The Subtexts in Detective Byomkesh Bakshy

I recently spent a few hours watching 'Detective Byomkesh Bakshy'. The movie successfully captured the Calcutta of yore. Additionally the use of heavy metal as the score served to highlight the disjointedness of the characters involved. The Tarantinoisque fight sequences accentuated this further.

All in all the movie was very well packaged. For me the takeaways were not the maturing of Bollywood or the attempts to juggle many experiments within one movie – successfully at that. What stood out was the role of the moustache in the movie. The other thing that found resonance was the plot about making a deal with the devil ie getting the Japanese into Calcutta in exchange for 'freetrade' of sorts.

You could say that there was scent of more than just a movie in Detective Byomkesh Bakshy.

It is believed that the moustache is a symbol of machismo and virility. It is supposed to embody manliness and the male qualities of courage, valour – most kings who ruled this land and or parts of it wore these hirsute principles. The moustachioed male twirling his moustache adds gravitas to the moment of contemplation while also showcasing his manliness.

Byomkesh has a moustache too. However, unlike the characteristics of the moustachioed, the hero comes across as someone with a gentle soul. This is first put across to the cinema goers when he is slapped by Ajit Bandhopadhyay in the first few minutes of the movie. The slap floors him and he remains one with the floor as the camera pans the smoke heavy room with the carom playing crowd. The next time we are accosted by his sensitive spirit is when he turns his face to avoid looking at the ghastly wound on the leg he is holding. This persona is constantly brought to the fore in the movie - when he does not come to the aid of Ajit when they are accosted by a group of men who begin roughing them up. His flinching when Ajit raises his hand even though a slap seems to be furthermost from Ajit's mind.

Though the gentle demeanour hides a brave and enquiring spirit the value of the mooch on him is watered down by the heroes actions or want of them.

This watering down is complete when one compares the actions of Ajit who is not only clean-of-face but wears spectacles, is short, a tad rotund and wears a look of constant wonder. This man slaps the hero, exercises vigorously, shows off his boxers and fights a gang of men. These are the exploits of a hero, of a go-getter ie of someone who many would like to see with a moustache.

This hero's sidekick does not wear wear a moustache but displays all the faculties of someone who is moustached. So, is the common refrain 'mooch nahin tho kooch nahin' false? Yes there have been movies where the hero is clean shaven but he acts like a hero, bashing up villains and what have you. However, one has not come across a movie where the clean shaven 'side-kick' ostensibly performs this function of the moustachioed hero which is so popular, widely accepted and ingrained in people.

The movie clearly assigns the role of the thinker and of the action man to two different people, usually the hero does both. In doing so the director has also subverted the much held hirsute principles.

Dibakar Bannerjee, the director, also speaks of the dangers of acting on the ' enemy of my enemy is a friend' philosophy. The young freedom fighters who join Anukul's plot to get the Japanese into Calcutta and so rid the city of the British realise much to their dismay that they are pawns in a far greater conspiracy. Their desire for independence had made them puppets to a drug laced conspiracy and had blinded them to the perils of opening the gates of the city to another imperial army.

Though Byomkesh saves the day with some dexterous planning and quick thinking there is much food for thought at the end of the day. What would have happened if the Japanese did finally control Calcutta? Would Anukul have become the drug lord he wanted to be under Japanese rule? Would the freedom fighters have realised their dream of freedom under the rule of another imperialist? Would the Japanese have diluted their imperialistic ambitions for the dreams of these people?

Thankfully, the answers to these questions will remain conjectures. However that being said the movie does bring to light the pitfalls of blind nationalism of any given time. Such fervour catalyses decisions and actions that on the surface seem correct and justified, but in fact may only bring horror on an unsuspecting population.

Samir Nazareth is the author of '1400 Bananas, 76 Towns & 1 Million People'

The strange case of the cold, demand for justice and cricket

 

My train to Delhi was delayed by eleven hours. I had checked the status of the train on the web where it did say that the train had been delayed, but for some reason the tele-service mechanically proclaimed that the train was on time. This was a very real dilemma of who to believe and the kind of loss that would result from choosing one from the other. Finally I did go to the station with my luggage and lunch, and came back to have that lunch at the dining table. This gave me an opportunity to watch,later that evening, Sunil Gavaskar and Imran Khan - former captains of their national cricket teams - discuss that day's one-day-cricket match in Eden Gardens which India lost.

Sunil Gavaskar made some pertinent observations about the Indian cricket team. He said that the IPL is destroying cricket in general, which Imran Khan agreed to. Indian cricketers are choosing self before the nation in opting to play for the IPL. He explained that test cricket was the foundation for all forms of cricket and a cricketer who did well in test cricket would do well in the shorter forms of the game but this was not true in the reverse case.

Test cricket is a long dawn out affair; some of the qualities that a test cricketer builds from this game and needs to excel in this game are temperament, skill, perseverance, patience. I am sure he would agree that the game also needs the players to build and have stamina, concentration, unflagging team spirit and self motivation besides other things which a non-sportsman like me may not be aware of. What Sunil Gavaskar was indicating is that test cricket is the foundry which toughens the cricketers, enabling them to deal with other forms of the game. By cricketers and cricket management choosing to opt for the shorter and more lucrative forms of the game these sportsmen and administrators are building a team which is hollow in every aspect of the game as they havent gone through the winepress that builds and hones the skills and qualities of a good cricketer.

This philosophy as explained by Sunil Gavaskar can also be used in dealing with the current social problems facing our country. Take for example the case of the outcry for justice for rape victims post the brutal gangrape of a young women in a moving bus on the 16^th of December and her subsequent death. After the youth took to the streets with their demands for justice, stricter punishment which ranged from chemical castration to hanging others – from politicians to film stars followed suit. Jaya Bachan shed tears and the lawyers of Delhi declared that they would not represent the accused.

These demands and gestures are all forms of the IPL mindset that beset Indian cricket which have now come to roost within our society. Why do you think rape cases take so long in court? One reason is that lawyers themselves ask the court for adjournments. Lawyers in our country think of the legal process not as a way to get justice but as a method to ensure that the case does not come to trial and thereby allowing the accused to continue living within society.

What exactly was Jaya Bachan shedding tears about? The way women are treated in tinsel town – ala casting couch or the manner of their depiction in movies through vulgar item songs, lurid lyrics and scripts and the clothes worn?

Why is there a hue and cry by society and youth about police and government insensitivity? Dont these very people complain when they are stopped for minor misdemeanour’s? Dont they jump the line on occasion by asking for favours from powerful contacts? Why do they try to bribe their way through police sanction when they are caught transgressing – traffic rules for example? How do they tolerate young children working in homes of their own families or in families of their peers?

It is easy to paint ourselves out of a picture and put the blame on others. What is happening today to women is not something new. We need to ask some basic questions - why do mothers, and inlaws try to kill her as a foetus, why is she not allowed into religious places? And where are we in this picture? Rape is another form of brutality that the female sex has to endure in Indian society.

The point is that this is another instance of missing the forest for the trees. These demands are for quick solutions that do not question the systemic problems faced by women and our role in perpetuating them and our responsibility of preventing them.

This is much like another debate that is doing the rounds of some news channels – that of the cold and homeless. TV channels display shock and anger as poor outstation patients live on the streets of Delhi in the biting cold as they wait for appointments at India's best and largest hospital. The basic question that they repeatedly ask is why isnt the government and the hospital constructing more shelters? Another pointless question which is trumpeted is 'isnt the government shocked'? These half-baked questions do not resolve the problem and only depict the channel as being concerned.

The point is why do patients have to come to Delhi to be treated? Why are private hospitals not following the court's orders to provide beds and treat the poor? It is not enough to ask the government what they are doing, one should also question why government plans and schemes and court orders are not followed.

It is not enough to demand stronger laws and harsher punishments to stop rapes, nor will problems of the sick coming for treatment be solved by building shelters. What Sunil Gavaskar said about cricket has a lot of substance in the current issues faced by our society. We need to build a temperament that respects laws and each other. We as individuals and society need the skill and patience to prevent crimes from occurring and we need the perseverance to use our institutions in a manner that makes them work and deliver.

Seeking quick fix solutions will not solve the problem as they do not question our role in perpetuating a problem and our responsibility in fixing it. It is not without reason that 'be the change you want to see' and 'Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country' were words spoken by two people who are beacons for freedom and democracy.

A story to be told

There's a new movie in town – and what a Kahaani,

Not the usual Bollywood 'ek tha raja ek thi rani'.

A story seamlessly woven,

Vidya has once again proven - -

But its not only she who has acted well,

The others have done better and make us dwell

On the fact that histrionics ain't required

Its time to move from the tested and tried.

But one cannot take out a Bollywood gene,

There are indeed some hard to explain scenes.

'Honorary CM Mamta' is thanked at the start

Actually, the term is 'honorable' when you get elected for a part.

Commonsense is given a berth that is wide,

When a land-line can listen to a mobile conversation happening at the side.

But nothing can take away from this flick

Where the acting and story tick.

Kaminey – Or the Art in Stammering.

So, I haven’t seen the current bollywood blockbuster ‘Kaminey’ but its all over the news that the hero of the hour Shahid Kapoor has done a great job in playing the part. He has a double role and the best part is that diction is not a prerequisite. One of his roles requires him to stammer and the other to lisp.

The problem with stammering is that it takes too long to say something and the problem with lisping is that one does not quite understand what the lisper is saying. So when one goes to watch Kaminey should one be prepared to sit for a very long movie (considering the time taken by the stammer to speak) or sit close to the speakers or to the screen to carefully hear the lisper speak or to read his lips? It seems that the time for this bollywood flick is the same as any other flick coming out from this side of the wood and no one seems to be complaining about the inarticulateness of the actor.

So one question is whether Shahid has really done justice to his roles of a lisper and a stammer? The other question is whether Indian audiences really appreciate good acting? Well, the fact that there are a quite a few acting awards instituted by different companies/magazines giving the same award to different actors shows that the Indian populace really have no idea of what good acting is (being an Indian I don’t know either). So answering the former question now, if the movie has a stammer and is of the same length then he hasn’t done justice to the art of stammering.

But, the good thing is that stammering has got into the mainstream. In flicks the character who stammered had the time he did because he needed that time to say the lines. The case of the stammering lawyer in ‘my cousin vinny’ is a case in point. The stammerers usually provided comic relief in bollywood flicks, just as a cross in the cleavage indicated the vamp turned sacrificial lamb.

So, even though Shahid was faking it, twice at that, he finds himself in the news, getting pats in the back and lugging trunks full of money to the bank. Which means that those who really stammer have a chance to get into the really big screen, directors are always looking for ‘naturals’ stammerers can raise their hands and stammer their way to the bank. Stammering and lisping may become the next big thing in the fashion and media bazaar and could even help relationships as one could spend more time ‘whispering sweet nothings’ and understanding them.