Recently I watched Lage Raho Munnabhai on DVD. A good movie without a doubt. I concur the opinions of those who said it's better than the original. I have never seen a sequel so well-made, well maybe Back to the Future part 2 and 3 were good but not in Indian cinema.
One thing that it made me think about is Gandhi. My feelings and opinions towards Gandhi have gone through different phases. It is absolutely impossible to grow up in India and not come in touch with Gandhi. I read the excerpt from his autobiography in primary school. Then read the whole thing in book form. I liked him. God knows, I have even been to his tomb and the Gandhi museum. Truth, non-violence, national hero of India and all that jazz....
Then I saw Gandhi, the movie with Richard Attenborough and I saw rows and rows of Indians walking up to the policemen only to be stricken down, putting up no protest. And I turned off Gandhi in a second...I hated and loathed his philosophy of violence..
Well, it goes on and on...
But, in recent times I have been thinking about all the terrorism that's prevalent in the world today. Ever watched "Air Force One"? You can't convince the head of the terrorist group that what he is doing is wrong.
I have always believed that Indian independence was a direct result of the actions of our Revolutionaries, Bhagat Singh, Azad, Bismil and others. And though they resorted to violent means, robbery, disruption of machinery and even murder. I still support them. They did what needed to be done. But finally, didn't they also adopt the non-violence policy? What would you call the act of exploding a non-lethal bomb in the assembly and getting themselves arrested?
With all this as background and watching Munna bhai applying Gandhi's principles to the current, real world, made me think. True, some of the situations were dramatized but the principle was there...
Maybe there was something in what Gandhi said....?
No comments:
Post a Comment