Sunday, February 04, 2007

Parzania

Parzania is a movie based inspired by a real life story on a Parsi child missing since the Gujarat Riots, as a personal story, the movie is remarkable, but as a documentary of the gujarat riots I think it fails on quite a few fronts. Somehow, this movie managed to escape the censor board's scissors though black friday couldn't manage it. I have seen both movies. If there is a movie where they blame a religious group and call them guilty it is not the latter. Despite this, Black Friday has been held back for much longer than Parzania, Parzania is a award winning movie, hard hitting movie. Black Friday I am sure will be rubbished to a large extent and it might be held communal for targetting a community as responible for the blasts. Though the movie had a clip which critisized the Ayodhya episode, but still, that doesn't discount the fact that it is to label a major community in our country as terrorists. Whereas, Parzania could just blame every Hindu in the movie and get away with it. I would give a 1000 bucks to a person who finds a Hidu in the movie who does right things, everyone conspired according to the movie. All Hindus are a part of the VHP or a part of the Bajrang Dal. The police just wanted to kill all Muslims and for what? That is because they hated them. For what? I have no idea. Maybe they are extremely insane. And why did BJP lose the National elections held an year later, because they carried out a genocide in Gujarat, however, they won the elections held immediately after the riots, why? Because Hindus were in a majority in Gujarat and they wanted the death of all Muslims probably. If as a race, these people were so bad, why did they let them win the national elections. A case of late realisation? A guilty feeling, the way Asif realises in the movie, when his wife lectures him? Or is it that Hindus in Gujarat are bad, and the rest of India they are good people? How did they get so selectively placed? Nice natural selection!!!

No longer in the pipeline stays Black Friday, but it has been edited well enough so that it doesn't contain "misinformation".

Apparently in Gujarat, they had marked all Hindu homes, and flagged all muslim homes to commit a large scale genocide. This was planned well in advance. It was planned so well, that as they expected a Godhra carnage to happen very soon. How was this? This means either they were very good at planning or the whole Godhra carnage was a well planned attack. I refuse to see logic in these accusations. Gujarat riots is a pathetic blot on India, but to blame a religious group on the whole for the same thing is not right. As it is not right to label Muslims as terrorists, it is wrong to label all gujarati hindus as Togadias. The movie touched upon a very sensitive topic, to sensitize the issue is very important, not to sensationalize, even if it was the loss of a close friend or relative. When you make a politically charged movie, it is important to be correct if not politically correct. At times one must understand that appeasing is not the only way. There is also a correct way. There was a dialogue in the movie where one says,"I am ashamed I am a Hindu." That more than explains where the movie fails, and where it could have done a lot.


After all this, lots of words of appreciation for the movie, just leave behind the blatant biases, the movie is a good watch, especially for some strong performances by Naserruddin Shah and Sarika. Watch the movie, at times, it helps to keep your brains back during a movie, even if it is a 'art' film. Invariably it is so, I guess.

1 comment:

Roshan said...

I think it is a natural ability of human beings to generalize. When muslims rampaged Bombay, all the muslims were blamed. Fair enough.

Same in Gujarat. Fair enough.

One of the incidents we all need to know what Indonesia is doing with Bali bombers. Re-engage them into the society.

I think as muslims or Hindus every religious scholars, care takers have a moral responsibility to fulfill which in Islam I think is not happening. Hence the blot of violence and intolerance.
Cheers
Roshan Daniel