The reason why I write seldom is because it is only once is in a great while that you get to see something that evokes your thought, makes you listen or stand up…..Of all the easiness we spend our lives with living off Bacardi, Levi’s and behind Honda wheels we fail to acknowledge that infact our craniums have been pillaged of every gottdamn grey cell that could make us feel for the unprivileged sections of our own society.
Humans are by nature social beings but how much of a society is quantifiable in his nature. I was watching a movie “Black Hawk Down” which is about the US forces going into Somalia to counter internal terrorism, and Eric Bana (Aussie Actor) when asked what makes him go back again into the war site even after being injured replies “It’s about the men next to you”…..Is it only about that?
Lately I saw a very different Hindi movie “Summer 2007”, starring Gul Panag amongst a few other new actors. The movie is about five close med school friends – Mother T, Rahul, Pepsi, Kats and Bangani who are in the final year at college. Rahul plans to escape with his friends so as to evade the ongoing elections by taking a 1 month rural stint near Goa. The idea was to purchase their training certificates from the center incharge and then speed off to Goa for a month. However the story takes a very interesting turn after they meet Mukhya (Ashutosh Rana) – the incharge who wants ten grand a head to let them off. The five smell troubles brewing in the village, and themselves get a flavor of it time to time. Though it takes time they get to know that the villagers are pillaged and their women folk raped for not repaying petty loans taken from the village lender. The revolt churns up as a Bengali man Sankhya comes to the village to educate the poor villagers of the concept of micro-finance and the fact that they pay as much as 3000% as interest p.a. on the principal to the lender is purely a tact to keep them paying till eternity. Sankhya is often targeted, beaten up and at one point interacts with the five friends. It is then that meds understand the work Mukhya & Sankhya are upto, and start helping them. Finally, they manage to save Sankhya at the cost of Mother T’s rape, Mukhya’s death and four murders by Rahul (whose life changes forever). Infact the last twenty minutes sting the audience and as conclusion the movie tells the number of people committing suicide or being forced killed due to hefty loans and the torture by moneylenders.
For the odd bloke in the movie hall, this may seem to be only a drama to assess the potential of Micro-Finance, a concept by Nobel Laureate Md. Yunus however the impact that lingers on our minds is that there’s a different story behind every grain that goes down our food pipe, a tale of misery behind every rural produce. It’s not always naxalites, LTTE and Maoists who kill sometimes people who are educated like us kill for the greed that takes us nowhere. So simply said “A man comes with nothing and leaves with nothing” is an intricate theory to be memorized by us, no one asks you to give up material desires but flame within a desire to help mankind which starts with “the men next to you”….Lets make a change….Lets kill the tumours in our heads that cause more violence and terror than any arms or ammunition known to man….
