I can't feel anything

The girl has died and I can't feel anything. I say that with a lot of guilt and shame in my heart. I should feel something, like million others who are expressing their grief in the ways they can. Some are posting status messages, some are discussing it with their friends, and some are just feeling sad and trying to overcome the despair.

But I don't feel anything, not even an iota of sadness or regret. I will go ahead and confess that I felt sadder by hearing about the death of Tony Greig than the death of the girl. I wish I knew precisely why I feel that way, but I doubt I do. Make no mistake, my unreasonable feelings have again put me in an embarrassing situation and I am acutely aware of my shame in admitting my guilt.  I know that I should feel something; in fact I should feel a lot more than something, considering the sheer gruesomeness of the incident which led to the death of the girl. She fought hard but eventually she succumbed to the ultimate eventuality. Somewhere deep within we all knew that this would happen, some were aware of it, some weren't. Some had accepted it and were asking for bigger changes, some were denying it and were baying for the blood of criminals who did this to her. Some like me (and I am sure there would not be so many) didn't really care and wondered what the fuss was about.

I am sure I wasn't born this way, it was easy for me to get disturbed by seeing or hearing about someone's pain. In fact, as a child, I would have cried if my brother or sister got hurt. But then I was asked to grow up by my friends, relatives and parents. Since I was a boy, I was told not to cry when I got hurt because that's what guys do, they don't cry, simple enough. Now I shout or yell when I get hurt, I don't cry. Then I grew up a little more and started caring about the world around me, I saw so many dreadful things happening in our country and around the world. I got to know about it from the newspaper, TV and now through internet. My world had truly expanded and so my exposure to unfortunate events of unimaginable cruelty and size. Initially I read about the Ayodhya riots, I felt disturbed and felt like murdering every politician who made people kill each other. Then when I got interested about history, I read about partition riots and riots in 1984. When I read the details of the heinous acts committed by people in those riots, when I met someone who has lost his father and brother in 1984 and moving on, my faith in humanity was lost to a great extent. Those days, I used to feel bad about such things and I did. But then I looked around and I saw people rather unaffected by such things. I was at a loss to understand how they could do that, know about something like this and still not feel anything. Then I heard and read about things which happen in Jammu & Kashmir and the Eastern states. I met someone who was sent away from his home by his father so that he will not be kidnapped, killed by militants or worse by the military. I again felt something, but now that I know that worse may happen, the intensity of my feelings were rather subdued but I did felt something.

After that I got to know about terrorism and naxalism in our country and worldwide. Since I have seen poverty and destitution, I was able to understand to some extent why people take up arms and become ready to die.Bomb blasts were not new but then they became a regular feature of our country news items. One was never sure where would the next bomb explode, I felt terrible when I heard about those, felt lucky to be alive and about not losing any loved one of mine and moved on like many others. By then, I was working; feeling something and being upset was a luxury which I didn't had. More so, it wasn't “professional” and hence I have to put away my already not so intense feelings.

6000 people have died in Mumbai local in last 3 years while travelling between their home and workplace. Now I don't feel much about them. Around 22000 women are raped every year in India (As per National Crime Records Bureau) and 40 thousands women are molested every year. I do not feel much for them as well. I can feel once, I can feel twice but how do I feel 22000 times a year and remain sane.

Ours is not a country for people with feelings. Feelings are a luxury that only privileged people can afford to have. The common people should not feel too much, it will only drive them crazy. My feelings have been reserved exclusively for people who either are my friends or are related by blood to me. This is not something that I have done willingly. It has happened to me over a period of time and I wonder if that is not the case with a lot of people around me. This rather callous attitude towards things that happen around you is a necessity to live in today's world.

I envy people who can still feel so strongly about these incidents, they vent out their feelings through FB, twitter or by talking to their friends and sometimes even writing or talking to a government officials. Some would go to the extent that feelings are important for the change we want and I would like to desperately believe them but considering all that has happened in the past, it’s only a leap of faith and till then I doubt I will feel anything for the girl.

 

#Talaash, #Aamir

Let me clarify from the word go, though this article talks about the movie Talaash, it is not a review. Simply because to review a movie one needs to be fair unbiased and being an Aamir Khan fan I am definitely biased towards most of what he does.

I watched Talaash this friday, at the unearthly show timing of 8:10 AM (First Day, First Show :)).I found Talaash everything that I expected it to be or more precisely everything that I expect from Aamir.

I became an Aamir fan when I saw Sarfarosh and have never been disappointed since. He keeps on surprising me with this consistently outlandish choices and equally consistent great quality work he does with everything he takes up.

The thing that I like with him, is that he can see beyond bollywood formulas, sample these one line summaries of his previous body of work:

Sarfarosh: Young IPS officer working to curb cross-border terrorism

Dil Chahta Hai: Stories of 3 friends discovering themselves

Lagaan: Village plays a cricket match with English rulers to get a tax (lagaan) waiver

Mangal Pandey: Story of the first indian freedom fighter

Taare Zameen Par: Story of a dyslexic chid

Rang De Basanti: 5 people fighting against corrupt politicians

Ghazni: Revenge story

3 Idiots: Life and times of 3 engineering students in India

I guess you would realize that except Ghazni, none of Aamir's movie would fit a prevalent bollywood formula. He did it because someone wrote a beautiful script and he liked it. With the onslaught of inane movies that I see so often, I guess a movie where a script has been written before going on floor, is promising from the word go.Talaash is no different, it is nothing like what would supposedly work at box office, but it is definitely well written. Apart from that you can clearly see that this movie is a labour of love, where people have taken great pains to deliver what they believed in. The sheer visual appeal of mumbai's dark underbelly, the finely etched characters, the brilliant acting, it's all there.I don't expect Aamir to do what I think would entertain me, I expect Aamir to do what he believes in. It is for the simple reason that there are many "entertainers", but there is only one Aamir.

His singleminded focus means that every time we go to see his movie, we are assured of one thing: Quality. You can safely assume that everything that could have been done to make a movie better would be done. You would know that Aamir would do the best job he could do.He doesn't care that much about "typical" audience, which every director/producer claim to know so much about (case in point: the Golmaal franchise, Son of Sardaar, Ra.One, Don2 and last but not the least Jab Tak Hain Jaan). These people know that lots of cars should be blown up and it should be painted in gaudy colours, item numbers are a must, the angle of SRK head tilt which is just enough to make ladies swoon, the dance step which will just click and the funny gags which will make people laugh. Whether you admit it or not, you would agree that in the above list of movies,except Golmaal part 1, it needed someone to write a script before starting to film them.

I agree that movies are for entertainment and hence these movies have their takers, they may not be discerning viewers but are enough in numbers to make the cash registers ringing. However, movies are also about telling a tale, a tale you would not listen to otherwise, of people who you will never come across, of locations you will never go to and of emotions you may never feel on your own. In this mayhem of entertainment focused movies, Talaash is a movie with a story to tell. Is this story particularly entertaining ? No. Is this story makes financial sense for mainstream cinema ? No. However, it is an interesting tale which have been told competently by the Director. It is about grief and mourning, it is about regret and remorse, it is about people without identity hoping for dignity, it is about two people in love who are too burdened by their own pain to help the other, it is about their catharsis and eventually coming back together.

Talaash is brilliantly written and despite of its somewhat outlandish ending, works for me. More importantly, it brings the real star of a movie into focus, the script. Remaining true to its core, it spends plenty of time in building up the characters so that you understand them and hence feel their emotions.

There is no other mainstream star who would dare to star as a cop in a movie who cries more than he fights. Surjan Sekhawat is another addition to Aamir already impressive repertoire of memorable characters.

In an interview Aamir had said that for him to do a Taare Zameen Pe, he has to do a Ghazni once in a while. I guess now we know why he is doing a Dhoom 3 :).