Category: Articles

Being Superman

Published on by Harpreet Chhachhia2 Comments

I was just talking to my boyfriend about what people do and how they would be perceived at doing something. I think there is a world of difference between doing something for the sake of doing it because it makes one feel good, and doing something for the accolades and the recognition one earns on the way.

My aunt, for example, has been diligently teaching children from sections of society that do not have the means to get taught. She has never talked about it for the reason of getting applause. She teaches. Students learn. Simple. My writing about it here may gain her appreciation, but again, this is a by the way.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not dissing the fact that fame can be used for a cause and also that a cause can bring in fame, that’s all well and done, but sometimes, it’s not necessary for Superman to bring down a plane and save hundreds of lives, sometimes, sometimes, it’s nice when he picks up a cat stuck high up in a tree and bring it down to the scared, little girl waiting for it, under the tree. No camera. No applause. Just Superman being Superman.

As Gandalf says, “Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage.”

But apart from Bilbo’s journey, one of the heroes I shall always admire and respect is Samwise Gamgee. I think why should by now be understood.

Becoming Gollum

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I have been sitting here, at my computer, reading messages coming to and fro from friends, people who used to be friends, family and wondering what it means to be a part of a community. Over the years, this sense of community has changed. I began life as a Sikh boy, loved by the women in his family, and probably, one male who happened to be my paternal uncle. I didn’t realise it then but the lack of male affection would play a large part in my psycho-sexual development. Family then was made up of these strong, Amazonian women – much like on the island of Themyscira. Loved and nurtured and protected.

 

Realising I was gay was not a gradual process, probably one of semantics; but never of nature or impulse. Sometimes, I wonder if life would have been simpler, if I would have been able to be sexually driven towards the opposite sex. Who knows? I sure as hell grew up with a very comprehensive knowledge of the workings of women. But hold on, I must correct myself, straight women. Because we all have breeds and distinctions, Lucy Davis, of course is very different from, say, Antiope. I have been rapped on the knuckles for not seeing that difference as a difference, very recently. I shall acknowledge and accept the difference, for straight men are quite different from gay ones.

 

I will however, be speaking my mind here and people who think that I am being politically incorrect and/or disrespectful can keep their thoughts to themselves. There are just about so many arguments that one can bear regarding martyrs and their complexes. But I digress and this is the last simile to an apology that I will be professing.

 

So, straight people are different from gay people. Naturally. We have our own problems. Then there are communities within communities. Let me just talk about the gay ones. We have a whole plethora of them. Each having their own issues and their own journeys. I begin by taking on the victim complex myself, hell, if you got things to cry and rant about, Let me partake in similar masochism. Or is it sadism? Who can tell the difference these days?

 

I learned that every path of every human being is their own and no one, no one gets to judge that. I learned this while being beaten by my father. I learned this when I was ostracized from groups who wanted to play games. I learned this when vendors would grab my arse because it had a swing in it when I was younger. I learned this when I learned to remove that sway from my arse and walk ‘how men should walk’. (No one pointed out how men should walk though – there were variations there, too.) I learned this when I saw how men treated men, women treated women, men treated women, women treated men, children treated children, and – well, you get the gist. Humanity sucks.

 

The third gay man I met broke my heart. I mean, all of you who have had your heart broken, and that’s one claim that everyone knows how to make, know how that can suck. The group that helped me, the only one that did, and I did reach out to the one already known, was the one that was just forming. Its first hundred members then. They helped. They helped by being there. By bringing a shattered self-esteem back, bit by bit, a kind word, a compliment, a pass and laughter. There was a lot of laughter back then. A lot of it. Sigh.

 

It had its first drag party in ’98. Everyone dressed up in drag. Even from the group that had let me down, they were there, too. Everyone knew how to adjust – or was I too young to notice what was happening, too ignorant of innuendo and malice? Or maybe too blind to what humanity has always been capable of? All said and done, I believed I had found a place to be and grow.

 

I did grow. I found love. I found company. Friends. I found that my family was a brilliant family and they had a place in this new-found company that eventually became family, too. When I had a heart break again, it was not as severely felt because I had so many shoulders to lean on and so many other avenues to which I was brought into.

 

Lights fade. Fights happen. There comes a time when even Frodo refuses to drop the Ring into the flames. And you go, “what the fuck?!” I realized that money matters to a lot of people. I realized that money does make the world go around. And in reality, the Ring does win. Human beings can be capable of the most terrible horrors. Rods in vaginas, puppies been thrown from buildings, infants being raped, homosexuals being tied to fences and left to the elements, friends turning on each other for profit margins, families breaking apart over property and again, money.

 

Time wore on, relationships I had hung my faith on, shattered. Ultimately, faith, itself, shattered. I began seeing the world askance, away from the rose tints of equality. There was no such thing as equality. So, I turned to diversity. The thing I so unwillingly mention in the first paragraph itself. Straight women are different from gay women, gay boys are different from straight boys. Well, huzzah, for diversity, huzzah for all the colours in the rainbow. Somewhere over the rainbow remains a song, I don’t think the somewhere is the destination, Dorothy had it right: we aren’t in Kansas anymore. (Thankfully?)

 

I stuck to ideals for a couple of decades. You know the spiel: loyalty, fidelity, honour, code, right, left, yada yada yada. When I hit my late thirties, I realized that it’s all a crock to bring about some mimicry of civility, an act in which you can either gain thunderous applause, or get booed off stage – either way, you go back to your dressing room and rub the make-up off and go back to a bed, misunderstood and spent.

 

You see, the people who said you could look to them for help, turned their backs. The ones who said you were good enough, found other people who were better. The ones you sheltered in your home, offering them food, and solace (don’t forget the fucking solace), said that they never needed you, in the first place. They didn’t know what they were thinking back then. But, fucktards, if you could think, and decipher your cock from your arsehole, you wouldn’t have needed me to point the two apart, would you have? You can’t blame me for pointing to your cock, if you don’t have it now, can you?

 

I was thinking in the depths of what now appears to be nothing where there was a facsimile of a soul leaves much to be desired in the constraints of action. Everything has become a little worse than Death. When mom faced cancer, we strove against it. But what do you know, there are things worse than Death. For all those naysayers and peeps who talk about how Padmavati didn’t need to walk into a pyre, don’t really know what they are on about. The Nazgûl exist. The blades, they pierce virtue with, exist. The wounds they leave behind exist. There is no Glorfindel to carry you over the Bruinen. The real fuck up is that Valinor doesn’t exist. Frodo, in this day and age, is essentially fucked. All that’s left to him is to become Gollum – look out, here comes the video game.

 

Padmaavat

Published on by Harpreet Chhachhia4 Comments

Let me get this clear right at the onset: I am not a Sanjay Leela Bhansali fan. I believe, after Khamoshi, he didn’t do a lot in terms of bringing a really good script to life, with masterful characterization and nuances in human behavior. I have believed he is a virtuouso in creating sets and rendering a brilliant colour palette on screen with the vision of an operatic DOP; apart from that, his story-telling technique failed to make me see how he has been compared to K. Asif and Mehboob Khan.

That being said, I have watched his movies, trying in vain to find the elements that people find and save a few grandly depicted scenes, I was left shaking my head. Then the furor about his latest venture, Padmavati, now Padmaavat, made the democratic principle valid and I had decided to support the movie by being one of the first to watch it.

I did.

I write this blog entry because I feel the movie deserves all the good reviews it can get. So, without further ado, I dive in. If you are not interested in spoilers (but we all know how the movie is going to end…) please do not read further.

The film is based on Rani Padmavati, a legendary Hindu Rajput queen, written about in Padmavat, an Awadhi language epic poem written by Sufi poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi in 1540. A lot from this epic hasn’t been used in the film, for example, the talking parrot Hiraman, which made me a little sad, and the beginning of the movie wasn’t what I expected. I didn’t expect the Sinhalese princess to be running through the trees like Tauriel from The Hobbit, chasing a deer. But it is Sanjay Leela and I expected that the film would require a lot of artistic liberties. Of course, most film makers who deal with recreating epics and epic fantasies should know arrows shouldn’t be pulled out but be pushed through. But I digress, with this being my final lament about accuracy.

Padmavati becomes the wife of Ratan Sen (called Rawal Ratan Singh in later legends), the Rajput ruler of Mewar. Here, begins my journey to being impressed. Sanjay Leela Bhansali doesn’t remove the existence of Nagmati. In fact, it is in the due footage given to the ancillary characters that the film gets an all-rounded perspective and lustre. Nagmati’s struggle as the first wife and yet not the favoured or the more beautiful is well depicted. The struggle resolves without words as she follows Padmavati into her own end in fire.

In 1303, Alauddin Khilji, the Turko-Afghan ruler of the Delhi Sultanate, laid siege to the Chittor Fort in Rajputana. In the depiction of this potentate, the film takes its own darkness. What is a film without a good villain?

Ranveer Singh’s performance as Khilji takes on its own merit by the sheer dominance of character and the creation of it by the actor. Barbarism and carnal sexuality that must be tempered by all that is beautiful in the world are the features that Ranveer imbues into the portrayal. He has very little to help except his own personality. He has no great costumes or sets to support his aura; but from the beginning of the film with him striding in, demanding the hand of Mehrunissa, to the sword play between him and Ratan Singh he creates a monolithic presence filled with raw strength and political caprice.

According to Padmavat, Khilji led the invasion motivated by his desire to capture Padmavati. The depiction of this heroic queen is untainted by her flying through trees in the first few scenes. Once married, the manifestation of being a very beautiful woman, dedicated to and wholly in love with her husband shines forth. Costumes, jewellery, make-up all form an intricate mix to create this character. Deepika has done justice to the role and has carried the depiction with élan, grace and dignity. She shines in the very last scenes, where she has no dialogue, but the last shred of her husband, as she walks through the rugged fort towards the pit of fire. She nailed it with a look. Brilliant!

Shahid did the best with what he was offered. Through the movie, he had very little to do except be the hero to the eponymous heroine of the movie. Personally speaking, it is, in the final duel, against Khilji, that he shines. Shahid is a dancer, and SLB has used this very beautifully. His movements against a barbarian who only knows how to hack and maim, are positively graceful. Note his feet as he moves around, they fly and drop. His whole aspect shines in this sequence, and we realise what he could have done, if the world lived by the code of honour and grace, beauty and chivalry.

As mentioned earlier, apart from the principal three, the supporting actors have supported the entire enfolding drama splendidly. Mehrunissa, played by Aditi Rao Hydari, speaks of the anguish of a woman who has no say against a despotic husband, but who rebels in the saving of Padmavati and Ratan Singh – and one cannot fail to think about her journey of loving a tyrant and defying him, when she realizes the futility of her love.

Most surprising was the nuanced performance of Jim Sarbh playing Malik Kafur, Taj al-Din Izz al-Dawla, a eunuch who became the slave-general of Khilji. Jim Sarbh has done a worthy job, though I think the character asked of a more beautiful young man. Whether or not the relationship was historically a sexual one, SLB plays a tricky ball game, by making Malik love Khilji, but Khilji being incapable of love, looks only to him for counsel that ‘always proved appropriate and fit for the occasion’. I said I was surprised because the relationship that SLB portrays here is layered. He has Malik referred to as Khilji’s ‘begum’ by the Rajputs, and yet in the same sequence gives Malik Kafur the standing of a general brave enough to be the sole messenger into enemy territory. There are wonderful dialogues between Khilji and Kafur about unrequited love.

The cinematography takes the scope of the story and yet doesn’t go overboard with it. There are typical shots of war with the enemy clans descending on each other, but the ones to note are the pan shots of single characters walking across the expanse of the screen. Every scene becomes a journey to someone. The lighting is subdued, never harsh, giving the heroic characters a halo and the negative characters a shadow. The songs are unnecessary. Not one remains with you. But the background score is haunting and the one dedicated to Padmavati is riveting in its beauty – a fit descant for a beautiful woman who unwillingly sparked a war and knew how to willingly end it.

The movie is definitely worth a watch. The story doesn’t flag, the pace doesn’t lessen. There are very few moments that seem out of place and they end in the first few minutes of the film. Once the movie picks up in pace, it is unfailing leading up to its crescendo.

***

A note worth mentioning:

A few days ago, I read a brilliant review, feminist in its take and filled with a certain angst that has taken over the modern day world. After reading this, I looked at the movie from how the modern day woman would see it. I remembered the final scenes of the movie and how beautifully they were shot, and I remembered the pregnant woman and the fact that I averted my eyes from the screen. The second time I did that was when Deepika was walking straight into the fire.

For me then, the scenes were laced with a grim pathos, apart from the beauty depicted. I realised what the reviewer meant. I saw the scenes then as someone who was ignorant of a larger world view, where honour and chastity were strict conventions, unbending in their will and nature. I grew morose. I pulled down this review. But then I spoke to my partner, and he brought some perspective from a different angle.

I looked at the movie as what it was: a movie. Based on a poem. Depicted in the best light possible in terms of technique, cinematic skill and artistry. I didn’t see the need to ascribe any social message to it, especially since the furor regarding this very same movie was regarding a conventional social message. I looked at the movie, the way a movie should be looked at. It had no message to entail, except for the narration of a story, like one my grandmother would tell me with no great agenda in mind, but to entertain and disseminate the aspect of humanity.

There are manifold issues involved here, of course. The issue of whether she should have chosen death over dishonour, the issue of how such a choice was celebrated by the movie, the issue of a woman’s right to be. But then, I could talk about my belief in euthanasia, about abortion, about how it is the choice of a person to do what he wills with his own life, and the fact that she did, indeed, have a choice, and she did, indeed, choose.

The movie, like most Hindi movies, was a movie I watched just to entertain and not to have an agenda in mind – except perhaps the right to freedom of expression. And I exercise the same right by keeping this review in place.