Look Back in Anger to HKA to Black Friday to RDB. Questioning the FEEL-for-CAUSE
I was very confused about this “The-cause” and “art-for-cause” thing. Here, I am just pondering over what I have seen and gone through and trying to find an answere to the doubts in my head…
?????? ? ??? ???, ?? ???? ?? ? ???? ???,
???? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???????? ???
(Even if you don’t win the world, don’t loose yourself,
Just make sure you preserve some anger in your soul)
These lines by nida fazli describe jimmy porter, the prtagonist of Look back in anger the best. Its a 1956 play by John Osborne which was later made into film in 57,I havnt seen the film, here I am just talking about the play that I have read
Jimmy, wanted to be the part a revolution and change the world. He wanted to fight for a cause in the post world war England where the rich were becoming richer and poor poorer. The rich complained that so much has changed and the poor that nothing has. The crumbling economy of state after the world war had filled the educated youth of England with angst, specially the ones who belonged to middle or lower middle class families. Thats what happens with the middle class people, they are learned enough to see whats going on, to identify the real trouble and the trouble makers but at the same time their own own financial condition stops them from reacting. In the end they are left with their angst ridden poetry against the system in which they are halfheartedly trying to make a living. That Half heartedness is eighther becuase of their cynicism or out of their contempt for themself for not having fought for the cause, the real reason, they themselves dont know. That cynicism lead jimmy to finally screwing up his own personal life, his relation with his wife who belonged to the upper strata of the society.
What I loved about Look Back in Anger is the way it portrays a man caught in the difficult times, in the conflict of being a hero of war and a survivor in the real world. His wife says about him, “Jimmy wanted to be the knight in the shining armor, its just that his armor didnt shine too much”. Now when I look at DJ of RDB, I think what was he ,A Kind of a Jimmy porter, who becomes a part of a war and achieves heroism. But the problem I see with those 4 reactionaries in RDB is, all through they were disillusioned, purposeless fellows whiling away their time and life, living in the world of “magnets and miracles” which the safe boundaries of their college provided. And after they do this film on Freedom fighters, they seem to have found a cause,a purpose in life. We all are actually looking for a war to fight for, a war where our abilities can make us win and be a hero. But then these 4 guys are the ones with no evident particular ability, and thus being a revolutionary becomes the easiest thing to do. Thats being unkind on my part but thats the truth for a lot of people who joined the naxalite movement,not all of them were as brilliant as charu Mazumdar who started it. A lot of people who join NGOs and so to say FEEL for a cause are the ones who are looking for a purpose, a CAUSE, a war where there limited abilities can be put to use to make them heroes. In every movement all the people who are a part of it are not focussed men-of-action, most of them are wannabe-martyrs seeking redemption from their confused lives, and they are the people who end up screwing the revolution, their own life and the life of dear ones. If you look at RDB on paper and pen without that wonderful background score, without the camera you actually feel this about those charecters but the problem is that somehow we are not ready to talk about non-heroes. I am not denying the existence of heroes who do change the world but then if I have to look at people like those 4 guys in RDB, I would like to look at them cynically. Well, ofcourse it was Rakesh Mehras take on it, what I am saying here is my point of view. Now if I narrate the story of the film to a friend of mine who hasnt seen the film , I would say, “Its a strory of 4 people who dont know how to look straight in life, who are utterly confused and in an effort to prove a point these young disilusioned guys kill the defence minister because they thought that killing one minister will change the system, and finally even they get killed. Well thats what happens when you dont use your upper story for a long time in life, you end up screwing your life and the life of people around you”. I look at these four charecters with cynicism, I wont sing the song ROOBAROO to underline their heroism.
It just makes me feel that craft helps you in passive lying, what appears contemptible on pen and paper becomes deified when put with AR rehmans composition.
Thats why look back in anger becomes so special, its a story of a waana-be warior who is now living a screwed up life. Probably he is what sidhart tayyabji from HKA will be after the film is over, he will be an anger ridden cynical man with guilt-soaked morality for having screwed up the revolution and his relationship with Geeta. Thats what Jimmy was, except they both belonged to different economic stratas. This is why I find HKA and look Back in anger more honest efforts than RDB.
I thought, why would some one spend crores of rupees and 1 year of his life to make RDB,… to change the world? well, I dont think so. I wondered what did Rakesh mehra tell his team when he started making the film..”Lets change the world” or “We have a product which will sell for sure”. Now if anybody is making films for changing-the-world, then I would suggest him to put his effort and money in making a political party, fight elections and get into the assembly, that will be a more rational and effective way of doing it. Passouts from IIT are doing it, they have a party named Paritrana.
Digressing a bit here into my personal story to ponder over this art-for-cause thing…then I will get to Black Friday
During my B.Tech 1st year I made a play with my seniors on the life of AIDS patients and during the whole process, everybody claimed how much we FEEL their pain and how we wanted to work for the CAUSE. Well, I never felt their pain nor did I work for the cause, I just enjoyed working with one of the most talented people I had met till then, I enjoyed writing the script, I enjoyed writing the poems on the posters,I enjoyed playing the charecter. But all that claim of CAUSE-thing by my revered seniors left me confused. I felt that something is wrong with me, probably they feel something I am not capable of feeling. I was 19 then, trying to figure out the purpose of my post IIT entrance life. Some time later theatre-gang from my college did a lot of street plays to collect money for Tsunami relief fund, I abstained from it. I had put my contribution in the charity box but I was accused of running away from the responsiblity of a theatre person…”this is why theatre is done” kind of thing was told to me. I didnt agree with it. My reason for not being a part of their endeavours was that they all were not doing it in a very creative way. But again I was perturbed, I felt that I lacked some kind of sensibility which others seem to have.
Later I read a play “sir..Sir..Sarla” and I fell in love with the charecter of Fanidhar. I decided that I will direct it but then all those questions started haunting me. What does society get out of it? what social statement am I making? what change am I attempting in the world around me? what insight do I give about the social-political-economic state of our time? And then I asked my self, Do I really want to change anything around me? The answere was difficult to accept, it was NO. I felt guilty about it but I went ahead with sir.. sir.. sarla all the same. After the end of the show, I realised what I have got from it. I played the role of fanidhar, a clumsy, diffident, massochist, martyr-lover filled with rage against the person whom he treated as god for not having helped him in getting the woman he loved. All the time I felt I was just playing myself. And the knowledge of being a fanidhar, this identification with fanidhar stopped me from being a fanidhar. Its like the heisenbergs-uncertainity prinicple in physics, the moment light strikes the elctron to pass on the information about its position, its momentum changes. The time I realised I was a FANIDHAR, I stopped being one. The lover-martyr in me died after the play was over, thats how the play contributed to my life, I dont know how it contributed to the lives of my audience, that was not my botheration eigther.
Coming to Black Friday, Anurag Kashyap has written in his post ( http://passionforcinema.com/black-friday-insecurities/ )
“is that why you made the film mr. kashyap..didn’t you make the film so people will call you a great filmmaker..so they will applaud you,so they will praise you..
i don’t know..
you gotta know..
why did i made the film..i was affected by the book greatly..i had no notion of greatness..hell i just wanted to do it right..half the time i was insecure about my own political maturity..i made life hell for Arindam..i had so many constant doubts that he started getting doubts..at one point we were exchanging letters..showing it to other people for reassurance..there was so much pressure to be right that what seemed wrong was deemed wrong..there was no room for mistakes..
”
thats how I felt for the AIDS play…”so people will call you a great, theatre artist”. Anurag has given a wonderful answere which satisfies a lot of questions, he says “I was affected by the book greatly”. I think thats all, thats reason enough. He never said that he felt the pain
of Badshah khan, or the victims so much that he wanted to change the world. Well the film does sympathise with Badshah khan but it also says to him “Tiger memon made an ass hole of you, because you are one.” Its the same thing, “if you dont use your upper story, you get screwed nd end up screwing a lot of other people”, thats the story of a lots of reactionaries, lots of DJs, lots of Sidhart Tayyabjis,lots of Badshah Khans who FEEL_FOR_THE_CAUSE. I asked him once, how has Black Friday affected you and he said “Gulal was just a romantic film when I had written it before Black Friday, later it became a politcal film”. Anurag himself admits that he was insecure about his political maturity during Black friday, perhaps this is what the film has given him, a more mature understanding of the set up he is living in, and I think thats what your art form does to you, in a way it redeems you. A physics proff once said to me that a student should do science only out of curiosity, only if he is curious to know how it all happens. Now I have come to believe that its true for art also. Its your own curiosity to understand the world you live in, to explore how this place runs and because of this you dig deeper into the system to figure out the political, economic, social truths. Perhaps that is the reason behind Black Friday or Hazaron khwaishein Aisi or
the creation of acharecter like Jimmy Porter. I dont think there was a Feel-for-cause to create them, it was satisfying their own curiosity and enjoying the process of creating it. After watching HKA, I tried to find out about the naxalite movement, about charu Mazaumdar and that 70s time.Tthats what I got from it, curiosity. Same is true for Black Friday.
So, if you keep making films about “pyaar mohabbat coca cola” or about gang lords then it means you are not curious enough to find more about the world you live in.
Now coming to all those people who feel for the cause like DJ and the people who WANT to make people feel for the cause through their art form like Rakesh Mehra. They both share a very interesting relationship. The Rakesh Mehra’s of the world create the real DJ’s of the world and for this they get paid heavily. A lot of romantic patriots were born after watching the film and quiet a few RDB style protests happened, but the only difference was, that during their protests AR Rehman was not playing the background score!!Again I am sounding a bit cynial but I dont intend to offend the subhash chandra bose’s of the world who are very clear about what they are doing!! I find this whole thing of FEELING and making-others-feel very dubious. In a documentary on fidel Castro, one of his friend says about him, “He always said that he wanted to be famous and powerful”. Perhaps we need to look at the movement , the cause behind the movement and the people behind the movement at different levels. The purpose of the movement and the purpose of the people are two different things, we tend to see them as one.
The way we feel and the way we claim to feel is most of the time very different, but calling this difference- hypocracy would be very cliche, I think it is our ignorance of ourself. Forget the revolution, even in terms of human relationships, this difference is there. There is a scene in Five Point someone where Neha is crying infront of her BF Hari, while she talks about how her brother committed suicide and Hari is thinking that “this is a good time to kiss her”. That was being brutally honest!! Never in a film I have seen the meanness of a lover who at the same time is really in love. This meanness is there in every relationship, for a split second a thought crosses your mind that if your mother did die, your life would become easier for you, but then you shudder on it. Unfortunately no one captures that split second thought or that shuddering in a film, in a film mother-son relationship is always heavenly.”Riding the bullet” is one film which does this upto a level.
The whole idea of feeling “love” the way we are supposed to FEEL, gets question marked there. And if you start thinking too much, you end up thinking that all your life you keep feeling things which you thought you were supposed to feel and this sickening thought can drive you crazy, you start feeling that what you feel is not for real.
I never felt like how a revolutionary is supposed to feel, I dont know that feeling at all. Forget the revolution, I have always been accused of lacking compassion by people who confided in me, specially by the women who treated me like a confession box, they always felt that I treated their grief-stricken narrations like interesting stories and when my interest died I wasn’t caring enough. It was initially disturbing to know that I am not “Sensitive”, but now I have come to believe that nobody is, its just that some are good actors and some are not, and not being actor enough while I am being an audience is what hurts me now.
So, with all the doubts on my sensibility and curiosity, I continue to find a purpose behind what I am trying to do…
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
WOw Sumit!
That was an awesome post. Its out there with Sudhir Mishra’s posts. I can totally relate to most of the stuff you said.
“Thats what happens with the middle class people, they are learned enough to see whats going on, to identify the real trouble and the trouble makers but at the same time their own own financial condition stops them from reacting. In the end they are left with their angst ridden poetry against the system in which they are halfheartedly trying to make a living. That Half heartedness is eighther becuase of their cynicism or out of their contempt for themself for not having fought for the cause, the real reason, they themselves dont know.”
So true!
I read it again.
I have to say this is my fav post on PFC ever.
Amazing!
I remember that scene from FIVE POINT SOMEONE!
cheers
thanx mainak. I have a lot to write on this issue..but I felt I have already written a very longish post
The difficulty with these wannabe-martyrs is, that they are indespensible for the revolution. The revolution depends a lot on these Badshah khan kind assholes, but then the leader of the revolution cannot tell them that “dude, you know what..I think you are an asshole”.
The biggest victim of a revolution I think is a person who is a part of it without knowing why
really good one.
read so many of your articles but i must say this is the best one, for you have been able to convey things more clearly.
and, of course, probably for the first time i COMPLETELY agree with what you have said in a post.(thats some achievement for you bro.)
and i will rate this near to b iyer’s articles. (sudjir’s are hard to understand!)
Honest and effective. Please write more.
@smriti
thanx..I will
Sumit,living life as an actor and playing various roles..thats what normal living is all about..People live deceptive lives and never get in touch with their authentic self.In fact they are not even aware of this authenticity..Long time ago i read a poem The Guy In The Glass…In one of its stanzas it says :
You may be like Jack Horner and chisel a plum
And think you are a wonderful guy
But the guy in the glass says you are a bum
If you can’t look him straight in the eye…
Everyone trying to look outwards to adorn a halo of a martyr,to die for a cause without knowing the reasons…well thats how it is..Either Badshah Khans giving way to Jimmy Porters or Jimmy Porters being overshadowed by Peter Keatings of the world.
Your take on it is very comprehensive and though too cynical for comfort, it is a great read…Keep it coming.
@krysh
thanx..
I regret not having written the whole thing now
will write the part 2
Spot on, Sumit! Same here, HKA led me to find out abt the Naxalite mvmnt & abt Charu Majumdar & Kanu Sanyal, BF led me to find out more abt the whole case, led me to read the novel and find out more abt not only the main protgnsts in the movie but also abt the lesser known people like Yaqub Memon, S K Thapa, Yusuf Nalwalla & his cronies. As 4 the rest of ur artcl all I can say is ,it was uncomfortably true and probing!
Sumit…what a sexy post… agree… disagree.. agree.
I also dont belive in cause cinema or whatver u call it. think most people just want to tell intersting stories, nobody sits down with pen n paper thinking about aids n world war n box office n how their films will change the world..dont think so. but yes sometime some stories makes for intrsting cinema..set it those conditions n thus comes the cause. n most of the time,its mostly the audience…how they take it.
RDB…dont think that Mehra n his writer started the film with the intention of changing the new generation. after all it was pop-patriotism…to the tune of a r rahman. no, rehman wasnt there when people protested on streets but tv channels did put the bckgrnd music of rubaru when they showed it. no obejction to that.
also dont think if some losers like Dj n his friends…one day find a cause to die for. heroes r not born. its all abt the situation…now this sounds liek philosophy lecture. sometimes i also feel like taking a gun n shooting some peopl who i think dont deserve to live n may be will end up doing also. ok…thats too much to say. but it does happen. whats the harm in that…may be there is some honesty in those wannabe martyrs also. we dont want to accept that. we dont want to accept those rich spoilt brat to be martyrs…they cant be…its not possible. thats we hav been told.
HKA…if fight club is my relgion then HKA is my philosophy..that thought process that keeps me alive. these r not films. they r much more than that….way of life.
n why somebdy wants to shoot a film..write a story..do a play…only reason is that u dont want to die with that story…film or play. u think u have something intersting that u want to share. nothing more than that. money..name.. fame…evryone gets corrupted once u started getting all these. then u reasons for films, play n story also changes. have seen some of my close freinds.
like those wannabe martyr…hav become wannabe RK i think….with this long comment….
n Sumit…let the world change u first,then u will change the world…with or without ur intention…n with this post, i can c the change someway somewhere…
Hi Sumit
This was a beautiful post and a very nice read. I agree with you wholeheartedly about good films that make us curious about subjects.
I remember I ended up in Wikipedia for a day or two reading up on past boxing champs after watching ‘Raging Bull’. The same happened to me after watching ‘Amadeus’. I never would have read about Mozart that much otherwise…
@phoenexi
A friend of mine said “A revolutinary is born only when his own mother gets fucked”. Yes, when you or ur mother gets fucked u want to shoot some one genuinely, thats true. You become a lost stranded rebel and you react. But then does it always culminate into heroism, that is the point. Not all who join the war are heroes, and my point was that no one while talking about the war talks like this “that hey buddy, be careful, it might be important for you to react but watchout, you might end up being an asshole who gets screwed up. Just keep your head on ur shoulders.” thats what HKA does to u..
@sumit…ur freind may be rite but dont agree. But as sudhir mishra puts it for HKA…its NOT about loving ur parents!!! evryone doesnt think liek that…the world is not always me,mine n myself. heroism,war..thats how we all romaticise it to be..no logic,no thinking n no “watchout” steps. dont c any harm in that. u can sustain for long that way. it doesnt mean just go n die for the sake of dying. keep ur head on ur shoulders n fight for longer time…..fight more…
Wow. Awesome kick-ass post. The poster seems to be a protagonist of a Philip Roth novel. Excellent.
@sumit,yaar tumne mukh ki baat bol diya^:)^^:)^^:)^^:)^^:)^ . its one of the best read on PFC,but i am feeling only one problem that why you guys always wants that every Indian should have IQ level more than 120+,arre bhai sab koi HOWARD ROARK nahi ban sakte hai naa.
Dear Sumit,
I read your post, with all love and regards I have for you. trust me, I enjoyed reading it. I agree to you in lots of points you have mentioned in your nicely written post but on some points I have a different point of view. I’m not saying that one of us is right and other wrong, but I’m saying that we are different.
First of all, I’ld like to pick up the 4 characters of RDB. Now you see (if you remove the craft and cinematography etc.) the way you have described those characters. I’ll like to say that they are the brilliant representatives of our youth, the problems, the issues, the hasstles that we have to face, they face them and so we were able to connect to them. they are fighting the daily battles in their own ways, in their own grounds and then there is a cause in life which shakes them up which coincides with the mean and they follow that. they follow an ideology, they follow a principle, they follow the life style so much so that they become them.
Now if you think that Rakesh Mehra made the film for money or for proving himself as a great film maker rather than feeling for the cause, you might be right. I dont know him personally. If you think that most of young guys after Charu Babu are just aimless fellows, you might be right.
but I’m afraid Sumit, i dont know how many naxalites have u been in touch with, with how many u have ever tried to connect and know what are they heading for, fighting for… Anyways, about Rakesh Mehra, What i gather from you is, if he meant what he tried to convey in that film, he shouldn’t have made that film but followed the path. In case I’m right, i think u should have similar opinion about all the poets of West Bengal, Assam etc. who wrote for revolution, all the theatre groups who have provided us with the greatest of street plays which they performed roaming around the villages. All the painters who played with colors on their canvas for revolution. you are misjudging or not able to understand their point of view.
See a revolution or any faith or any ideology is not about commiting the act of final verdict as an extremist but i think its much more than that. its a kind of meditation that goes along in your mind. its the basic current that flows under whatever you do.
if one is a film maker and believer of something, he’ll make movies on the same.
now, your example of that AIDS play. As you know, I also know the man you are talking about and I’m feeling sorry for you that you couldn’t connect to the word ‘CAUSE’ that he used to use. You are right when you say that the writing script and poetry and playing a role were quite interesting, but in case you’ld have felt what was the idea beneath, you could have reach a state of trance while doind that… whenever you start making a piece of art, you start from an idea in your mind, sometimes those are shaking, sometimes soothing but they are always there. And to get the idea right you must feel the same.
The people involved in that play actually felt for the people suffering from AIDS. and thats where the idea of making a play on the same same subject originated. i’ll not narrate how but it was like that only.
yeah you are right, when you are making a piece of art you can make it for itself or may be for the simple reason that you love doing it or passionate about it. but when you feel greatly about an idea and try to commincate the same through that medium, that medium gets its soul, otherwise it can be a good piece of art where the soul is missing.
Rakesh Mehra, i think, has practiced the ideology in film making. Write a script like RDB and run for Actors and Producers, i think you’ll get to know, he did much more.
So, to finally winding up, I’ld say, Art is just a medium and your idea is a msg and if u cant feel about that msg or idea you cant provide soul to that piece of art… and some people call this idea as ‘Cause’.
putting that ‘idea’ in the medium we love is an effort to serve the cause itself. it by itself is following the ideology. (making RDB and envoking the feeling in so many minds, Rakesh has done the similar or bigger job for the ideology and he doesnt need to do what those 4 guys did to prove that he is the follower of the ideaology).
Love to a thinking and respected soul
- Bose
Sumit, very nice post.:)
But why you have quoted such a superficial novel’s example in such a deep post. FPSO and its character are not something on whom we can build up some solid theory. Impact of Rohinton Mistry and his style on author and his writing!
moreover character of Hari, his so called love affair with Neha, can it be said as bit good love affair. was he ever in love with her? was not it so called love for sake of LOVE because it increases one’s value in a dry campus to have a girl friend or boy friend. For Many (and at present we can say this many will be touching the very high percentage may be more 90%) these so called love relationship are generated out of this Fashionable necessity. Is it really love or to some extent even affection? everybody has, so one should have ?
Moreover Hari so easily opts for sister of Alok, because now Alok earns US$ and owns a Honda City and can give a dowry!
It can be a cheeky statement on whole system by the author but somewhere we search ideal things.
Yes in same way as love affairs are described above, people fall in love with idea of revolutions. It makes them feel good. for example, Sidhartha in HKA. he does not know if he truely believes in the theories of work he has been trying to follow. But yes ground is always present thats why seed is converted in to the crop. Somewhere mind thinks that its good to be associated with such and such fashion and sometimes minds are unable to resist the trend in vogue.
Leave alone Dev Anand who is highly confident person, anyone in glamour business can wear the clothes which they think are comfortable for them? they will go for latest fashion and big logo based clothes, because that brings comfortable situation before them. Its very difficult to be alone and this lack of self confidence pushes majority to people to opt this way or that way. and then sometimes in a lively society its must also. Friction brings some changes.
Not that Jai Prakash Narayan was absolutely right and Indira Gandhi was absoluetly wrong. Conflict occured and that period gave us new crop of some of the most harmful politicians of all times which ultimately ruined the political system of India but we cant avoid such conflicts.
Not that Aurobindo was abolsutely right when he was involved in revolutionary activities (till Bengal was divided) and not that his renunciation of active politics and going to solitude was absolutely right for society but he listened to his heart. when his understanding said he needed to follow revolutionary actions he did that when he felt he needed to go for spiritual journey he did that. we can assess it as we like. we all have to follow that instinct. and this instinct may create some disturbance in the usual running of the world and hence very few can chose unusual path.
Its very easy to praise Bhagat Singh, Neta Ji Bose or Gandhi ji but very difficult to become like them. but when they are active then its relatively easy to follow them because they are more powerful than rest of us and they can lead us. But then there were Millions who did not follow calls of these people. World will go on with this fashion only.
Because ultimately personal growth and personal spiritual growth are the things, matter most to the human being.
FPSO’s author in the book, followed the traits of a particular character to keep shocking value and bit continuity in the thinking of that character but in real life also, relationships are the fire which purifies us. Mind game is different thing and it can think anything but that does not suggest we always follow its thinking. When we can think good thing and bad thing about same person then whats permanent? Its situational thing.
same character who feels at some situation that its good to be free of any kind of relationship may cry for hours because of his solitude.
Inside We are divided in to several pieces and hence we should not go only for one type of conclusion. Till we are alive, possibilities of any kind of changes are there and there are no proto types that we all think alike in same situation. Depending on our conditioning we think.
Dont lovers think sometimes to get rid of each other because somewhere independence is lost but right next moment they long for each other. So in such fast moving thought process, can we make model?
if knowers have said that Mind is a kind of myth and one has to understand its thinking pattern then its not awakward conclusion but then one has to wait when this realisation happens till then we can enjoy conflicts in our lives.
Great post Sumit.:)
RK,
you are making a lot of sense in the comment, it nullifies your inadequacies in the imperialist’s tongue(hehe. chill.)