It seems that each generation passes on its cumulative frustration to the next one, which bursts out as some form of an angry expression. While movies like Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Rang De Basanti and A Wednesday expressed it on the silver screen, Mumbai Meri Jaan and Black Friday tried to subsume the anger towards the end, in the latter by a quote from the Mahatma: An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind!
The built up rage on many fronts continues in Anurag Kashyap's latest: Gulaal. The movie came as a shock to me since I saw it without knowing what it is about! I like to be woken up to the world so, every once in a while out of my hibernation. Only from his blog now, I came to know that Anurag considers this one to be his most angry movie, the one that got made during his bad times with our great censor board. On a related note, I never understood why the censors understand only Hindi abuse and not the English ones to be so biased in our own movie certification!
The movie gives us a raw package of the state of affairs in Indian politics: anarchy, extremism and what not under the banner of democracy. There are two words that flash regularly in the movie: "hello there", "hell_ _here". Sarcasm is at its top in the song Ranaji, albeit delivered in a Rajasthani style, dealing with International mess we cope with, under the headings of anti-terrorism, governance, globalization, etc. While Yaara Maula tells us how we reached thus far, Sheher is a song that talks of what happens when the city sleeps and its really scary; if not, it should scare us, because the city always sleeps! ...
... I think I'll stop here, else I'll lose my sleep tonight. We, as a populace, give up thinking about the system for the same reason; I'm just one of us. Or as A Wednesday announced: Just another stupid common man!
http://www.navrasas.com/gulaal-song-lyrics/ has all the songs with lyrics, that you will hum along once the song cuts deeper into you. However, I'll leave you with the lyrics of Sarfaroshi ki tamanna thats modified for a scene in Gulaal:
sarfaroshi ki tamannaa ab hamaare dil mein hai.
dekhnaa hai zor kitnaa baazuve kaatil mein hai
waqt aane pe bataadenge tujhe ae aasmaan
hum abhi se kyaa bataaye kyaa hamaare dil mein hai
o re bismil kaash aate aaj tum hindustaan
dekhte ki mulk saara kyaa tashan kyaa chill mein hai
aaj kaa laundaa yeh kehtaa hum to bismil thak gaye
apni aazaadi to bhaiyaa laundiyaa ke til mein hai.
aaj ke jalson mein bismil ek gungaa gaa raha.
aur behron kaa wo relaa naachtaa mehfil mein hai
haath ki khaadi banaane kaa zamaana lag gayaa
aaj to chaddi bhi silti englison ki mill mein hai
dekhna hai zor kitnaa baazuve kaatil mein hai
waqt aane pe bataadenge tujhe ae aasmaan
hum abhi se kyaa bataaye kyaa hamaare dil mein hai
sarfaroshi ki tamannaa ab hamaare dil mein hai.
Vande Mataram! Jai Hind!
5 comments:
Very good post, really a thought provocking movie ...
Seher link is not working..
Here is the correct link for
http://www.navrasas.com/gulaal-song-lyrics/sheher.html
Thx, fixed the link. I'd missed out a letter.
Don't know how many movies we need to thought provoke as everything is personalized, not socialized.
Until most of them affected till then most of them doesn't really bothers!!
Hello,
Good post . Echoes my own thoughts. Sheher is one of the scariest songs to think about. I seem to have lost intrest in movies after watching this one. The whole exercise of watching hero pursing heroine etc makes me think how I am sleeping while the world is burning..
Its best when one comes across such master pieces by accident rather than by references..
Agreed, Shyam. Gulaal happened to me by accident as well. Long before Gulaal, I shifted out of tolerating mainscreen Bollywood with similar or stolen stories. There is a lot of parallel cinema in the west which I catch on. I'm still waiting for censor to clear Anurag Kashyap's Paanch. (Wait, its leaked on torrents :)
Thx for dropping by.
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