Why so much crowd in Ramlila Maidan?

THE PARADOX OF OUR AGE

We have bigger houses but smaller families;
more conveniences, but less time;

We have more degrees, but less sense;

more knowledge, but less judgement;
more experts, but more problems;
more medicines, but less healthiness;

We've been all the way to the moon and back,

but have trouble crossing the street to meet

the new neighbor.

We build more computers to hold more

information to produce more copies then ever,

but have less communication;

We have become long on quantity,

but short on quality.

These are times of fast foods

but slow digestion;

Tall men but short character;

Steep profits but shallow relationships.

It's a time when there is much in the window,

but nothing in the room.

.......His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama

I couldn't find a better description of current times than the one above by His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama.

Entire nation, The politicians, religious scholars, social workers, intellectuals, are seemingly caught up in a long argument on corruption/Anna Hazare.....But this time around "Common Man" isn't only listening, he is talking (basically arguing)too..... Few years back I read a book by Nobel laureate Dr Amartya Sen "The Argumentative Indian"....I was wondering if it will make an interesting read in current scenario ....perhaps YES...go figure out...I have been reading views of eminent intellectuals on this issue for last couple of days and had opportunity to interact with some....some great articles which come to my mind written by , Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar, Shobhaa De, Aseem Chhabra, Pratap Bhanu Mehta etc make an interesting read.  

Looks like common man is spoilt for choice...if you research a bit you will realize choice is not as simple as some people will have you believe that it is .....you are either "Pro Anna" or "Anti Anna"..... here is a quick list of possible camps you may want yourselves to get associated with ----------

1. I believe in Anna Hazare, the cause itself is secondary......

2. I believe in legally elected democratic government and its ways, there is no room for "Satyagraha" in modern India.

3. I believe in the "cause" (read corruption), who leads the crusade is immaterial. (not averse to Anna leading it, his clean image only makes the movement stronger)

4. I believe in the "cause" and "Anna Hazare" but what is he doing with likes of "Swami Agnivesh", "Bhushan Duo", "Baba Ramdev" etc 

5. I believe in the "cause" and "Anna Hazare" but does not believe in "proposed solution i.e. Lokpal Bill".

6.  I believe in the "cause" and "Anna Hazare" and "Lokpal Bill"

7. I believe in the "cause" and solution "Lokpal Bill" only if it promises to leave ME out of this (interesting camp for A Raja, Kalamadi and many more)

7. I am confused, i will go with the crowd

8. Somebody please tell me who is "Anna Hazare" and why so much crowd in "Ramlila Maidan"... isn't there still time for Deshara?

Now which camp do you belong to is completely your prerogative. And i guess there is nothing wrong with any of these camps as long as it is either just "state of mind" or translates into action which is "legal and constitutional". People gathered at Ramlila Maidan obviously make a statement on "lost faith on democratic institutions".  If you perhaps do a nationwide survey then, i will not be surprised if you can easily slice India into such small pieces or may be more......Actually I would love if any one of you could suggest few more possible camps.....

I have another interesting observation. We could also profile ourselves on the basis of the "cause" itself in different personality types --- 

1. I am only a bribe giver. I don't accept bribe. (read my earlier blog "corruption whose problem is it anyway")

2. I am only a bribe taker. I don't give bribe.

3. I do both.

4. I am a bribe giver (Honestly, i never had an opportunity to demand bribe...may be if i was in a position...well you couldn't be sure....power corrupts you see.....)

5. I do NONE.

Now hand on your heart...how many of us can claim to be personality type 5.... or worst, leave aside the past how many of us can at least vow that they would henceforth be type 5....anyways you can be of any one personality type and still be with either of the camps mentioned above....I only wish that at least our leader is type 5.....the kind of guts Anna Hazare has shown against the might of government , his personality type can easily be guessed....but that's for TODAY...sceptics would say who knows the future...ultimately POWER has power to corrupt...........

Bollywood coming of age...Intellectual value vs Entertainment Value

Three recent Bollywood productions got me thinking...what an amazing variety of cinematic experience is on offer from Bollywood....and surprisingly all three did pretty well at the Box office...The three movies i am referring to "Chalo Dilli", "Delhi Belly" and "Singham"....have completely different style of narrative, treatment and creative inputs (read actors/directors)...

while "Chalo Dilli" is a small budget road movie, with no big star cast to boast of and relies primarily on an excellent script and equally excellent acting by lead actors Vinay Pathak and Lara Dutta..."Delhi Belly" on the other hand, set in urban India is a black comedy...and best part is it is situational comedy...its easy to relate with characters in both these movies..."Singham" obviously is in a different league ...characters are larger than life...but it does appeal....Now i could be part of a small section of audience, who enjoyed watching all three...common perception is if you like uber cool "Delhi Belly", you cant like over the top "Singham"....anyways that's not the point i am trying to make...my point is explained below.....

There is always a thin line between being critical and being cynical (see how well they rhyme :) ) ...sometimes that line is breached and we deal with possibility of critics sounding like cynics (with reference to movie reviews).....I often read excellent commentaries on Indian issues by a US based Indian journalist Aseem Chhabra which  gets published every Sunday in MUMBAI MIRROR.....i wouldn't say that i am a fan but i must admit that his commentaries do offer a refreshing outside perspective (may be it has something to do with our fascination for anything foren...be it a suncream lotion or recognition of our art and creative geniuses)...so may be Mr Chabra has that unfair advantage of being a Indian journalist on foreign shore....

So coming back to the point, recently post release of Bollywood blockbuster "Singham", Aseem literally tore apart the movie and genre of Bollywood masala films in his weekly column in Mumbai Mirror....which left me thinking why do critics use different standards for analysing a bollywood movies vs a hollywood flick......i am particularly intrigued by use of different lenses by critics while offering reviews for hollywood/bollywood productions...so what if action is over the top..so what if background score is at your face...we call it bollywood action...one might want to call it bollywood masala which also works fine...after all we dont always want to watch "Intelligent Cinema" ....also at the grassroots of cinema is an artist's desire to entertain and audience desire to get entertained....so i guess as a critic when you write about a movie, first question to be asked is Does it entertain? and yes its a tricky one as entertainment can mean different things to different people....so one should look at target audience....and undoubtedly Box office collection can answer the first question to a large extent...a week after Aseem's postmortem of "Singham"...Indian newspapers were flooded with reports of "Singham making it to TOP FIVE bollywood grossers of all time along with 3 Idiots, Ghajini, Dabang etc.."  so ultimately Rohit Shetty and Ajay Devgan had the last laugh :)

 Doesn't Hollywood has a fair share of such so called "Action Masala" movies....what would you call a "Transformers series" or a "spider man"...not to mention mindless broomstick tricks series "Harry Potter"...which are given "cult movie" status by may be the same critics.These are Hollywood blockbusters and will remain so...because they have managed to strike a chord with a particular set of audience...if spiderman is larger than life so is Bajirao Singham (actually Singham is even better as he doesn't have to rely on borrowed spider web to beat up the bad guys :) ) ...so the message is its not always "Intellectual Value" of a movie a critic should be worried about ...look beyond and ASK is there an "Entertainment Value"...if yes then go ahead and don't be shy in giving stars....for who knows that could prove to be next top grosser of Bollywood...........