Movie Review: Road to Sangam

Road to Sangam:

An attempt at demystifying grass root Islam

It somehow seems like every other unconventional Hindi movie these days is aligned to either showcase Mumbai's undeniable spirit as a city that has seen the heights of mass peril or to herald a pro-Muslim message to those who might not already have heard it. Of the two, if we take a look at that rather colorful array of movies that have attempted to paint Islamic fundamentalism in a shade more palatable to the untrained layman palette, some great examples ('Aamir','Sarfarosh'), some decent instances ('Anwar','Yeh Hai Mera India','Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan') and some Herculean debacles('My name is Khan', 'Kurbaan') come to the foreground. Whilst all the aforementioned movies had varying degrees of success with portraying the life and times of an ordinary Muslim in today's India, there has never really been an attempt to juxtapose the Muslim community against Gandhi's backdrop. For that, 'Road to Sangam'(RTS) has my respect.

Now, I am not a hardcore Gandhian. I have read abundant material on the man, exhaustive literature on his legend and certainly seen a dozen variations of his mantra in recent celluloid years. Notwithstanding my personal views of the Mahatma, I was getting a tad frustrated at how almost every movie that used him as the nucleus, would invariably get so sugary at one point that one could die instantly from that lethal injection of diabetic shock. His message of global peace, non-violence and inter-communal brotherhood would be echoed way beyond the subtle reality it so desperately needed. Thus, making an erstwhile honest attempt, seem preachy and philosophical.

What makes RTS more authentic in such a stereotypical scenario is how it attempts to demystify the reasons why Maulwi saahibs and other patriarchal Muslims are screaming from atop mosque enclosures and what the everyday worker is hearing sitting in front of them, convinced that they know more about what being a true Muslim is. RTS dissects that so neatly that it takes your breathe away.

The premise revolves around Hashmatullah (Paresh Rawal), a renowned mechanic and a devout Muslim, who works out of his grease stained garage in Allahabad. He is the general secretary of his community's organization which is headed by one time friend Mohammad Ali Kasuri (Om Puri) and the local Maulwi Maulana Qureshi (Pavan Malhotra). Hashmat is a non-threatening fellow who sits in on rhetorical meetings spilling with the irate and cranky Maulwi's never ending rants about how Muslims are being targeted each day in today's India. Despite his ideology that are slightly different from that of his peers, he does not see the need to voice his philosophy in their presence. He nods his head, joins in their hymns and plays his role to the T.

And then one day a bomb goes off. A few prominent Muslims are arrested by the police and this sends shocks of rage across the community. They unanimously agree to shut down their businesses in protest of what they are convinced is a racist act. Hashmat, without a choice, reluctantly joins in not realizing that a recent project that has come his way, of fixing an age old Ford's rusty and dead engine, is in fact of the same vehicle that had once carried the Mahatma's ashes after his death in 1948. This, for a reason he cannot completely fathom, changes Hashmat's priorities.

On the one hand he does consider himself a true follower of the Koran and a blue blooded supporter of his organization. On the other, there is his conscience that continues to prick him into the confession that his little deed of helping the Mahatma's final bounty of ashes to be submerged into the Triveni Sangam (a spot where the rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati meet), somehow seems like a more justified statement of Muslim being a faith of peace, rather than shutting off work and listening to a radically inclined Mullah each day. Thus, aware of the respect he knows he needs to pay to the man who was assassinated for being an open supporter of the Muslims, Hashmat prepares to face the wrath of his own kin by reopening his shop to fix the engine. Hashmat's personal journey of awareness lit brightly by the knowledge of the true meaning of Islam culminates with the Mahatma's final journey into the rivers of the country he fought so hard to liberate.

RTS is no average emotion-heavy movie that is high on religious jingoism without a clear degree of practicality. In fact, it is the most mature movie I have seen on the subject after 'Aamir'. If 'Aamir' was the attempt to present the true anti-thesis of a Jihadi, 'Road to Sangam' paves the way for more clarity on the difference between blind fanatic adherence to one's faith and the need to see the bigger picture. That bigger, brighter, and more appropriate picture.

I would definitely recommend a relevant film like 'Road to Sangam' purely because of the honesty with which it unfolds its theme.

RATING: 4 out of 5

About big J and bigger G

Amid the furor that the lotus stamped political goliath called Ba.Ja.Pa is now creating, something about the root based connection of the big J and bigger G – the founding fathers of the unplanned non-anesthetic abortion called ‘partition’ – made me giggle in hilarity. The article, which now fails to remind me its source, mentioned in passing that both J and G belonged to the same western chunk of blood and tear soaked earth that ironically has a hard time seeing a single day of whatever it is either of these two men remain popular for. Be that as it may, the fact that certain big lads up in Ba.Ja are screaming foul about the neighboring J and quoting local G’s views about him furiously is rather amusing. The fact that certain maniacal shadows of our nation’s infamous, and certainly ill timed, birth still continue to loom large is a rather daunting realization. We survived their rath yatras, the mosque demolitions, the riots, the bombs, the rapes and definitely the speeches. O! For the sake of all that is divine – the speeches! Back in the day when the Ba.Ja’s icon Va-Ja was the PM, it would take him a good hour to get through the first paragraph of his multi-hued discourses before lacing it delicately with some poetic essence only he could appreciate. Once the slow moving leader passed on to the back seat at five meters an hour speed, the more irate ones with the busy balding foreheads took charge and now sit on the top issuing dismissal letters to those who even smile at someone from across the barbed wire fence, let alone someone who decides to pen something appreciative about big J! Blasphemy!

Maybe it was the invariable concatenation of these two immensely popular folklore heroes in their own right that had me amused, but I suddenly was reminded of the time there was a giant uproar of a similar nature when a foreigner wanted to auction off some of old big G’s older, albeit worthless, belongings. What a race had ensued by our powers that be to ensure we safely secured what was rightfully ours! My O my! I had in fact read a dozen blogs that discussed and debated the whole issue of why they – as if it was divine intervention – would never allow a single atom of his blessed being outside the land he helped become free! Sigh. Sad but true. We Indians will never understand irony, I remember feeling back then. We put the G on every possible place in the country except in our lives. We put him in songs, in stories, in movies, in ads, in posters, in statues, on stamps and heck, even outside liquor shops. Everywhere but in our own routine. Tch tch. Too much G to sustain, eh? Sorry. Can’t be. We ensured that whatever the heck the man had once mouthed through his toothless voice into the ears of millions of people worldwide was regularly ignored and crucified with aplomb. We’ve now in fact also ascertained that he is religiously garlanded on the only two days that matter to us in his context – birth and death - while going on with our humble non-G lives in between. Will this circus ever end? I have no idea. Maybe it is not supposed to!

I don’t understand politics. Never have and neither am I keen to. But the fact that something as basic as ‘freedom of expression’ is controlled by leading so-called ‘political parties’ in the nation without any regret is just plain silly. And the gall we have to say that we are democratic enough to allow each person to opine. Bah! Keeping G’s context, anyone seems to get the license to fire, threaten, harm or even lynch anyone else. This is what I found rather bizarre considering the people we fight about today are long gone and have left behind so much mess that no amount of in-fighting can help clear. Somehow these visits to the ghost’s lair seem to be rather counter productive.

But well, I am no one. Maybe big J’s mention in the nation is indeed a bigger threat to us than acknowledging bigger G’s long forgotten legacy that continues to plead for our attention. Who knows? Maybe someone who will read this piece will go ahead and label me too as a J supporter just because I didn’t praise G enough? I am not sure anymore. I am really not.

Sigh.

[Father's Day] - About a not so 'Mahatma' Gandhi

Father's Day - yet another day we have come to appreciate thanks to the West. Now, sure, it is only natural that we celebrate this day honoring the many achievements and feats of our adoring fathers. The ones who cleaned our behinds as an infant and our mess as teens. The ones who treated us with a strict hand while becoming our friends once our footwear sizes became the same. Our good old daddies.

But then, much like I had done on Mother's Day (where I had penned a piece on the eldest Kaunteya) I couldn't help think of those who didn't exactly get it the way they'd have expected on Father's Day too. While most of them had issues that went beyond anything that could be controlled, there were those who never could step out of their father's large looming shadows. One such character of tragic irony, is Harilal Gandhi - the first son of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. After doing some research on both Harilal and our esteemed Mahatma I decided to pen something that would bring these two controversial figures together. The scene depicted here is in the final moments of Harilal as he lies dying from a liver disease. Harilal died just a few months after Gandhi's assasination and this piece - 'O father where art thou?' - is an attempt to look at what might have possibly been his final moments like.

I hope you enjoy reading it.