Watched movie ‘Sairat’ three days ago unexpectedly. I doubted it
will be released in a completely Hindi speaking state but it did, and the movie
had much unexpected in stored than I assumed. If you have ever wondered while
watching today’s most of the films without any story line and any strong
message, ‘Can a commercial cinema retain its intended value and purpose to
uplift a social cause at the same time grossing it at the box office with
broken records? Nagraj Manjule’s ‘Sairat’ makes you answer an empathetic ‘Yes’
to that question. 2016 Popular Marathi Movie taking the audiences by storm
in many areas like music, story, direction and debutante untrained
actors, it has something more in it other than the simple village language, and
the simplicity & innocence of the teenage love, everything in the
movie leaves you spellbound with many questions asked from generations
past till now, directly or indirectly in 170 minutes. The one question could
not leave me personally is asked by the hopeful lead character Archie to her
mother on phone with moist eyes “Te
(Tatya) boltil ka ga mazya barobar?”, “Tu
sang na tyana” (You
will find English meaning below) that
got me sob in theater. I am trying to avoid any spoiler while writing my
thoughts generated after watching this once in many years treat from director
Nagraj Manjule on the subject which can still be considered taboo in our
country.
Subject off course is being debated now
and from long time before, that raises many people’ eye brows and the question
of the rich-poor, upper-low caste battle in our age-old society. The movie
narrates the ancient conflict resulting in a fray between ‘the strong’ and
‘innocent’. The script hits you at the right spot where it barely leaves you
unmoved and may begin a wrestling bout within. The violence in the movie is
much less compared to the potential it has to start a war between right and
wrong, good and bad, and love and hate. Nagraj Manjule purposely leaves it to
you to decide after watching the end, what way do you want to address the
situation if you faced with one similar to Archie and Parshya's. Nagraj
had nothing new to tell as far as the (love) story is concerned but he
communicated it loud and clear whatever he had to say. To put it in his own
words Nagraj Manjule stated in one of the interviews of Marathi news channels
that, “People are doing business as usual after coming out of the theater”. Yes
the impact has to be measured by actions post confrontations.
I was confronted with a young hopeful,
unaware of happenings back home, daughter’ question who thought everything will
be ‘alright’, to her mother, “Mom,
will dad talk to, me? Is he still angry with me? Can you tell him to talk
to me please?” asks Archie with tears in her eyes.
More than anything else this broken relation, the finished love between
daughter and father & family
had melted my heart, that quest of hers for connecting back to ‘her people’
doesn’t leave me even after my deliberate efforts of telling myself that
it was just a movie. What if the elders could understand the new generation?
Just let them have their say? If they could just listen to them and talk to
them in love with patience? How many families have been disconnected over these
issues? I personally know at least one couple each where the wife is upper
caste and in other home the husband, yet another house has a couple from the
same background who married against their parents’ disagreement. Moreover a
lower caste family is angry with the son for marrying an upper caste in one of
the cases and there may be vice versa. In all these families one thing is
common by and large, both the side’ parents, siblings and relatives are not in
talking terms with the eloped ones. It’s not wrong to marry outside the caste
only between highest and the lowest of them but every layer despises one
another. It never can be right basically by the current standards!!
The question arises then where does it come from? Where this hierarchy,
patriarchal arrangement does come from? Another question needs to be answered
is what is it that matters more than the happiness of your own offspring?
Aren’t we taking every decision for our children? Recently a Delhi student of
one of the institutes from Kota, Rajasthan committed suicide after securing a
good rank to get an engineering admission but she never wanted to be an
engineer, she stated in the suicide note, she was forced to study science.
Can’t we just help kids become the independent individuals or do we just want
some co-habitats to follow our instructions? Or the toys those run on
keys? Maybe robots? Safety, security and survival can be talked out, at least
allow them to share their views and to show their strength that has prepared
them for unknown, just trust them. Be the support and the backup if required.
The efforts of Sairat’s director are laudable as he converted it into a
package that talks about not only of the need of rethinking about our social
structure but the vibrant issues faced by youngsters today. Not to mention
Crime Patrol stories aired every day reporting barbaric responses by families
and relatives over love affairs. By all means Nagraj Manjule turned a simple
village love story into an epic that will be remembered for its presentation of
realty with such force and conviction. The movie has most of the elements of
the mainstream cinema but it is not far from reality. One groundbreaking thing
Nagraj proved that you can make anyone act and Archie and Parshya can be picked
from anywhere. Rinku Rajguru and Akash Thosar have overturned the
stereotyped and typical images of hero and heroines with no elegant looks and
heavy dialogues, the hero does not necessarily needs to fight fifty goons at a
time and still stand straight, and through them again Manjule proved that every
one of us has a story to tell. Each common man and woman for that matter is a
‘Hero’ or ‘Heroine’ of their own story. Rinku shines fairer in her dialogue
delivery and dusky looks as village ‘Patlin’, considering the story line Akash
had much less to do with expressions but both have justified their selections
for the roles. I am not sure whether the writer just wanted to deal with the
race or caste issue here or women empowerment?
As it clearly warns youngsters about the
dangers of ‘Gutaka’ consumption to respecting fellow individuals and not to
call them by ‘names’ as ‘langdya’. The ‘more’ in the movie is to be
sensed and felt rather than viewed. It sure will be an experience and
delight to witness much-anticipated change personally. There is one India that
is not scared to ask for the LGBT rights and there is another struggling to
stand ‘straight’, isn’t that is something really contradictory or so to say
controversial? So what is that something more the storyteller wants to say,
maybe he wants to see finished lines of inequality in every area of our social
life, economy, education, living standards and whatever you can see, and ask
the questions like, is it too difficult to be different? Or where is it rooted?
Or Can ‘I’ make any difference? A must watch if you haven’t yet and let
the screen speak to you. If you know Marathi it will be good, you will not miss
all the light humor, especially in the first part of the film in typical
Satara, Solapur and Marathawada dialect but even if you don’t still go ahead and
watch this milestone cinema, it has the English subtitles. Speaking of
overall score, according to me for
the epic, for some reasons known to myself I will rate the movie 4 out of
5. It does get full marks on most of the avenues but you can't put a
finger as such where to reduce that 1 star, but there have been a scope to do
better looking at the industry standards, hence 4. Go zing zing zingat,
the end will sure make you go crazy. Enjoy.
#Sairat,#Movie,#NagrajManjule,#RikuRajgur,#AkashThosar,#Archie,#Parshya
