Friday Night Entertainment

My mind operates on this very basic thumb rule… “Thou shalt not indulge in anything cerebral or wise once thou art back from work.” The rationale behind this is simple. I do extremely brain-taxing work during the course of the day therefore once I am back home, I earnestly try to do everything that any self-respecting editor of a serious publishing house should not. On television, I prefer watching dumb blondes and their counterparts (because they reaffirm my faith in myself and my existence), and inane travel shows where the host is so well decked up that it’s a challenge even watching her breathe let alone navigate a trekking trail. In terms of books I prefer reading Stephen King and the like (because abnormal as it may sound, I actually find horror rather soothing and therapeutic), and when it comes to conversations, the cornier the better!

Now that you have this excellent insight into my life, you will still agree, after reading this post that is, that tonight has been exceptionally brilliant. Simply because of the astounding thing I managed to catch on television.

This was the last twenty minutes or so of the fairly recent film Chingari. Initially when I saw the promos and noticed that the director was Kalpana Lajmi (of Rudali fame) and that the lead actors were Sushmita Sen (she certainly comes across as one of the intelligent people in the Hindi film industry) and Mithun (three time National Award winner after all), my interest was certainly piqued. But not so much that I went to check it in the theatre. And today when I finally saw the film, or whatever part of it, I was so glad for my rare display of wisdom.

From what I could make out, the film is based in a village where Sushmita is a prostitute, and lives in the local red light area with her miscellaneous companions/colleagues and daughter. Mithun is the village priest who wears only red, waves his shawl often in the air (don’t ask why), and is into big time mumbo-jumbo because every time he appears on screen the background erupts into a cacophony of mantra-chanting! He exercises spiritual control over the innocent villagers although shows no such restraint himself when he is bed-ding Sushmita. Enter our hero, I do not know his name and you do not need to either because he dies eventually. And of all the things to be, he is an emancipated, modern postman. Our dude here falls for Ms Sen and at the same time tells the villagers to rise up to Mithun da and his terrorism. But you think stray speeches by unknown heroes will bring about M’s fall? Hah! Think again.

One fine evening, Mithun gathers every lathi-wielding goon he can manage, and surrounds hero. Hero puts up brave fight, manages to give inspiring speech, yet is treacherously killed. Much grief follows but not forever. Screechy, eyeball-rolling and eyeball-rotating heroine now rises to the surface, gathers millions of villagers (seriously, at some parts it does look like a million!) and then? She proceeds to wear a dholak, then beats it continuously, sways to its rhythm, lets her long hair fly around her head like scary halo, and leads the villagers towards evil priest’s den. Evil priest hears the news, gathers his bunch of goons again, waves shawl (grrr) yet again, and marches towards angry lady and her junta.

Now comes the best part of the movie. Angry lady and wary villain circle each other, in a very dog-in-the-bone- fashion. That used to be such a fun game I remember! Childhood is such a brilliant time of one's life. But I shouldn't get distracted. Coming back to the story... so everywhere around and behind the dog-in-the-bone game players, huge and dramatic fight is on. Villagers are chopping each other, hysterical women like Ila Arun are gesticulating in the air, but still our players are not distracted. What concentration! What devotion! What love for the game! And all the while the game is on, Sushmita continues doing her little jig of beating dholak and swaying to it. Finally, she has had enough of dholak dance, after all even her worked-to-perfection arms need rest, so she pulls off dholak and throws it on Mithun’s head. I mean, come on lady! You got tired so you will throw something that big and huge on your opponent’s head? That’s no way to play!

Predictably enough, Mithun collapses but there is much revenging still to be done. So Sushmita pulls out trishul. What? What are you asking? Where did the trishul come from? It was resting in one of the hands of Kali, whose statue was on the very same podium where dog-in-the-bone game was on. So Sushmita lifts trishul, Mithun is on the ground, already waiting for divine justice for all his crimes, and then the best part, Sushmita sticks out her tongue in Kali style and trishul goes straight into villain’s abdomen. And everybody around them stops doing what they were doing and stares in various degrees of shock, silence, boredom, couldn’t-care-less, FO with it. Ah, all’s well that ends well.

The only saving grace of the evening? Back to back conversations with two of the smartest, brightest and nicest nineteen-year-olds I have ever had the privilege of knowing…Richa and Rohit. Thank you!