About 2-3
minutes into Feroze Abbas Khan’s second venture into Bollywood your reaction
would be, “This doesn’t seem like a movie at all”. For those unaware, FAK is a much more well
known for his exploits in the theatre circuit.
It seems like the baggage from theatre has been carried over to Dekh
Tamasha Dekh not just in terms of narration but more obviously in terms of
cast.
Names such as Ganesh
Yadav, Kishore Pradhan, Vinay Jain, Sharad Ponkshe, Apurva Arora, Santosh
Juvekar, Jaywant Wadkar, Sudhir Pandey and Alok Rajwade are big in the theatre
circuit. Add a little bit of spice with
2 fine actors who are also well known in theatre – Satish Kaushik & Tanvi
Azmi.
Dekh Tamasha
Dekh is a satire on several topics. The central
topic is however that of communalism and the manner in which leaders – political
and religious – take advantage of gullible village folk to influence them
towards acts of violence and hate. It is
set in a small beach town called Chaandaa and begins with an absurd reference
to Elizabeth and Kaalia (will leave it to you to figure that one out because I have
still not got the purpose).
It quickly moves
into the core issue through a local politician (Satish Kaushik) who also runs
the local newspaper. A local tongawala
(horse cart driver) called Hameed has just himself quite drunk. Hameed doesn’t know that in a few minutes, a
life size cut out of the politician tips over onto the high tension wire under
it and crashes onto Hameed. Hameed is
electrocuted and dies instantly.
What’s the big
deal? Hameed was actually a Hindu by the name of Kissan. He is ostracized by his people some 15+ years
back when he converts to Islam. Now,
with his death, the local goons see an opportunity to not only make a few
thousand bucks from the government but also create a political ruckus over Kissan
/ Hameed’s last rites – should he be buried as a Muslim or should he be
cremated as a Hindu.
DTD is hilarious
in the first half. FAK lays bare the
flimsy nature of the society that we live in today. One that is fraught with literate but
uneducated people and to make matters worse in the hinterland – illiterate people
as well. There is no empathy towards the
family of the deceased.
The disdain is summarized
by a line, “Dange rokne ka kaam police aur military ka hai. Newspaper ka nahin”. (Maintaining peace is
not the responsibility of a newspaper.
It is managed by the military and the cops). It is just another aspect that is covered by
the movie –responsibility of the media and social responsibility as such.
A dialogue
towards the end of the movie summarizes the public apathy in this country
exceptionally. “Yeh sab is ilake ka
rivaaz hai. Har 2-3 saal mein dange hote
hain. Log jhagadte hain. Ek dosre ka khoon karte hain, ghar jalaate
hain. Apne Andar ki saari bhadaas
nikalte hain”. (It is almost like a
culture here. Every 2-3 years we have
riots. People kill each other. They burn
houses. As if their pent up frustration
explodes).
That dialogue
pretty much summarises the state of this country and also a huge reason why the
movie will not do well (other than 2 States of course). It tells people that they aren’t as smart as
they think they are. A formula that has
never worked in this country thanks to social hypocrisy.
If FAK had not
stretched out the 2nd half and instead focused on keeping the movie
tight i.e. under 90 minutes, DTD would have been brilliant. Instead we get a movie that is great in parts
and more importantly difficult to last through in the last 30 minutes or
so. You must watch it because it is
relevant and important. 6 on 10.
Watch the trailer
on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPlgyRzE3Ug
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