Watching Rang De Basanti was an experience that left me in a daze. The couplet that flashes at the start of the movie keeps growing on you as the film progresses. I entered the hall expecting a regular youth coming of age potboiler but was in for a jolt. The magic of the movie, cinematic finesse apart, is to bring home the present day significance and necessity of the ideals and passion our freedom revolutionaries represented. I dont know if I got too carried away by the presentation of the movie, but it did make me stand back and stare at myself. We regularly keep hearing about MiG crashes and passing away of our soldiers in ambushes and battles but treat it with a characteristic impersonal attitude. Its funny how such an event hits you hard when you can relate to the person involved. It is then that all the news reports, talk shows, criticism and mud slinging that you take in mechanically otherwise, with an air of a person keeping himself abreast of current events, assumes a whole new dimension. I recall here the character of Paresh Rawal in the Anil Kapoor starrer Nayak, where he remarks that any average Indian's dream involves a good job, a happy family, and a comfy bungalow or flat relaxing on whose terrace, he can remark with an air of concern while reading the newspaper ,"Darling, politics ne is desh ko barbaad kar diya." How true!!
The deft interplay of past and present in RDB helps you to feel the outrage that led youth like Bhagat Singh to become what he was at such a raw age and how the present is crying out for a similar revolution. The question is, has today's youth lost its conviction, passion and fighting spirit. A student travelling in a train today without a confirmed ticket would rather pay off a ticket examiner and travel comfortably than confront the man. The rationale given is, why take the trouble - I can pay the requisite amount anyway and my bravado wont change anything, it would only get a birth to the next briber while I'll be left shivering near the door without a place to sleep. People like Manjunath are looked upon with pity as an upright lad who dared to challenge the system. Such a situation is, at the very least, alarming.
Tears welled up in my eyes numerous times while watching RDB, and I noticed many of my peers were in a similar situation. If somebody can tell a story so convincingly, he deserves kudos. I sincerely hope the message of the movie doesnt get lost and the film is not remembered only as a hit with catchy ARRahman music.
"dhuaan chhataa khula gagan mera
nayi dagar naya safar mera
jo ban sake tu hamsafar mera
nazar mila zara"
