Five Percent Something...

During my State Bank probation days in 2005, we were relocating from Bengal to North East to join our next branch for training. I was to report at Tinsukia, where I would spend my last one year of probation. Tinsukia, located in the North Eastern part of North-East, was infamous as a belt for frequent insurgency and the few local boys had all words of advise for me, knowing my nomadic ways. The list of the Do’s and the Don’ts were burgeoning.

Saranga pulled me aside and told me, “Manu, Please stay away from the theaters of Tinsukia, especially the ones playing Hindi Cinema”. He was referring to the fact that many of the insurgent groups have an anti-Hindi agenda and they find movie halls playing Hindi movies as soft targets for demonstrating their cause. I nodded. A half-hearted nod. It’s not surprising that I did flout that norm quite a few times. But never more than in 2006 when I landed up in Paradise Cinema four times in three weeks. All to watch the Rajkumar Hirani woven magic named “Lage Raho Munna Bhai”.

Despite not having seen Munnabhai MBBS, I was an instant Hirani Fan and couldn’t wait to check out his next outing. And when his next came out, I skipped it for the first 3 weeks, for more reasons than one. I read Five point Someone (FPS) and found the book as a decent attempt. But blame it on the hype and the resultant high expectations, I did not find it as an exceptional piece of literature.

Even though Hirani claimed before release that the movie is only five percent of FPS, I didn’t like the idea of Hirani adapting the book. The book, despite its undertone of humour, is about three guys who gets run down by the system. Almost all the characters focused in the book had not much of a clue as to what they want and where they are heading. I was not sure how these characters would fit into a Raju Hirani movie.

So, when I ended up at Padma Cinema with my cousin Madhu, I was skeptical whether 3i would leave me half satisfied like FPS. Moreover, rediff had a mediocre review on the movie terming it “Three idiots, Two Stars (on five), One missed opportunity”. My only real hope was the double thumps up that Annie had given the movie.

For three hours, I watched dumbfounded as the magic of 3 Idiots unfolded. Three hours later, I walked out of the theatre with only one thought in mind. “Sorry Raju, I should never have doubted you”.

The controversy surrounding Chetan Bhagat and the producers might have fuelled interest in many, but it did leave me disillusioned even before I saw the movie. Two statements that Chetan Bhagat made through his twitter caught my attention. One, he claimed he should have been given an opening credit under the title “Story”. I agree. He deserved it. Without FPS, there was no Three Idiots.

The second statement was that the soul of the movie was the same of the book. Somehow, I beg to differ. To give credit to Chetan, the book Five Point Someone is a realistic account of what can happen in a premier engineering college in the country. But despite the basic characters and the set up and many situations that could be quoted as similar, the message that the movie tries to communicate is entirely different from the book. I would borrow a cliché and say that 3 idiots is a movie with the heart in the right place.

If FPS was realistic, then three idiots was a fairy tale! With just three films under his belt, Raju Hirani has proved that not many can create a feel good film like him. The movie borrows the idea of the “three struggling outlaws of IIT” and extrapolates it to how they get transformed into three winners. Yes, Hirani movies are about winning, about positive mindset and about how “aal izz well”. They are packed with tremendous amount of positive energy that rubs on to the viewers. His movies professes the right attitude louder than any Dale Carnegie book and he did with one film what Post Graduate Courses in Gandhian Thought at umpteen universities in the country failed to do.

True, there could be skeptics like Raja Sen of Rediff who would argue that many times the movie takes wild turns, with characters outrageously dump logic and listen to their hearts. There are instances when this movie, like all Hirani movies, gets too filmy and you are tempted to ask him whether all this is possible in real life. Hirani will answer this, not with his movies but with his life.

Raju hails from Nagpur and when he went to take up a course in Film & Television Instiutue of India, someone remarked “'Nagpur mein sirf santre (oranges) paida hote hain, directors nahi.”. After learning film editing he tried his luck as an editor in many films, albeit without much success. He shifted to advertising where his talent was recognized. He became a producer and director of numerous ad films and even appeared in this famous Fevicol ad!

Then he did the unthinkable. In three idiots, you see Madhavan dumping his Campus Interview at the Engineering college to take up his dream of becoming a wildlife photographer. If you thought that it was crazy, then consider this: Hirani was making big in the ad business and one day he just stopped. His ambition in life was to become a film maker and he didn’t want to forgo his dream. At a time when his table was piling up with ad scripts, he took a one year break from ad films and wrote the script of the movie that he wanted to make. The rest, as they say, is Munnabhai!

One thing is for sure, Raju Hirani is here to stay. Delivering a first time wonder has happened many a times. The greatest movie of all time Citizen Kane was directed by 26 year old Orson Wells who wouldn’t do another movie worth a mention in the same breath. But Raju Hirani not only created a cult with Munnabhai MBBS, but has successfully carried the momentum into his next movies. This guy has style, he has class and he seems to be in complete control of what he does

I am looking forward for many more Rajugiris.

Post Script: Raju has said that he wanted to redefine the word “idiot” through this movie. Lipika calls me idiot every other minute and I never knew that it had such a wonderful interpretation. Ah, that reminds me that while Lipika calls me idiot, Deepa finds me stupid and Rani loves to call me moron. I wonder who among the three is right!

'Irom' Lady of Manipur…

Rani and I were discussing about the Quiz that we are conducting in Palakkad Kendriya Vidyalaya for Republic day. I tell her “We can have a question on Irom Sharmila.”. Unsurprisingly, pat came her question “Who?”

I explain “The Manipuri lady who has been fasting since 2000 for the repeal of a legislation that gives the army unlimited powers in the North East.

She wondered “How come a person is fasting for almost 10 years and I don’t know her. But a guy fasts for 10 days in Hyderabad and the whole world talks about it.”

True. How unfair. How cruel. To track this story we have to take a flash back to a 9/11.

The Indian Government passed the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) on September 11, 1958 to confer special powers on the Indian Army in “disturbed areas” namely Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. The Act allows the army to use force, shoot, or arrest anyone without warrant, on the mere suspicion that someone has committed or was about to commit a cognisable offence. It gives Army officers legal immunity for their actions. There can be no prosecution, suit or any other legal proceeding against anyone acting under that law. Nor is the government's judgment on why an area is found to be "disturbed" subject to judicial review.

The Act has been under the cloud of suspicion from the time it has been implemented. If the Act itself was Draconian in spirit, the impact of the actual implementation has been much severe. Even official sources put the number of people who died during the last three decades of AFSPA at twenty thousand in the state of Manipur alone. While the objective was to curb insurgency, the Act has indeed only created more and more insurgent outfits in the Area.

It is into this turbulent state of Manipur, that Irom Chanu Sharmila was born in 1972 as the youngest of the nine daughters of an illiterate Grade IV worker in a veterinary hospital in Imphal. Since childhood she had an active interest in poetry and after doing her course in journalism she took an internship with an organisation Human Rights Alert, Imphal. She was an ordinary girl, hailing from a non-descript family with a dormant social concern. And that was till 04th November 2000.

The day after an insurgent group had bombed an army column, the Indian paramilitary force Assam Rifles, retaliated by gunning down ten innocent people waiting for a bus at Malom, a small town in Manipur. The incident later came to be known as the Malom Massacre and the causality included a 62 year old lady and a boy who was a National Child Bravery Award winner. There was wide spread agitation for inquiry into the killings which the Army rejected citing protection of the AFSPA.

The next day the then unknown Irom Sharmila started a fast until death at the site of the killings at Malom. The demand was for the immediate repeal of the AFSPA. No one had any clue about the resolve of this 28 year old girl and everyone shrugged this off as a minor incident in a state where there is no dearth for drama. Three days later she was arrested under the charge of attempting to commit suicide. Even under custody, she would not take food or water. To keep her alive, the police forcibly started nasogastic intubation (feeding liquids of minerals, vitamins & protein supplements through a plastic tube inserted through the nose, past the throat, and down into the stomach). This is how Irom Sharmila has been kept alive for more than 9 years in solitary confinement as a high security prisoner.

Sharmila is kept under arrest being charged under Section 309 of the Indian Penal code according to which “a person who attempt to commit suicide is punishable with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year”. So at the end of every one year period she is being released as a ritual and then arrested again and kept in custody for another year.

In 2006 October, when she was released, her brother and a friend kept her away from media and security person for a day. The next day, she was literally smuggled out of the state and they landed in Delhi. In an attempt to draw national attention into the issue, she went to the Rajkhat to pay homage to Gandhiji whom she termed as her idol. She was arrested again and was taken to AIIMS.

She still lies in solitary confinement at AIIMS not having eaten anything, or drunk a single drop of water for more than nine years, being forcibly kept alive by the painful process of nasogastic intubation. Doctors have said that her bones have become brittle. Her body is wasted inside and her menstrual cycles have stopped. But if there is something that she has not lost, then it is her resolve and her determination. She has written repeated letters to the President, Prime Minister and Home Minister, but without getting any replies.

The Government of India appointed Jeevan Reddy Committee in 2004 to review the Act and the committee concluded that the “AFSPA should be repealed without losing sight of the desire of an overwhelming majority of the people in North East that the Army should remain, but the Act should go". But the Government did not implement the recommendations on the Committee. Instead, In December 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared that the AFSPA would be amended to make it more humane.

United Nations Human Rights Committee, as early as in 1991 has questioned the validity of the AFSPA and termed it against the provisions of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In March 2009, UN Commissioner for Human Rights Navnetham Pillay asked India to repeal the AFSPA which she described as "dated and colonial-era law that breach contemporary international human rights standards.” But AFSPA remains in its original form.

So, we come back to Rani’s question, which prompted this post. How come we don’t know Irom Sharmila? How come this “unparalleled feat in the history of political protest” has been missed by the hundreds of newspapers, by the plethora of news channels, and more importantly, by the conscience of India. The very country that produced Gandhiji.

Iranian Nobel Peace Laureate and Human Rights Activist Ms. Shirin Ibadi told this to media in 2006 "If Sharmila dies, Parliament is directly responsible. If she dies, courts and judiciary are responsible, the military is responsible… If she dies, the executive, the PM and President are responsible for doing nothing… If she dies, each one of you journalists is responsible because you did not do your duty”.

My blog was inactive for long. May be laziness, may be procrastination, may be lack of topics. But for someone who has lived for more than three years in North East and has (in my little ways) atleast tried to touch the soul of the region, I have failed in my duty for not having written this earlier.