Exotic locale? Countryside sea? Nay. It's off the city `local' terminus - Churchgate. Marine Drive. And shot from the balcony of a sea-side flat. Guess the time? Certainly not the afternoon sun. At 6 pm, the sun's still away from sinking into sea. Isn't it as beautiful as sunset?
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Deja Vu
Exotic locale? Countryside sea? Nay. It's off the city `local' terminus - Churchgate. Marine Drive. And shot from the balcony of a sea-side flat. Guess the time? Certainly not the afternoon sun. At 6 pm, the sun's still away from sinking into sea. Isn't it as beautiful as sunset?
Lost in the din: A tale of 12 annas
(not a review)
Barah Aana. 12 annas. Seventy-five paise. That word is so lost in oblivion...gone from public usage! It took a film-maker to revive the words so prevalent just two decades back.
Barah Aana, the movie is a metaphor of those lost words, of lost people whose labour was given its due, of lost ethics too, in a sense.
In the din of the many releases hitting cinemas - Aloo Chaat, Firaaq, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Dhoondte Reh Jaaoge, Gulaal ...an already running Little Zizou, one jostling over the other at the theatres, even pushing others out, this film simply got lost. No surprise that our Sunday morning dash to the multiplex showed us through a hall filled to less than half its seating capacity. After all, how would 12 annas find takers when despite recession, big money is what rules the mass cinema-goer mindscape!
When the intermission lights were switched on, my husband complained, ``Those d... critics. Just because it is a low-budget flick, they give it two stars. All hung up on money...'' There was some truth to what he said. I checked the papers for the reviews too. Poor ratings. But a hunch told me I would not be disappointed. So three of us who made it to the multiplex dunked Aloo Chaat for this one.
It was touted a comedy, while it is not. It does have humour. It lacked cameo-studded aura of Luck By Chance. But it does to death those million global yells that our film-makers cannot entertain using some realism. A tight narrative. Amazing detail. A simple story. And that understated humour that hits you hard. And makes you gulp you have been guilty of insulting those below you in status or class.
Anger and revolt, vulnerability to crime, an urgency to grab it and make it big - they wait to explode someday among the humiliated masses. Barah Aana is an indication of just that.
The film is worth watching, for the sheer acting brilliance in acting, by not just Naseeruddin Shah, but Vijay Raaz, Arjun Mathur, and every other member of the ensemble cast.
Matching Naseeruddin Shah is no easy a task. But in some scenes, you gape as Vijay Raaz in suffering watchman role moves you with ease.
The film deals with that sense of humiliation and injustice eating away those at the receiving end of the money game - those living in slums, those managing to sleep in dimly lit cement boxes in the name of rooms. On the other hand, is the all pervasive corruption aided by the well-to-do, which can produce the strangest of paradoxes.
Barah Aana's focus is on three characters - a watchman, a chaffeur, and a cafe waiter, all wrestling the humiliation of class troubles. Ever watched a watchman caught in the ego-tussle and double-games of members in a housing society? Swallow a lump in your throat for that all-familiar scene, that ends up subtly victimising the securityman who should be an ideal spectator.
An ambitious waiter who desperately to woo a foreigner girl, but cannot speak English. Sit easy on the multiplex cushion till the waiter complains to his driver friend, that multiplexes charge 10 times more for basic food. Or watch that expression change when a boisterous memsaab stabs her chaffeur with her razor sharp insults. The will-never-speak driver who speaks volumes with his silence and expressions. Naseeruddin Shah can take over an entire scene with his mere expressions. By the time he actually speaks in this movie, you've given up on him only to sit up when he does.
A thin line is what keeps the lower middle-classes and the poor from revolting. From committing crimes against their oppressors. From hitting out at their own employers. What happens when one of them crosses that line, quite by chance at that? No cinematic underworld shoot-outs, but mere `affordable' extortion.
What happens when for all his honesty and perseverance, a watchman is denied money that he needs to send for his ailing child's treatment? Watch him knock at the doors of every home in his housing society, and get the usual excuses - lame and lacking creativity. And when he gets money for an unintended kidnap, the dramatic shift in his gait. After all, even an accidental abduction can fetch you money that you can send home to your wife in the village!
If it does take care of your needs for a while. So be it. The film ends with neither the watchman who entices winning the game, nor the lovelorn waiter. The driver wins it, despite being caught in the act - of claiming ransom for abducting his employer's foul-mouthed wife. Why? Because the man is `dead' as per government records. If a death certificate can ruin a living citizen's life, it can help him too!
So you can laugh it aloud when in the last scene, Vijay Raaz in all awe, asks his driver friend how much he can buy a death certificate for. His own death certificate that is.
Barah Aana. 12 annas. Seventy-five paise. That word is so lost in oblivion...gone from public usage! It took a film-maker to revive the words so prevalent just two decades back.
Barah Aana, the movie is a metaphor of those lost words, of lost people whose labour was given its due, of lost ethics too, in a sense.
In the din of the many releases hitting cinemas - Aloo Chaat, Firaaq, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Dhoondte Reh Jaaoge, Gulaal ...an already running Little Zizou, one jostling over the other at the theatres, even pushing others out, this film simply got lost. No surprise that our Sunday morning dash to the multiplex showed us through a hall filled to less than half its seating capacity. After all, how would 12 annas find takers when despite recession, big money is what rules the mass cinema-goer mindscape!
When the intermission lights were switched on, my husband complained, ``Those d... critics. Just because it is a low-budget flick, they give it two stars. All hung up on money...'' There was some truth to what he said. I checked the papers for the reviews too. Poor ratings. But a hunch told me I would not be disappointed. So three of us who made it to the multiplex dunked Aloo Chaat for this one.
It was touted a comedy, while it is not. It does have humour. It lacked cameo-studded aura of Luck By Chance. But it does to death those million global yells that our film-makers cannot entertain using some realism. A tight narrative. Amazing detail. A simple story. And that understated humour that hits you hard. And makes you gulp you have been guilty of insulting those below you in status or class.
Anger and revolt, vulnerability to crime, an urgency to grab it and make it big - they wait to explode someday among the humiliated masses. Barah Aana is an indication of just that.
The film is worth watching, for the sheer acting brilliance in acting, by not just Naseeruddin Shah, but Vijay Raaz, Arjun Mathur, and every other member of the ensemble cast.
Matching Naseeruddin Shah is no easy a task. But in some scenes, you gape as Vijay Raaz in suffering watchman role moves you with ease.
The film deals with that sense of humiliation and injustice eating away those at the receiving end of the money game - those living in slums, those managing to sleep in dimly lit cement boxes in the name of rooms. On the other hand, is the all pervasive corruption aided by the well-to-do, which can produce the strangest of paradoxes.
Barah Aana's focus is on three characters - a watchman, a chaffeur, and a cafe waiter, all wrestling the humiliation of class troubles. Ever watched a watchman caught in the ego-tussle and double-games of members in a housing society? Swallow a lump in your throat for that all-familiar scene, that ends up subtly victimising the securityman who should be an ideal spectator.
An ambitious waiter who desperately to woo a foreigner girl, but cannot speak English. Sit easy on the multiplex cushion till the waiter complains to his driver friend, that multiplexes charge 10 times more for basic food. Or watch that expression change when a boisterous memsaab stabs her chaffeur with her razor sharp insults. The will-never-speak driver who speaks volumes with his silence and expressions. Naseeruddin Shah can take over an entire scene with his mere expressions. By the time he actually speaks in this movie, you've given up on him only to sit up when he does.
A thin line is what keeps the lower middle-classes and the poor from revolting. From committing crimes against their oppressors. From hitting out at their own employers. What happens when one of them crosses that line, quite by chance at that? No cinematic underworld shoot-outs, but mere `affordable' extortion.
What happens when for all his honesty and perseverance, a watchman is denied money that he needs to send for his ailing child's treatment? Watch him knock at the doors of every home in his housing society, and get the usual excuses - lame and lacking creativity. And when he gets money for an unintended kidnap, the dramatic shift in his gait. After all, even an accidental abduction can fetch you money that you can send home to your wife in the village!
If it does take care of your needs for a while. So be it. The film ends with neither the watchman who entices winning the game, nor the lovelorn waiter. The driver wins it, despite being caught in the act - of claiming ransom for abducting his employer's foul-mouthed wife. Why? Because the man is `dead' as per government records. If a death certificate can ruin a living citizen's life, it can help him too!
So you can laugh it aloud when in the last scene, Vijay Raaz in all awe, asks his driver friend how much he can buy a death certificate for. His own death certificate that is.
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Among the ironies
Googling about Shirdi's inter-faith bit made me chance upon the following piece from a 2006 blog. A pity I did not read it before I made the Shirdi trip. It does reflect what made me uncomfortable about the increasing Hindu dominance of the shrine meant for inter-faith worship.
Here goes the piece from Sulekha blogs, by Journoshiv:
Locals say, the number of Muslims showing up at Sai Baba's shrine is declining anyway. Alongside the Hinduisation of the Sai Baba cult is the growth of Islamic fundamentalism. Influenced by the Wahabbis of Saudi Arabia, the fundamentalists ridicule Muslims who follow the Sufi tradition as grave worshippers. With large-scale inflow of funds from the Middle East, backward caste Muslims too are finding regular mosques to go to instead of finding solace at the mazaars of pirs unlike in the old days.
One cannot but help notice the influence of Bollywood here as well. Images of Sai Baba touched up with Eastman Colour sell the most at wayside stalls. “Few people buy photographs of the real Sai Baba clad in tattered robes leaning against the walls of his mud hut,” admits the owner of a local photo studio. “People have forgotten that Sai Baba lived a simple life,” says Shivaji Bhaskarrao Shinde, an employee of the Shirdi Trust. His family heirlooms include coins, notes and photographs of his great grandmother Laxmibai with the Sufi saint.
Old-timers say Sai Baba used to hold langars, or community kitchens, where Hindus and Muslims were served food out of the same pot. “Baba himself used to serve non-vegetarian food to his devotees,” says Shinde. Now, the Maharashtra government has banned the sale of meat near the shrine, to the consternation of local Muslims and dalits. Even the Moharrum procession at Shirdi has been abandoned, in sharp contrast to the opulent Ram Navami celebrations, even though Sai Baba himself insisted on observing the rituals of both communities.
The Maharashtra government’s move to placate the rich mercantile Hindu castes has paid off, with the Shirdi Trust earning Rs 90 crore last year.
With money flowing in the politicians who control the Shirdi shrine come up with more grandiose ideas by the day. A proposal to replace the giant silver idol of Baba with a 250 kg gold murthi had to be shelved at the last minute because of an uproar by Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray. The trust proposed to meet the bill of Rs 20 crores from its own coffers.
As murmurs of discontent grow in Shirdi, the trust has come up with a brainwave. “We have enough land in this town to recreate a model of old Shirdi to educate and entertain pilgrims,” says Bhausaheb Watchure, the bureaucrat who manages the Shirdi Trust.
Here goes the piece from Sulekha blogs, by Journoshiv:
A stone’s throw from the bustling shrine of Sai Baba in Shirdi, 200 km from Mumbai, priceless chronicles detailing the life and sayings of the Sufi saint are crumbling to bits.
More than 200 pages of hand-written manuscripts written by Haji Abdul Baba between 1895 and 1918 -- the year Sai Baba passed away -- are lying at his former cottage which has been turned into a shrine by his descendants.
“Abdul Baba used to write down the utterances of Sai Baba that dealt with the unity of the Hindu and Muslim faiths,” says his grandson Hameed who manages the shrine. The text of Abdul Baba’s manuscripts draws parallels between the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad and the Hindu legends associated with Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma.
Sai Baba’s discourses, as chronicled by Abdul Baba, also dealt with the prevalent Sufi traditions of the time, in parts of Deccan Maharashtra and northern India. According to Hameed, his ancestor’s notes are a blend of Deccani Urdu and the now-extinct Modi script that was widely used in Maharashtra until the mid-1950s.
With little assistance from the Shirdi Sansthan, Maharashtra’s richest shrine, which has annual revenues touching Rs 100 crore, Hameed has been forced to dump the precious notes into a cupboard along with the tattered effects of Abdul Baba. “It would help if the authorities helped preserve these documents,” he says, showing the papers encased in ordinary polythene bags.
Only a small fraction of Sai Baba’s devotees who throng the magnificent shrine next door make their way to the still-humble cottage of Abdul Baba. But Hameed dutifully allows everyone to handle the parchment and other effects of his ancestor, regardless of the resulting wear-and-tear.
The managers of the Shirdi Sansthan are disinterested in Sai Baba’s chronicles. “It is the private property of his descendants,” says Bhausaheb Watchure, government-appointed administrator of the shrine. His tone betrays his embarassment at being reminded of Baba's Muslim origins.
Hameed himself is reluctant to hand over the manuscripts to the trust, saying he is worried about their safety. “It would help if private bodies came forward to preserve these papers,” he says.
Delhi-based researcher Yoginder Sikand, who has studied the evolving worship of Sai Baba, warns that Maharashtra’s politicians who control the shrine are uncomfortable with the saint’s Muslim origins, as depicted in the chronicles. “The Sai Baba shrine is completely Brahminised and all traces of Islam are being erased from here,” Sikand says.
For instance, says Sikand, the trust has abandoned the practice, started by Sai Baba, of celebrating Moharrum along with Ram Navami. Now only Ram Navami is celebrated in Shirdi though the trust’s museum clearly documents the two festivals being celebrated together here.
As he emerges from the little mosque, 85-year-old Ghulam Habib Abdul Rehman Pathan seems an unlikely candidate to sing paeans to Bollywood. A devout Muslim sporting a luxurious beard, Pathan remembers a time when Sai Baba’s shrine at Shirdi was humbler and devotees came in tongas and bullock carts to pray.
“After Manoj Kumar made his movie on Sai Baba, life changed entirely here,” says Pathan. The cult film of the 1970s has paid rich dividends to Shirdi’s residents. With pilgrims flocking from across the country, the simple mud huts of Sai Baba’s early devotees have transformed into brick-and-mortar structures housing small businesses.
Even the dilapidated mosque that Sai Baba made his home has given way to an elaborately carved stone structure. “The mosque gradually crumbled and the place got several facelifts in subsequent decades,” recollects the wizened Pathan who, as a boy, earned Rs 1.50 a month as a watchman.
Working on a project for the National Foundation for India, I am eager to find traces of the legendary amity that saw groups of Hindus and Muslims worshipping side-by-side here. Instead, I find middle-class India swaying to tunes from tinsel town. “You will identify the Muslims in the queue as they usually donate a chador at the mazaar,” says Razzaq Shaikh, a local leader.
Locals say, the number of Muslims showing up at Sai Baba's shrine is declining anyway. Alongside the Hinduisation of the Sai Baba cult is the growth of Islamic fundamentalism. Influenced by the Wahabbis of Saudi Arabia, the fundamentalists ridicule Muslims who follow the Sufi tradition as grave worshippers. With large-scale inflow of funds from the Middle East, backward caste Muslims too are finding regular mosques to go to instead of finding solace at the mazaars of pirs unlike in the old days.
One cannot but help notice the influence of Bollywood here as well. Images of Sai Baba touched up with Eastman Colour sell the most at wayside stalls. “Few people buy photographs of the real Sai Baba clad in tattered robes leaning against the walls of his mud hut,” admits the owner of a local photo studio. “People have forgotten that Sai Baba lived a simple life,” says Shivaji Bhaskarrao Shinde, an employee of the Shirdi Trust. His family heirlooms include coins, notes and photographs of his great grandmother Laxmibai with the Sufi saint.
Old-timers say Sai Baba used to hold langars, or community kitchens, where Hindus and Muslims were served food out of the same pot. “Baba himself used to serve non-vegetarian food to his devotees,” says Shinde. Now, the Maharashtra government has banned the sale of meat near the shrine, to the consternation of local Muslims and dalits. Even the Moharrum procession at Shirdi has been abandoned, in sharp contrast to the opulent Ram Navami celebrations, even though Sai Baba himself insisted on observing the rituals of both communities.
The Maharashtra government’s move to placate the rich mercantile Hindu castes has paid off, with the Shirdi Trust earning Rs 90 crore last year.
With money flowing in the politicians who control the Shirdi shrine come up with more grandiose ideas by the day. A proposal to replace the giant silver idol of Baba with a 250 kg gold murthi had to be shelved at the last minute because of an uproar by Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray. The trust proposed to meet the bill of Rs 20 crores from its own coffers.
As murmurs of discontent grow in Shirdi, the trust has come up with a brainwave. “We have enough land in this town to recreate a model of old Shirdi to educate and entertain pilgrims,” says Bhausaheb Watchure, the bureaucrat who manages the Shirdi Trust.
Friday, 20 March 2009
Ironies of a fakir's home: Soul Search continues
It's been about a week since that whirlwind visit to Shirdi, and I cannot help but to continue wondering about those ironies thrown at my face there.
For a start, in his lifetime, Sai Baba of Shirdi would have used a countable number of clothes. He lived the life of a fakir, frugal, spiritual, and preached love.
His marble statue in the temple (originally meant to be a Krishna temple) and his grave, or samadhi sport colourful, expensive shawls and sometimes even designer cloth, that are changed a few times a day, rather, every few hours. So many, that they are sold away at a special prasad counter inside the temple.
Baba, the saint, taught that God is Supreme. That God is one. Today, he is relegated to another one of the many Gods among Hindus. His path of life was more Sufi, rooted in simplicity. The Baba image merchandising in and around the temple, and elsewhere, running into hundreds of crores defies what he stood for.
The shrine at Shirdi would, under normal circumstances, be considered a dargah. Part of worship of Baba's samadhi (tomb) is such too -- flowers sold outside the temple are mostly a bunch of roses touched up with some jasmine. Enthusing public, those in its managing trust, and others, have for most part, made worship very Hindu.
Am glad though, that the tombs of his peers, those at his service and friends, have been allowed to retain their original character.
Baba's simple living in a mosque on the throes of crumbling was meant to be an open space for all - it is popularly known today, as Dwarakamai. My parents, during our first visit to Shirdi, even spent a night there as they believed that sleeping overnight at the mosque would mean good health and bring blessings. The story dates back to a leper believed to have been cured at the place.
Today, the mosque, attached to the temple is barricaded strongly. You are allowed to meditate for a few minutes, only to be promptly chased out by the tensed ushers.
The 20th century saint spoke about universal love in his own unique sort of way. Shirdi, as a village, continued to be a hospitable one for several decades after his demise. Today, the hired security guards at the shrine are anything but polite.
It's popularly believed that a large chunk of the pilgrim crowd at Shirdi is from Andhra Pradesh. You find the Telugu speaking lot everywhere. When it came to performing Satyanarayan Vrat, that is managed by the temple, the concerned priest rattled out his instructions in chaste Hindi. The audience, was largely Telugu speaking.
When some of them requested him to repeat in another language (ideally Telugu) or go slow in instructing, he just shrugged and said `I don't know Telugu. If you cannot follow my instructions, just fold your hands (namaskar)'. Outside the temple though, you have Andhra restaurants and hotels advertised all over the place, sometimes even boards written in Telugu.
As a shared faith place thronged by Hindus and Muslims, the shrine is a target of hate. By terrorists. When those managing it in some form or the other, be it the ushers, the security men at its gates, or even employees at ticket counters act like they are the bosses at the temple, you have reason to think that the hate agenda is actually working.
My parents and I had to hitch an auto-rickshaw ride for a walking distance from a restaurant near the temple to our hotel on another street, as we were without footwear on roads that nearly burned our feet. Such a ride in Mumbai would cost us Rs 9. The guy charged us Rs 20. When I asked him why people were indulging in such day light looting, he brazenly said, ``Shirdi is all about `lootmaar'. Everyone out here loots.'' He said this, with a voice so unabashed that I was too shocked to react.
So much for the place of a saint who preached selflessness! I cannot fathom how worse it could get over my future visits to the place.
Strange are the ways of humans - examples of insolence. They can convert faith into a billion dollar industry. The mere smell of devotion gets their brains overworking with ideas to cash in on it.
For a start, in his lifetime, Sai Baba of Shirdi would have used a countable number of clothes. He lived the life of a fakir, frugal, spiritual, and preached love.
His marble statue in the temple (originally meant to be a Krishna temple) and his grave, or samadhi sport colourful, expensive shawls and sometimes even designer cloth, that are changed a few times a day, rather, every few hours. So many, that they are sold away at a special prasad counter inside the temple.
Baba, the saint, taught that God is Supreme. That God is one. Today, he is relegated to another one of the many Gods among Hindus. His path of life was more Sufi, rooted in simplicity. The Baba image merchandising in and around the temple, and elsewhere, running into hundreds of crores defies what he stood for.
The shrine at Shirdi would, under normal circumstances, be considered a dargah. Part of worship of Baba's samadhi (tomb) is such too -- flowers sold outside the temple are mostly a bunch of roses touched up with some jasmine. Enthusing public, those in its managing trust, and others, have for most part, made worship very Hindu.
Am glad though, that the tombs of his peers, those at his service and friends, have been allowed to retain their original character.
Baba's simple living in a mosque on the throes of crumbling was meant to be an open space for all - it is popularly known today, as Dwarakamai. My parents, during our first visit to Shirdi, even spent a night there as they believed that sleeping overnight at the mosque would mean good health and bring blessings. The story dates back to a leper believed to have been cured at the place.
Today, the mosque, attached to the temple is barricaded strongly. You are allowed to meditate for a few minutes, only to be promptly chased out by the tensed ushers.
The 20th century saint spoke about universal love in his own unique sort of way. Shirdi, as a village, continued to be a hospitable one for several decades after his demise. Today, the hired security guards at the shrine are anything but polite.
It's popularly believed that a large chunk of the pilgrim crowd at Shirdi is from Andhra Pradesh. You find the Telugu speaking lot everywhere. When it came to performing Satyanarayan Vrat, that is managed by the temple, the concerned priest rattled out his instructions in chaste Hindi. The audience, was largely Telugu speaking.
When some of them requested him to repeat in another language (ideally Telugu) or go slow in instructing, he just shrugged and said `I don't know Telugu. If you cannot follow my instructions, just fold your hands (namaskar)'. Outside the temple though, you have Andhra restaurants and hotels advertised all over the place, sometimes even boards written in Telugu.
As a shared faith place thronged by Hindus and Muslims, the shrine is a target of hate. By terrorists. When those managing it in some form or the other, be it the ushers, the security men at its gates, or even employees at ticket counters act like they are the bosses at the temple, you have reason to think that the hate agenda is actually working.
My parents and I had to hitch an auto-rickshaw ride for a walking distance from a restaurant near the temple to our hotel on another street, as we were without footwear on roads that nearly burned our feet. Such a ride in Mumbai would cost us Rs 9. The guy charged us Rs 20. When I asked him why people were indulging in such day light looting, he brazenly said, ``Shirdi is all about `lootmaar'. Everyone out here loots.'' He said this, with a voice so unabashed that I was too shocked to react.
So much for the place of a saint who preached selflessness! I cannot fathom how worse it could get over my future visits to the place.
Strange are the ways of humans - examples of insolence. They can convert faith into a billion dollar industry. The mere smell of devotion gets their brains overworking with ideas to cash in on it.
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