India Works

Digressing from the planet for the day, I have to say something about Delhi 6. Its as good as slumdog, if not better! It proves that even we can look at ourselves objectively and make a movie that doesnt gloss over reality.

In Slumdog, the director was a firang, in Delhi 6 - the protagonist was, for all practical purposes, a firang!

Ram vs Allah for bullshit reasons - Yup

Real Delhi (Chandni Chowk) rather than fancy delhi (South Delhi) - Yup

Hope for a better tomorrow - Yup

A R Rahman brilliant score - Yup

Real characters, real emotions - You betcha - Probably better than slumdog where I thought the teen aged salim and jamal were too too convent educated to be "slumdogs"

Finally, there is a bit of sugar coating but not too much....the truth of the so called "heart of delhi" and the "spirit of mumbai" lies exposed.

We have no food, so we make up for it with love! 

We have no water in our taps, but our tears never dry up...we can cry for everything and nothing!

Our divisions are wide and deep - be it religion, caste, class or color! There is no f#$king escaping this...as exposed by the Kabir of Tarun Tejpal, Jamal of SM and Gobar/Jalebi of Delhi 6.

There are no truly actionable solutions, are there?

Who do we blame? The mughals? The Brits? The americans? 

Humans are a lousy race....it just manifests differently in different places but, on average, we are a horrible horrible race.

Thank God our films and our books are now questioning and attempting to unite us, not by ignoring the reality that we live in, but rather by holding up a mirror to our face, so we can see in horrific detail who we are and what we are doing to ourselves.

Now, how about an Oscar for Mr. Mehra?