[Movie Review] Madras Cafe

“Criticizing national politics does not make you anti-national”, says the British war correspondent in SriLanka - Jaya Sahni, played by Nargis Fakhri, to the protagonist Vikram (played by John Abraham) an Indian army special officer, giving a hint to audience that this is not a movie made to praise army or blame politicians but to show the bitter truths of war. We rarely get to see any filmmaker in Bollywood making a political thriller, this film definitely stands out as its been inspired from all real incidents that brought India and SriLanka on tenterhooks, how Indian politics suddenly took a sharp turn and it paid price in form of assassination of its former Prime Minister. Interestingly director does not take sides, as he makes the conspiracy clear to the end that when two nations are confronting it is not just two forces but there are lot of other external forces acting from behind in their vested interests and how such interventions can change the world history.

The story is mainly based on SriLankan Civil war during 1980s which was never touched upon by Bollywood earlier. The movie begins with the disturbing scenes of war crimes and deaths in Jaffna area in the northern part of SriLanka. Then director unfolds the historic events of Indian Peace Keeping forces going to SriLanka, drives us through the political mistakes and military misunderstandings, the conspiracy woven by few foreign powers and how India fell in trap that LTF (a rebel group, inspired from LTTE) which was actually supported by India all of a sudden became its staunch enemy and started operating against Indian peace keeping forces. The LTF leader Anna Bhaskaran (inspired from LTTE Prabhakaran) is only concerned about Srilankan Tamils and he will fight till they obtain freedom, but can India afford it?

Vikram is an Indian Army officer who is chosen by RAW for a covert operation in Jaffna where the situation was going out of control. Vikram gets a team and given a mission but after going to Jaffna he realises the enemy in not outside but he may need to fight within. He meets Jaya, the British journalist, who helps him understand that the fight is not confined to few people but there are some influential people involved in the conspiracy. As Vikram tries to unravel the conspiracy of so called West, he finds about assassination plan of Indian former Prime Minister. Can he save the Prime Minister?

Casting has been chosen cleverly to make the characters look real as many were new faces or not so known except John Abraham, who carries the whole weight on him as story rotates between Jaffna, Kerala, Delhi, and Bangkok. Nargis Fakhri looks convincing as a British war correspondent, speaking only English in British accent. Other actors gave decent performances, two of them stand out – one is Rashi Khanna as Vikram’s wife Ruby who impresses both with her innocent looks and acting, other is Kannada stage actor Prakash Belawadi as Bala, Major Vikram Singh's superior in Jaffna who succeeded to make an impression in the minds of audience in a peculiar character role.

The director Shoojit Sircar’s research gets reflected on screen in unfolding history. Movie lacks any twists or Bollywood style action sequences but still keeps you hooked with a fast paced narration. Apart from being a spy thriller, the movie makes one to ponder on how politics are actually played in international sphere that life of even national heads come at stake. Surprisingly, not just India lost its former Prime Minister but it lost the trust of its neighbour too and till now India-Srilanka relations have become no better. Though director claimed it as a work of fiction, it is known and commendable to make a movie on troublesome events of history which India would prefer to forget.

Police Police..

“Madam Speaker,” the Home Minister was addressing the Speaker and the eminent Members of the Parliament in Parliamentary session, “this Police reforms are being done to enhance the accountability and efficiency of the Police department in maintaining law and order in a responsible and transparent manner…”

Jammu and Kashmir:

Two days before, there was a violation of Cease-fire at LOC, two Indian soldiers were severely injured in the cross firing. Next day an Indian Army Commander gave a statement to reporters, “We caught few suspected terrorists in Srinagar, we have information that these terrorists are planning attacks in India, there is remarkable evidence of some cross border authorities in this, our investigation is in progress”.

One reporter asked “Sir, we came to know that you have arrested only 2 terrorists while 9 guys were shot dead at the spot?”

“They were killed in cross-firing, we could arrest the wounded”, commander said.

Reporter – “Are you sure the people who died are all terrorists, as there is a woman and a 10 year child in those 9 members who died. There are also allegations that mostly innocent people are dying in the war against terrorism. What is your comment?”

“No comments” the Commander left saying that.

Next day, there was a proposal in Kashmir Assembly to reform Police as per Model Act, to empower Police department with more powers, however the people of the State are in no position to trust the State and are strongly opposing any such act.

Chhattisgarh:

They were 11 soldiers travelling in that military truck to Dantewada. “I don’t like being here, seriously, what Army is doing in these jungles, we should be protecting the borders instead or fighting in the war” said one of them.

“That’s right man, it feels great when we return after killing few bunch of terrorists and receive award, but not for killing our own people who are fighting for their rights, who have been exploited by rich landlords. Now these poor men are rebels against the Government, a system which forgot to do anything to these people other than exploiting their land and homes. If you think again, you may find these Naxals are more right than us” said another. Just then a few Naxals attacked the truck in the middle of that Jungle road.

“Naxals attack Army truck in Chhattisgarh: 9 soldiers killed, 2 severely injured”were the headlines in all newspapers and news channels.

Manipur:

On 2 November 2000, in Malom, a town in the Imphal Valley, it was a sunny day; people were standing in the shade in that bus stop, waiting for the bus. Suddenly an Assam Rifles van came there; soldiers got down in split of a second and started firing indiscriminately on the people in the bus stop, 10 people died in this incident.

Later, Military said they had information about some notorious insurgents present among those people so they have opened fire. Sadly, among the killed were a 62 year old woman and an 18 year old boy named Sinam Chandramani who is 1998 National Child Bravery Award Winner. As AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Power Act) gives special powers to Army in North East States and Jammu & Kashmir, there was no case registered for these killings.

Irom Sharmila was moved by this incident and started an indefinite fast for a sole demand to repeal AFSPA, it’s been more than 12 years of her fast still nothing happened, and the worse is, she’s being charged of attempt Suicide case.(Read here) In this country some hard core criminals are becoming MLA’s and MP’s and ruling us, while some souls like Irom Sharmila who are fighting for justice are being dragged to court, what a pity!!

Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh:

Feb 21, 2013, as always it was a busy day in Hyderabad, couple of traffic police were controlling traffic in that busy center of Dilsukhnagar. One of them stopped a biker who was coming from wrong side and asked for license.

“Sorry sir, I just want to pick up a friend who’s standing in that corner, sir pls..”, man was pleading.

The traffic police was not listening to him till then but somehow the man settled him away and went the same wrong way to “Anand Tiffins” where another sat on back seat and they left the place immediately.

“What happened, is everything going as planned?” asked the biker

“It’s done, you’ll hear the hues and cries in few minutes” replied the other guy sitting.

Around 7pm, two bombs exploded killing 15 people and injuring hundreds.

“.. and Madam Speaker, it’s a privilege to say that after these reforms, Police department will be ever efficient equipped with latest technological advancements and the best human resources, to curb any kind of attack on the nation, to maintain peace and law n order.”, the Home Minister’s speech ended with thumping applause from his party members while the opposition remained dissatisfied.

P.S:- This is a work of fiction, though few are inspired from some real incidents I read or witnessed in life.

P.P.S:- When there is an attack in any city, whole media criticizes Intelligence and Police for their failure, but sadly never does any newspaper or electronic media thanked anyone for the sleepless nights Police and Intelligence department spends to keep the nation secure. I dedicate this post to all such sincere Police officials.

women MpowerMENt

“All are equal before LAW, no discrimination shall be made on the basis of caste, creed, sex, and place of birth”, this is a common sentence we read long back in our school, it’s inscribed in our Indian Constitution, the lengthiest Constitution in the world. I’m sure that if a foreigner gets to read this he’ll perceive India as a modern and rational country but in reality we see that sadly the modernity of India is confined only to books and Indian society is still widely orthodox and even moronic.

Women empowerment has been included as the foremost criteria, by the then Government, when India got freedom from colonial rule and even after 65 years of independence we still say “Women empowerment stands first in our goals to achieve” and I doubt when India will be able to achieve this goal and how many more innocent women will have to sacrifice their lives to this men dominated society.

Over the past few decades women rights are proliferated and we see a lot of women coming out of their houses, working at par with men in this competitive world, making it look like an unbiased place but is it really unbiased? When we see the heinous crimes on women in metros, like the recent Gang Rape case of Delhi, we are forced to reconsider what is amiss here that we are unable to curb the atrocities on women even after making strict laws against such crimes. Both the houses of Parliament stalled asking for change in laws and make it as death penalty for crimes like Rape, which seems to be a fair demand to curb the violence on women but will it really suffice to ensure safety of women remains to be answered.

By asking for death penalty for criminals, we are actually going for reformative measures than asking for preventive measures, it’s common in India that we are more concerned with the medicine of disease than taking preventive measures to avoid the disease. Until we don’t go to the root cause of this Superiority complex of men and make every one realize “Equality of women and men” is the essence of any society, we will not be able to arrest such crimes happening on women. So question comes as where does this problem begun? As we dig deep into Indian conservative society, we encounter a lot of shocking rituals like Sati, Purdah system etc. which depict the social inequality rooted in the society. With the efforts of great social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy and few others such rituals are eradicated but the deep rooted conservativeness to view women as inferior and burden is what we need to uproot right away.

Government alone cannot face and resolve this issue but whole society should realize as its moral responsibility to bring awareness among every individual to treat women with respect and value their individuality. Parents must stop treating their daughters as inferior to sons and provide equal opportunities in every aspect, make the boy feel a sense of equality so that he does not feel in anyway superior to his female counterparts. Same needs to be maintained in our educational institutions, teach the children sense of equality, young men and women can get involved in schools and communities to advocate them about women’s equality rights.

All this stuff seem to be too far fetching, idealistic and unreal but there’s no other way to ensure at least in our future generation women will be really feel a sense of equality and Women empowerment won’t be still a goal to achieve. However these preventive measures will not help in any way to save the women of present day so there can be harsher laws against such crimes, however only time can answer how much such laws will help for the cause of women.