Outdated review, but I am pretty outdated too. I finally, watched "Hazaaron..." last weekend. Afterwards it was a deluge of ideas. I will start from genesis:
My dad's is a huge family, so as expected, I have lots of cousins. My cousins are a wide age bracket too: The oldest being 50 and youngest 15. And the motley crew includes: a teacher, a lawyer, an activist, two PhDs in Maths, one pursuing PhD, one doctor, three engineers, one MBA. For now lets focus on the cousin who is an activist: She is the only one who is different. She works for Women's rights with one of the Communist Parties. She was married to a gentleman who happened to be Gen Secy of the same party: a big man. Now he is no more. I have never met her. She is a lot older and any important event when I could, I always had exams. But I would like to discuss a lot of things with her, today. I would like to listen from her about what drives her. I would like to know why she doesn't desire that her children live a life with simpler pleasures.
I would like to ask her why she believes that brandishing the flag would give women the power they need. Do these women seek it in the first place? Would the reservation in LS they demand create more cases of "Rule by Proxy"? What about ensuring they deserve it? What about the country? Doesn't the power to change come with power itself?
Because, as I see it: all things around change, but the activism remains in this sort of static plane: it does not change with time. As in the movie. "Idealism for the heck of it" is not convincing to me. But I guess thats what our parents generation was gifted by their parents.
I am still confused about all the above, and hence, I reserve my opinions on the activist, Siddharth till a later date.
The only character I truly identify with is Vikram. He is born in a middle class family in a small town. His intelligence, humor, ambition, predictable dreams, love and his "desire to fit in" is all typically middle class. He is brash, he is shameless, he is clearheaded. and he is the one ultimately at loss, always.
The character which grew was Geeta. At least thats what the director tried. Initially blinded by love, and later discovering the bigger purpose, she was there to save the day. She didn't stay back because of any idealism, but because she felt the need to. But I guess women are like that. It helps that the actress is a spitting image of Smita Patil.
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Hey, I wrote a few words on the movie once... mostly on the Vikrams of the world
The character played by KayKay Menon was, trust me, a reality. I would not go into dissecting social strata or into the rights and the wrongs of them, but well, reality is like that. And know what, it is the real KayKay Menons of the world who would write tomes about how unreal the character was. One does not like getting naked in front of the world, isn't it? "Idealism for the heck of it", you said it!
And actually you are right. And I am wrong. Initially blinded by love, and later discovering the bigger purpose, she was there to save the day. She didn't stay back because of any idealism, but because she felt the need to. That does make sense.
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