Social media is a tricky place. It has almost become a trend penning farcical missives on anything and everything nowadays. And guess what? They come from some of the most unexpected half learned twits! I'm referring to the huge ongoing ruckus on the internet that has recently attacked Abhishek Chaubey - the director of an upcoming movie 'Udhta Punjab' and also actress Alia Bhatt's lead character depicting a migrant from Bihar ensnared into the drug racket of Punjab. Well, I've seen the promos and I find it absolutely realistic and there's no ground to claim that it stereotypes or maligns any state, culture in particular or people belonging to it. But there's a certain unit of the Bhayia Ji Bihar Wale population that has turned hot under the collar and their prime allegation is that the plot hasn't been treated rightly. So to say, they were probably living in a house of cards which allowed them the dream vision that their state shall be put in the best light. Someday. *Voila*
No wonder every fanciful notion has a dead end and
meets the sweetest disillusionment. The candid portrayal of such realities around
these 'bonafide' Bhayia Ji’s identity has indubitably hit them hard. But isn't
the art of cinema entitled to do so? For decades we have taken delight in films
that are made to delve into the cultural nuances and as a society that only
brings us close to wake up and smell the coffee. The idea behind conceiving
movie plots that carry a social message is to open our eyes to the kind of degeneracy
that holds mankind back from progress. As social animals, isn’t it our
prerogative to take it on the chin and move on a better path for the noble
cause of this entire civilization?
Slamming the actress for doing justice to a certain
role, simply because that brings out the notorious and ugly side of one’s native
land doesn't solve the problem. Such reactions in fact leave a pathetic impression
and should be refuted as downright inane. Some people are quibbling about this
new venture, as though Alia has written the script herself with a personal
motif to defame all Biharis. Most interestingly, if these doltish loudmouths,
instead of trying to shoot themselves to the limelight and taking resort to
some extremely lame vociferation, try and rack their brains in some research
work, they can figure out that the director has spent the larger parts of his
life in Patna. His background gives him the sole license to throw light upon a
subject known to him inside and out. This, also qualifies him to address and record
the A to Z of Bihar. If he, having shared and witnessed these pros and cons of
the same milieu can keep the heart to be brutally honest about what vices haunt
his state, how should that bother us as audiences?
Most importantly, the factual detailing does not at
all come across exaggerated or concocted, and the world is certainly not blind to
the not so clean and esteemed image of the state in question. I remember one of
my associations from the past, majorly owing to a dark revelation she had made to
me. I could never take that into my system till date. This province has been a
shelter for a large number of ethnic groups and sub casts tracing their origin
back to the ancient state of Bihar. But poverty, corruption, extortion and
crimes in the open have remained integral to the history of the state, which if
denied in the contemporary times, will be the most sanctimonious thing to do.
This woman was my batch mate when we were studying Aviation in 2005 in Kolkata,
and one of the days she arrived at her home state had seen a series of most
bizarre and horrible events that literally shook her faith in the law and order
of a state she was bred and raised in. That day, there was this 14-year-old
public schoolboy who was kidnapped for ransom in broad daylight, following
which a 60-year-old jeweler was shot dead and robbed during a gridlock. As a
continuation to this chain of crackerjack executions, another school kid was
seized. Abductions and loots are noted as the fastest and easiest route to
provide a boost to Bihar's financial industry. While the average incomes are
little more than 50p a day for the mediocre mass, ransoms minimally equivalent
to $6500 are forcibly extracted through private loans and
donations from affluent families’ vaults day in and day out.
Another aspect that unmasks the lawless and desperate
condition of the state is the forerunners' attitude towards jobs and
education. Even before attaining literacy, reckless sons of stinking rich
ministers undertake their career journey into the world of smuggling and extortion
and carrying guns eventually become an old chestnut. A survey has disclosed
that educational fraud and fake certificates in a number as good as 100,000
recovered in 2009 pertained to the Bihar Sanskrit Education Board, Patna; Hindi
Vidyapeeth, Deoghar; and Hindi Sahitya Sammelan, Allahabad, among other universities
across the country, according to the police. As a matter of fact, absence of
growing industries and descending job market compels young men and women in
Bihar to apply for government run schools and colleges and also blatantly fall
back on fake degrees and certificates. After all this, some dim witted
commentators lash back at why Alia Bhatt has to nail that look of a poor,
tattered and marginalized Bihari laborer who actually does not have a choice
but slip into a ‘soiled’ kurta and expose her already ‘grimy’ skin and messy
hair in the sun so that she can free herself from the various manifestations of
poverty that has the least to offer in her very own state. Hence, she has to
look out for a source of earning her bread and butter elsewhere.
Taking on the harsh criticism of the language used in
the film – it would be nothing short of recoursing to the art of outright mendacity
if we deny the raw, pastoral and salacious elements of the colloquialism predominant
in Bihar. Not ruling out the fact that it must be a sheer prick on the urbane
sentiments of some Bihari migrant who might have moved into the metropolitan
hubs like Mumbai or Delhi long back, ‘Ee’, “Ka’, “Kon’, “Chutiy***” – these
instantiable vernaculars widely characterize and distinguish one from the other
hailing from distinct parts of India. So, why taking it personally and
bickering in a chorus parrot fashion?
Another
disturbing factor that cannot escape our eyes in the representation of Lalu’s
state is the caste system that continues to build and beef up the bedrock of
social malpractices in Bihar. This, regressively affects one’s living standards
and reflects in their clothing, their outlook towards education, women and marriage,
as well as their political beliefs and religious superstitions. Rampant
corruption has led many Dalit families in Bihar to commit suicide under the
burgeoning pressure of monetary loss through forgery and scams. A state that is
headed by a woman titled as ‘Devi’ yet every six hours there is a case of an
innocent woman losing her dignity. The dominant feudal and neo-rich classes often
scar women for life by ravishing them publicly and the victims mostly come from
the proletariat class of the society. Having that, it is sad, that “Bihar”, as a
part and parcel of our very own motherland has turned into an expletive, a butt
of deprecatory memes and merciless burlesques to many, perhaps including me too,
who has neither visited the place, nor keeps the wish to do so anytime in near
future. The utter destitute and downtrodden shape of the state itself gives us a
sense of discomfort and soon we stop paying any heed to those ghastly news
bulletins. Can you imagine the sort of mind reeling sensation one can go
through on learning about a three-year-old girl child remorselessly raped and
hung upside down from a tree in Banka district of Bihar?
But
the incongruity lies on the other side of the coin, as for millions of
Buddhists, the richness of the cultural heritage and religious significance of
the state makes it their Mecca, their Jerusalem. For many of us who are alien
to the life story of the Buddha, Bihar is the place where he discovered
enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree and spent most of his life teaching and finally
achieved Moksha. Looking on the brighter side, I am glad that the Indian
entertainment industry is now taking more initiative to expose these palpable
evils through craft fully woven narratives and there’s no better way to get
down to the brass tracks. There was this hilarious song from the movie
“Mrityudaata” featuring Amitabh Bachchan in 1997, which I can recall crashing
at the box office in the very first week. As a kid, I failed to find much
relevance to the funny lines lip synced by Big B then, but the essence of the verisimilitude
perfectly encapsulates the current state of Bihar. And here’s what floats back
to the mind –
“Sar ke upar ujali topi…Man ke andar kala…Naam
kare badnam watan ka…Kar ke roj hawala…Neta logan ki hansayi humka buri lage ram…Hamare deshwa ki burayi
Humka buri lage ram.” 