Sanju - Real or Reel?

Sanju perfectly fits the Rajkumar Hirani template: there are laughs, plenty of tear-jerking scenes and limited songs and romance. Those who anticipated that the film will "absolve" Sanjay Dutt of his mistakes passed off as “bad choices” won’t be disappointed. Here are a few of my thoughts on the film. 

Blame it on bad journalism 

If you are hoping to see a "realistic" portrayal of Sanjay Dutt, then Hirani and his co-writer Abhijat Joshi have other plans for you. The film devotes some time to lament the role media played in vilifying its hero. So much so that there is even a rap on it towards the end, shot against the backdrop of black-and-white broadsheets. Yes, the newspaper, and not Dutt’s wrongdoings, is single-handedly to be blamed for why he is misunderstood and branded a terrorist.

Use of sensational headlines, fake news, rumours and gossips and the use of question marks and “according to sources” and “alleged” has been criticised severely. Who’d have thought that after asking people to be more considerate towards patients (Munna Bhai MBBS) and students (3 Idiots) and beware of bogus babas (PK), Hirani’s message from Sanju would be to not take everything that newspapers write at face value. That’s a bit of stale news if you ask me.

The diatribe comes as a surprise and only goes on to prove that the fourth estate is always an easy target.

Papa and pal to the rescue

The two Fs — father and friendship — are integral to Hirani’s film, with the latter being the lifeline of the story. If Sanju, the bad boy of Bollywood, is likeable in the film it’s because he is surrounded by two good souls in Sunil Dutt and Kamlesh. 

The father-son story is trickier and Hirani and Joshi use it to highlight the burden of legacy. Sanju, audiences are told, is in a constant quest to earn his praise. But given his tendency to court trouble, he struggles to match his father’s repute or live up to his expectations. Their bond grows gradually, with Sunil Dutt playing a more active role in his puttar’s life after Sanjay is made an accused in the Bombay blasts case. The big poignant moments, one that audiences love Hirani’s films for, involve the two. 

By the end of it if there is one man you feel sympathy for in this entire saga, it is Sunil Dutt.  

Gentlemen first, ladies second

The 308 women that the actor boasts of having slept with barely factor in Sanju lest they taint the hero’s image. Only Hirani and Joshi can turn even Sanjay’s philandering and insensitive behaviour into material for laughs. 

Manyata here is the dutiful wife by her husband’s side. The Nargis Dutt chapter is limited to motivating her troubled son. Ruby is symbolic of the many women Sanju wronged, and sticking to script she too forgives Dutt. The less said about Anushka Sharma’s "acclaimed" and prolific biographer Winnie Dias the better. She backtracks from writing Dutt’s story whenever somebody casts an aspersion on him which given his life is least bit surprising. She is the audience, the writer and listener, albeit one who doesn’t question or cross-check information. She is the least convincing character in Sanju.

More reel, less of a biopic

That Rajkumar Hirani selects bits from Dutt’s life is hardly surprising. But this is Dutt’s story being told by Dutt himself. It’s his autobiography — "My Experiments with Drugs and List of Crazy Adventures". It’s Hirani and Joshi taking the funniest experiences and most troubling chapters from his life and putting them together.

The narrative device works for most part, but it leaves you wanting at least one outside perspective. As a result, we get a portrait of a man who has an excuse for all his actions, however problematic they may be, with the others offering him good advice that goes mostly unheard. In Hirani’s defence, he doesn’t create a halo around his leading man’s head. But then again, the film also doesn’t delve deeper into how he became the black sheep of the illustrious family.

Am I safe?

Whenever we read about any rape incident, our insides shout with anguish and hate. It disturbs our mental peace. And whenever some disturbing statements of the rapists come to the fore, we want to distance ourselves from the reality of it…We cannot allow that to happen! They have to be killed! How can they even think like this? We begin to curse the rapists; we clench our fists and wish that they die a painful death. But we are frustrated with our helplessness.

The public furor against these unsettling thoughts is good, but that doesn’t seem to put a stop to it. The whole country was shocked with the extreme acts of injustice against that girl, and for a moment we thought we could actually bring about some change. But then the horror came to the surface. It’s a travesty that rapists are still out there large in numbers. People who blame the victims for a rape are also still roaming around, having fun by poking around their disgusting thoughts in the media.

It is uncomfortable, but it is the truth.
I am reminded of the most tragic scene from the Mahabharata –

Set in the Royal courtroom of Hastinapur, this scene depicts the game of gambling between Yudhisthir and Duryodhan. After losing everything, Yudhisthir puts his wife Draupadi at stake. Upon his victory, Duryodhan orders his brother Dushasan to bring Draupadi to the Hall. Dushasan pulls Draupadi by her hair and drags her to the courtroom in front of everyone. Then, just for fun, Duryodhan orders his brother to strip her. And there, in front of all the dignitaries present, Dushasan begins to strip Draupadi.

All great men were present in the Courtroom. Arjun, the greatest warrior of all time was meek like a coward. The valiant Karna, who was as skilled as Arjun supported his friend Duryodhan. Bhishma Pitamah, the eldest in the family was a mute spectator to this heinous crime. The revered Guru Dronacharya and the family sage Kripa were lamenting, regretting but sitting still. Among these was Dhritrashtra, the King, who was sitting in the Throne, who could have stopped Duryodhan, but did not, since he was “blind”. None of the great men came to Draupadi’s defense.

And then, lamenting limitlessly, among all the tears, the fearless Draupadi rose and asked these questions –

“Is a woman a property of the masculine gender? What right did Yudhisthir have over me that he put me at stake? Why were all the great men silent when I was being humiliated? Is this how women are treated by the people? Why was everyone silent when Dushasan was trying to strip me? If a queen like me, the wife of great king Yudhisthir, cannot be protected by this council, how then would ordinary women expect justice?”

Today, the same scene is being repeated. Women are humiliated and raped and murdered. There is a Duryodhan who does this only for fun. There are all the people, the police, the judiciary who are only watching the drama, as passive and motionless as the coward spectators in the Hastinapur courtroom. And there is the administration, blind just like Dhritrasthra, doing nothing.

Unfortunately, Draupadi’s questions still remain unanswered.
Is it because we don’t want to answer it? Or is it because we are too scared to face the truth? 

Rapes are the reality of India. We’re not comfortable with this. But this discomfort is necessary. It is a living reminder of the fact that we’re living in a barbarian society. Shutting down the voices of rapists or turning off the television or changing channels is not the solution to this problem.

We, as a society, are so immature that we cannot face this situation. Everyone would say ‘it is wrong, it shouldn’t have happened’; but it almost always comes with a rider, ‘Girls should not go out late at night, should wear decent clothes’! Believe it or not, you and I are equally responsible for this mess.

A society that does not respect women is doomed for sure. It is time we grow up and solve this situation.

To all the parents –

Tell your son how important it is to respect a girl. A hero is not the one who shows his dominance over the feminine gender, but one who earns respect by giving respect. Talk to him about the meaning and importance of ‘consent’. It is not a right; he has to work for it. To all the fathers, how you treat your wives is a big lesson to your son about how to treat women. Remember that you need to show some respect to your wife and expect the same from your son. Do not question your daughter in front of your son. If you want to question her, start with him. He should not grow up with a belief that there are different rules for men and women. There shouldn’t be.

To all guys – 

Don’t try to be a macho. It sucks. Don’t stare at girls and hope to be liked in return. You’re a jerk and the only thing you want is to sleep with her. Admit it. Grow up and learn to show some respect. Don’t keep calling or texting her at odd hours in the fake belief that she would like you for it. Your mentality of being a pervert is an important signal about your stand on rapists. If you’re not in the above category, congratulations! But spread this message to your friends who are.

To all girls – 

I don’t even know what to tell you, except for the fact that in each of you I see a Draupadi who is as fearless as Nirbhaya and who stood in front of all the dignitaries and had the courage to question the mentality of this society. Draupadi’s question was the centerpiece of Mahabharata war. It incited the Pandavas to war and it was the biggest war of its time. Do not give up. Stand and question the society.

Remember that we are at war. Not with the handful of these rapists; but with the mentality of this society. I am not afraid of the Duryodhans of the modern world; they are at least open about their mentality. I am more afraid of the Bhishma Pitamahas of this world, who stand tall and claim to fight for justice but remain silent when the time comes to speak up.

This is a hypocrite country, and it’s creepy like hell.

Problems we content writers face

Off-late ATMs in Hyderabad (at least the area I live in) have been going dry leaving the commoners in a lurch. Most of the ATMs sport the ‘NO CASH’ board outside making it really annoying.

Two days ago, after hours of hunting for an ATM, I finally found one which had cash. Though there was a really huge line, I was ready to wait.

Anyway, in that line, I happened to meet a man (probably 30 years old) with whom I randomly started talking. As soon as he learnt that I was a content writer, he raised his eyebrows in a way that made me want to bite off his head. He boasted about how stressful his life as a financial analyst was. He signed off giving you an envious look and saying ‘So, article writing. How easy’.

While most people think all we do as content writers is write, and then do some more writing, we actually do more than just that.

When a lot of people hear the terms “content writer” or “content strategist,” they may not have the slightest clue what the words mean. Explaining jobs to family and friends who don’t work in media is a nightmare. Many think being a content writer is a simple job. Yes, most people harbour such notions about content writers – that our lives are very easy, we can write anytime we want and do not need to follow any schedule so on and so forth.  

However, life for us is just the opposite. Our life is full of pains that only we can understand. It is only me who knows how it feels to write thousands of words on a topic which is absolutely alien to me within a few hours. Only I and not the financial analyst (whom I met at the ATM) will know how difficult it becomes at times to include the SEO keywords within the article while maintaining the flow of the post.

Having ‘Content writer and a communication strategist’ as a designation might sound cool to others but not to us who have clients hounding us to submit assignments within deadlines. Yet, we all face it and try to deal with it.

And oh yes..generating ideas. That is like the biggest pain. At times, I stare at the screen for hours without any notion of how to begin an article that would pull the readers to read an article. There are times when I cannot even pen down a hundred words. Sometimes, there are people who make demotivating comments that really dampen my spirit.

I’m not boasting here, but this is just one of the roles I play in my organization. I also develop communication strategies, manage a team of 5 and handle a few projects too. Just imagine the plight of my situation. Phew!  

I can go on and on about the problems we content writers face. But I have already missed 3 calls from the client and I am running behind schedule. Have to write an 800-word article within an hour’s time. ☹

Happy Women’s Day? Not really!

I live in a country which is totally ironic. A country where goddesses are worshipped, but women are disrespected, a country that promotes ‘Beti bachao, beti padhao’, but kills female foetuses, a country that talks about women empowerment, but decides how I talk and how I dress.

I keep coming across news articles where women’s head was shaved because she could not deliver a male child or a woman was set on fire because she was dark skinned and her husband wanted to remarry a fairer bride. For those living in urban areas, this might be unbelievable or hard to digest. But the sad truth, my friend, is that such things do happen.

Travel less than a hundred kilometres from any of the cities and towns, you will see that women must do most of the family chores, but have no exposure to growth opportunities or health facilities. Most girls, not boys, handle household chores from childhood, at the cost of going to schools. Women are suffering from malnutrition, neglected health ailments, domestic and sexual violence. It’s a scenario where a woman owns nothing, not even herself.

And this is not just in case of rural areas. Pick up the newspaper and you will read at least two stories on rape. And the funniest thing is that the rapist claims that the women’s dress or behaviour is what provoked them? Dude, like seriously? With such incidents happening we see our family imposing terrible rules on us. But, we can’t blame them.

Somehow, tradition claims it is okay to nurse men’s sadistic entitlement to something as petty as women’s dress code, simply because it has always been that way. Well, here’s my two thoughts: How about real men started exercising self-control? We don’t jump into ditches daily just because they lay in front of us along the street. So why not ignore, or resist those women with whom your ‘indecent’ standards don’t match?

And oh yes, if you’re not brutalised and are fortunate enough to be born into a family that actually cherishes you, prepare yourself for a biased society that is itching to blame you for everything. Sometimes, you will be given less respect and you will be expected to sacrifice more.

There are so many things that we are subjected to on a daily basis. Eve-teasing, harassment, disrespect and what not? I’ve just cited a few points. And under such circumstances, I feel it does not make sense for an Indian to celebrate women’s day. Is celebrating women’s day not a mockery of oppression suffered by women?

Life is really tough for women. I firmly believe that nobody needs to dictate to a woman what she should wear. We all say that India is a developing country. But are we really? I believe that development also involves breaking free from the so-called restrictions and concepts. After all, it is one’s choice.

The real India, which reels under poverty, struggles for survival and earns daily bread to sustain life, is least concerned, bothered and impacted by such events like Women’s Day. So, to say, women empowerment is really non-existent in rural India?

The innocent times of the past - School life! :')

My friend, who happens to be an active reader of my blog (probably the only one: P), suggested I write about the school we studied together in. So, this blog is about my school – BHAVANS SRI RAMAKRISHNA VIDYALAYA! It in fact talks about school life in general.

I remember way back during the school days, I used to hate waking up early in the morning. We had to be in our school by 7.45 am to make it on time for the morning assembly. It was mandatory to attend the assembly. If we didn’t make it on time we used to be sent to the latecomer’s line - a line where the students received horrendous punishments. But to be honest, we enjoyed being there.

To make it on time to school, I had to wake up by 6 in the morning. Unwillingly wake up, dress up to go to school, recalling all the previous day's homework that was forced upon us all. I used to think to myself every single day, “Oh god! When will I grow up?”. But now I would just do anything to go back to my school days, sit in my classroom, play pen fights, flames and tic-tac-toe with my friends, and visit our tiny canteen which has been our favourite place to visit in the school after school playground. I'm sure there are a zillion other memories each of us have with our school.

                                             With our canteen uncle. :)

Remember when our teacher was on leave and we got a substitute teacher? Yaaaay! Free period was the best thing ever. And when our other subject teacher poached the free period, we would be cribbing about it for the whole day.

Wearing casuals on birthdays made us feel top of the world. The entire class singing ‘Happy Birthday to you’, distributing chocolates in class and giving our best friend an extra chocolate and taking them along to give chocolates to the teachers in the entire school was undoubtedly the memory I want to relive.

Eating lunch before the lunch break (interval is what we used to call) is something each one of us have done at some point or the other.  If not ours, we would steal someone else’s tiffin box and gobble all of it down (under the desk) and pretend as if we are listening to the teacher very carefully by nodding and making serious facial expressions.

Remember the Games of PE period well all had twice in a week? The best time ever. The day we had our games period, our mornings would kickstart with a happy face. Summers, winters, monsoons we just won’t care as long as we got to play.

And when we step out of the classroom, there was no way we will not walk around the entire building to kill some extra time. In fact, we would go to our friend’s classroom to get them along with us too.

Teacher’s Day, Children’s Day, Annual Day, Sports Day – Our school time would be incomplete without these big celebrations. From decorating our classrooms to make teachers feel special to practising marchpast for hours together for the sports day, we all enjoyed doing every bit of it. Remember draping a saree for the farewell? Haahha.. nightmare, isn’t it?

What’s the best part of school life? Some would vouch for the great education, the great learning experience, the knowledge sharing, and other such scholarly pursuits. But many would admit that the best part of school life is all the fun one has. Hope this blog took you on a trip down memory lane.

School life - the innocent times of the past, times which would NEVER come back ever again!

Growing up with strict parents :P

If you have really strict parents, then you can totally relate yourself to this post.

The way strict parents deal with their children is very different from how the liberal parents deal with their kids. That is why we, kids of strict parents, think twice or thrice or even a hundred times before doing something toofaani. Because if our parents find out about it, we are royally jacked.

In Hollywood movies, we see the concept of detentions or timeouts, but our parents laugh at that idea. :P They have a totally different way of dealing with situations. As a kid, our parents dealt with us slapping us if  we did not listen to them.  You didn't eat your vegetables, PHAT! You get hit on your head which causes immense fear and pain and the sudden urge to eat all the vegetable from the plate. :P

Our parents are PhD’s in child psychology. They know how to get something done by us. They know what scares us and what doesn’t. Starts with stares, followed by shouting, screaming and if you still do not listen to them, then you’ll be treated with slaps and blows. This fear has made us the best liars on the planet. :P

From ‘Never going for sleepovers’ to ‘Never going to for trip with friends’, the struggle of growing up with strict parents is way too real.  

During the summer break, when all our friends went to other cities and countries for holiday, ours always happened to be a temple tour. Don’t even dare questioning or arguing with them on this.

Yes, I do not deny the fact that our parents care so much about us, look out for us and are very considerate. However, we get so frustrated at the same time because we can’t meet our friends often, can’t go for night outs, can’t go out for the whole day….. can’t do anything remotely fun.

So, here’s a very common scenario that happens at almost every strict parent’s house.

Child: Amma, can I go out with my friends today?

Amma: Go ask your dad!

Child: Appa, can I go out with my friends today?

Appa: Friends? Who friends? Why friends? Why do you keep going out? Can’t you sit at home? When will you be back? Come home soon. *With the irritated look*

Our friends who have liberal parents do not understand our situations. Even though our parents already say no, our friends tell us “ask them why”, “ask them again”. So sometimes we tell our friends that our parents did not give us permission to go out even without asking them for approval, because we know that it would anyway be a no.

And oh yes! You are not allowed to close your bedroom door. If you happen to do so, they will anyway come and open it. So, it’s better you leave it that way. Sometimes, they happen to sneak around in your room during the night, just in case they can catch you talking to some person over phone. And if this happens, you will be interrogated and lectured for hours together.

Some of the things we face or do while growing up with strict parents are:

• Rehearsing what you are going to say for about an hour before you ask your parents to go somewhere
• Changing all boy’s names into girls in your phone so that they don’t question you
• Put our phones always on silent when we are at home. Cause if anyone calls, you’ve to give your parents huge explanations as to what the call was about.
• We get a mini heart attack whenever they ask us to give them our phone, though sometimes we do not have anything to actually hide from them.
• If you have strict parents, there’s no such thing as last minute plans.

Growing up in the 90’s and growing up today

Probably this is a very common topic, but I decided to write about this because of a recent incident. 

So, I recently happened to meet a group of kids, all of them immersed in their cell phones, (read: phones much posher than what I own). I observed them for about 15 minutes, they hardly spoke to each other. One was busy using Whatsapp, while other was on Facebook and the other on YouTube and so on.

Looking at them, I remembered Albert Einstein’s famous quote.

“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”

I eventually started a conversation with them. We spoke about various topics…their schools, tuition, phones, interests, dislikes and so on. They started complaining about how tough they have it. They said they had to deal with tough choices in life. I was dumbfounded!

After having an encounter with those kids, I decided to write on how it was growing up back in the 90s and how it is today.

Firstly, I feel lucky because I got to see the both sides of the spectrum. - the world before the technology invasion and the world after. However, when I look at kids (who are very pampered, ) around, I sometimes feel sad for them because they will never know what it was like growing up in the 90s.

Our generation did not depend on Google for assignments or YouTube for entertainment. We didn’t stay indoors because there was nothing to do unless it was raining and even then, we would beg our parents to go out, at least to the porch.  

We were born in era where we did not have cell phones (They did exist, but was not common in a middle-class household) and Facebook and the internet. We did have video games (remember Contra, Duck hunt, Aladdin?) and Walkmans.

Though there was a TV at home, we did have a radios as well. And when either of the child had their board exams coming up, the television connection would be disconnected. 

In my house, the radio was on all the time. I clearly remember, when "Samprati varthaaaha shuyantham pravachakaaha... Baldaevananda Sagaraha" boomed the voice of the Sanskrit newscaster at 7:05 am on All India Radio, my mother would yell asking me to get ready for school. The Sanskrit news followed by the “School chale hum” song… nostalgic!

Yes, I definitely agree that today, kids face a lot of competition… often termed as a ‘healthy competition’. But, I strongly believe there is no such thing as ‘healthy’ competition. In a competitive culture, a child is told that they aren’t enough to be good. They must triumph over others. But the more they compete, the more they need to compete to feel good about themselves. But winning doesn’t build character; it just lets a child gloat temporarily.

Okay.. I’m getting diverted from the actual topic. I’ll write about this some other time. :P

So.. I understand that kids today have access to things which we did not have. They have more access to educational materials, larger social circles (social media), lesser likelihood of losing contact with existing contacts...blah blah blah. Although there are definite perks to their childhood, in my opinion no time period was better to grow up in than in the '90s.

The beautiful and fulfilled evenings when friends would come around and we would play video games (usually one player at a time because not many people had two joysticks, that was quite posh) for about an half an hour, then we would go outside to play or meet our friends on the common. This of course meant lots of time outside, running, jumping, climbing trees and of course GULLY CRICKET. I was pretty healthy and happy as I recall, and blissfully unaware of how lucky I was.

Birthday parties meant so much though it was typically a piece of cake, chips, coke and chocolate. Nowadays kids are hardly a part of the social gatherings. Even if they do, they are immersed in their cell phones.

On the whole, I think 1990's was one of the best decades to have grown up in because we had a taste of both the worlds. We were admonished and sometimes beaten, if we did something wrong. We were disciplined and taught to respect elders more than we acknowledge.

I do miss being a child! :(

P.S: I have surely missed out on many points like the floppy's, cassettes..etc. However, if you (my non-existent readers) are a 90s kid, you will surely know the amazing fun we had back then.

P.S2: I have nothing against Facebook, YouTube, or social media for that matter. 

P.S3: I don't think this article exactly talks about how proud I feel to be a 90s kid. But, honestly speaking, I'm very glad.