A Wake up Call on INDEPENDENCE DAY

When I peeped out of my window on the morning of 15^th August, one of the most herded market place of Delhi, Lajpat Nagar seemed to have gone into an eerie silence. I could not even spot a dog loitering around. As if it was a curfew. The clock was striking 11 am then. While having the same boring cornflakes that has promised to reduce my weight by two and a half kilograms in two weeks, I took up a newspaper. It read Peepli Live is a drama worth watching.

Being an ardent fan of Aamir Khan, keeping aside my all lethargy, I went for the movie. As soon as it started, I could sense the aroma of that typical Indian gaon. Amidst all the beeps (abuses), jokes, and laughter, as the movie went on; the utter reality beneath the lotion-laden media (the reflection of society), India’s booming economy, and development due to MNC etc came forth. The way media treats its ‘subject’, MNC monopolizes the market, government lure people by its false promises, and above all the politics that reaches the zenith during crisis, was all depicted with conviction.

Although there have been movies on social issues earlier, the recent one being Well Done Abba by Shyam Benegal, but Peepli Live without any formula hit the bull’s eye. Being a former journalist, I attest that the filth media actually works in, the pseudo-democratic government, and the anti-farmer MNC’s agenda are true to a great extent.

Hats off to Aamir Khan for making the best use this vehicle called as ‘movie’ to reach out to the mass and address issues like our rigid education system, cutting off a dyslexic child, and the policy driven indebted farmer’s suicides across the nation.

By the time I came out of the movie theatre, I was recollecting Rabindranath Tagore’s “Where the Mind is Without Fear?” and concluded murmuring, ‘Into that heaven of freedom, oh father, let my country awake’.