the lowest literacy rates in the world.
These reasons and also the promised high standard of living in Western countries are driving so much of our educated population away from India. But come on folks, though this list looks long when you write it down like that, doesn’t being Indian mean anything at all?
What if those brave soldiers so far away from their loved ones also thought in the same vein - that it would be much better to fight for Western countries as the living conditions there are much better? Would it be possible for you to finish that post graduate course of yours in the best of educational institutions and enjoy that free life that is so taken for granted by us these days? What about the grit, determination and fellowship displayed by the Mumbai janata during the still recent Mumbai rains that allowed the weather-lashed city to retain its sanity and maintain her dignity in the worse of calamities? Compare that with New Orleans where there was massive lawlessness in the wake of “Katrina”, where people looted stores, killed people and general pandemonium reigned supreme – all this in the country most sought after by so many of our young aspirants, the USA!
I do not have answers to the questions or problems I have posed above. But it is open-ended questions like this that have made me realize that India is the place to be, that she is on her way to proving to the world what she always was – a queen in her own right, one that is able to hold her own against the best in the world!
Without spoiling the plot of Rang De Basanti for anyone, I’ll just say that it does a good job of addressing many of the questions that face us today, in a manner that today’s youth would be able to identify with. I left the theatre satisfied but at the same time with a lot more expectations.
A gripping movie from start to end, during which, come to think of it, I was not at all distracted by the call center crowd in front of me. Happy Republic Day to all….. Jai Hind!
3 comments:
Good post, Sachin! I also found it great that Mumbai theatres play the National Anthem before the movie.. I used to be thrilled :) But I knew some ppl who did not rise when it was played too :( They thought it was below their dignity.. wonder when this appalling attitude will go.
And I wonder if its played in any other place. ITs not played in Bangalore for sure.
Keep blogging! :)
Shruthi: Thanks for the vote of confidence! You know what, I feel that most people who behave that way are more or less callous enough to know what they are doing and also know that their not standing up for the National Anthem is irking people around them. Its as if this spurs them on even more. If only they could be publicly penalized!!!! But thats one of the major problems of being in a "democracy". Take care and keep visiting.
Hi, came here via shruthi's blog, where she mentioned your post about RDB. I wrote a post about RDB too---you might like to see a different take on it.Cheers.
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