Actually, I had decided to write about forests today. I love forests. The "deep woods", for example, Robert Frost talks about. I have taught the poem repeatedly, and, I would like to flatter myself, rather well. Science students loved the poem after our lecture and discussions therein.
Be it Wordsworth's Lake district or the artificial woods of(f) the Victorian villas, forests allure me. Do not get me wrong. I can comfortably quote umpteen examples from Marathi or Sanskrit literature, too, not to mention the other literatures, and analyse them from multiple angles. And, no, I am not being boastful. That is the simple, rather regular, chore of a student who loves Literature.
Today, however, I feel wary about writing of/on forests. Well, around me, I can see umpteen half baked analyses that miss the wood for the trees. The dreary dreadful din of 'phishy' opinion mongering can casually deafen the simultaneous roars of all the lions in all the safari's, I think.
Yes, you guessed it right. I am referring to the ugly politicking over the film by my (sur)namesake director. No, I have not seen the film. I, however, had the high hopes that at least now the pundits could get the glimmer of a possible redressal.
Any victim always looks for justice. The crime that wiped out the very identity, a possible lifetime, one feels, must be fairly addressed, the guilty punished at least by the veil of obscurity over the dastardly deeds getting torn open. Only then can decades old wounds that kept on oozing underneath may get some soothing balm.
By the day, however, the "Kashmir Files" discourse is getting uglier. Such is the putrid politicking that it is a free for all as far as political parties and their rivalries go.A human(e)issue that needs a compassionate trial is getting bogged down in to religiosities. 'Five thousand years old crimes' against adivasi's are getting quoted in the bitterest possible language as counter "narratives", I suppose, the most fashionable and least understood term currently, the other being 'eco sysyem,' yet again a much maligned rhetoric. Such a cocktail of caste and creed is absolutely intoxicating!
If this is the plight of a group of millions, what hope for justice against age old character assassination of an individual, especially when the so-called proof is not palpably available? What-about-ery and ideological hatreds are, in brief, creating such a din that the Ukraine war itself could get silenced, deafened!
Nobody is saying that other good films should not be watched. No sensible person would argue either that other victims need not be heard. I suppose, the only positive possibility is that in this meyham all sorts of good films are getting mentioned, and people would watch them, too.
Sometimes, I almost wonder if it is about the business issues as this film seems to break all the records of all super (stars) super (dooper) hits. Why not, for example, the calls for donating the profits of the other money minting movies? Anyways, the Agnihotri's did mention the donation bit, too.
Propaganda machines, I do very strongly believe, can be effective only this much, and no farther. Otherwise, other much touted films would have been hits, too. Moreover, all those who truly care are ready to watch any good cinema. Such people would, and do, stand up against any injustice, for sure.
Why the visceral hatred against this particular film? Difficult to understand this reality! I get the feeling that people often push forth any wapp message, every tweet without thinking about it, without counter-checking the basic details, I suppose!
Identity politics cannot be the eternal trump card to beat an imagined adversary with. I have myself seen a so(ld-over- ideology)- called academic incite, with gestures, too, prejudices. In the twenty first century, however, such "imperatives", Kant described so vividly, seem to let in the side vistas, too. Well, everybody knows everything, what with the internet. It is difficult to delude even the commonest man now. That is the real h(e)ard fact , everyone better accept, I suppose!
Pratima@why play the "mine is the honest opinion, yours is peurile propaganda" game? It sure would get you noticed, but does it lead to any sensible solution?
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