Saturday 19 January 2013

Movie review: Inkaar makes you think



Basic plot: Ad agency National Creative Director and board member Maya Luthra (Chitrangada Singh) lodges a complaint of sexual harassment against her CEO and fellow board member Rahul Verma (Arjun Rampal), which he portrays as an attempt to take over his job.

At intermission, when my friend and I went to the snacks counter, we talked about how we felt that Maya’s allegations were baseless and that her own behaviour was unprofessional, even if not sexually inappropriate. But the minute the second half started, we realized how wrong we could be. And that is the beauty of Inkaar, Sudhir Mishra’s film that tackles a host of issues including sexual exploitation at the workplace, professional rivalry, romantic jealousy, and the glass ceiling. It is not a perfect film at all, but its success lies in the fact that it offers no judgement and paints its lead characters very decisively in grey.

Maya, a brash, ambitious, talented girl from Solan meets suave advertising legend Rahul at an ad awards party, and he eventually offers her a job at his agency in Mumbai. He mentors her, trains her not just in copywriting, but how to pitch ideas, how to present herself, groom herself, and soon she becomes the star of the company. Meanwhile, their palpable chemistry turns into more, but insecurity and different expectations turn their equation sour and Maya moves to the agency’s Delhi branch. When she returns to Mumbai after a stint in New York, she is promoted to National Creative Director and made a board member, and suddenly, things go from tense to out-and-out antagonistic.

While the plot itself is interesting, what’s more noteworthy is the way the narrative is structured. The story moves back and forth within the framework of a closed-door hearing, with both Maya and Rahul giving their versions of past events to a panel consisting of their colleagues and a human rights worker. Both of their versions are so believable that it is difficult to take sides. Rahul constantly undercuts Maya’s story by presenting an equally convincing one of his own, and raises questions about the blurry line between friendly banter and harassment; he also shows us a Maya who is hysterical, almost unhinged. Likewise, just when we think Maya’s totally playing her gender card to get sympathy, she recounts events that really make us want to throttle Rahul. The one big flaw here is that what could have been a watertight narrative sometimes gets derailed by meandering arguments that veer into emotional territory and take away from the actual complaint. There are also some flashbacks to Rahul’s own childhood and even his current personal life, which seem to be an attempt to explain his motivations and lead the film to its somewhat populist, but very believable, ending.
 
Performance-wise, Arjun Rampal has finally done a truly great job – more than Rock On!, this movie shows what he can do with the right direction. And Chitrangada, while not terribly powerful, manages to hold her own despite being stuck with clichéd and repetitive dialogue (when will Bollywood realize that repeating something in English and Hindi doesn’t make it sound more heartfelt?) The supporting cast is also solid, with Vipin Sharma doing particularly well as the standard office chauvinist.

My biggest problem with Inkaar? The distracting gorgeousness of Arjun and Chitrangada. I actually have no recollection of the first few minutes of the film because I was just gazing unblinkingly at both of them.

Thursday 17 January 2013

Selective amnesia or selective equality?


It’s been a month since India rose in protest – against not just the one horrific bus gangrape, but against gender disparity as a whole. Apart from laws and punishment and safety measures, there was a lot of discussion about how we’re part of the problem if we do certain things in our own lives. Serving our sons food before our daughters, letting our sons go out at night but keeping our daughters at home, dancing to Honey Singh’s songs at parties, worshipping Krishna – who molested women and stole their clothes – and Rama – who made his wife take a fire test to prove her fidelity. Cheering Salman and Aamir on in Dabangg and Dil, as their characters stalked and harassed the female lead until she capitulated to their dubious charms. We all agreed that change must begin at home, social mores need a complete overhaul, pop culture needs to be more responsible, we all need to introspect.

So how come the same doesn’t apply to our views on Pakistan’s Foreign Minister? I don’t see any male politician being so mercilessly ripped apart – in the media or in drawing room chatter – because of his clothes, his briefcase, his shoes, his watch. But with Hina Rabbani Khar, it’s always less about what she says or does and more about the Birkin and how it somehow makes her a less capable minister. I remember the same criticisms levelled against her in 2011 when she became Foreign Minister, and I remember wondering why people spent so much time bitching about her appearance when what we should really have been concerned about was the abysmal standards of journalism in our own country.

Even Firstpost, which usually carries fairly balanced and thoughtful articles, has just such a piece today, which can be read here: http://www.firstpost.com/world/why-its-hard-to-get-excited-about-hina-rabbani-khars-peace-offer-591138.html. It’s about why Khar’s proposed peace talks in the wake of ceasefire violations by Pakistan are unlikely to lead to anything concrete. That, of course, is a separate topic, but what’s disturbing is how the writer, devoting the opening paragraphs of the article to her looks and sartorial choices, first calls her “a victim of her own artfully cultivated image”, and then goes on to absolve the media of its role in the propagation of that image by saying it is one she herself has “assiduously fed”, and that her clothes and accessories seem intended to draw attention – effectively saying she asks for it. Not so different from statements by Asaram Bapu, Mohan Bhagwat, and others like them – statements that, rightly, come under such strong attack from all thinking quarters.

Are our memories that short or is it because Khar’s a Pakistani so all bets are off and it’s okay to be nasty about her? Neither thought is particularly comforting.



Wednesday 16 January 2013

So much to read, so little time



I usually enjoy the cliché of making resolutions at the start of a new year; and I have to say, I’m not entirely useless at sticking to them (this could also be because I make resolutions that are vaguely worded and therefore, easy to convince myself of having kept).

This time, apart from the more personal resolutions, I have decided to make a reading list for the year. There are so many genres and regions to explore, so many authors I keep putting aside for later, authors I haven’t read enough of, classics I have forgotten or stopped reading halfway, books that I should at least try once. Also, I love making lists. So here, in all its itemized glory, is my Booket List For 2013:

Genres to read more of:
  1. Fantasy
  2. History and historical fiction (especially, but not only, about World War II, the American Civil War and subsequent Reconstruction, the Opium Wars)
  3. Sports/outdoor adventure writing
 Regions to read more from:
  1. Africa
  2. Latin America
  3. Turkey
  4. Israel
 Ambitious attempts (including second attempts):
  1. Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series
  2. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series
  3. Ulysses – James Joyce
  4. My Name Is Red and Snow – Orhan Pamuk
 Authors to try at least once:
  1. Georgette Heyer
  2. Philippa Gregory
  3. Ernest Hemingway
  4. Kazuo Ishiguro
  5. Naguib Mahfouz
 Re-reads (individual books and series) and author marathons:
  1. Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy
  2. Salman Rushdie – Midnight’s Children and Haroun and The Sea of Stories
  3. PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves series
  4. Alexander McCall Smith – The Sunday Philosophy Club series and/or The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series
  5. Zadie Smith
  6. Rohinton Mistry
  7. Margaret Atwood
  8. Julian Barnes
  9. Ian McEwan
  10. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  11. Toni Morrison
  12. Michael Ondaatje
  13. Elif Shafak
 My year’s looking good already. Of course, since it is an ambitious list and doesn't account for my book club or the Sophie Kinsellas and Lauren Weisbergers I know I will read as soon as they hit the market, it'll definitely carry on well into 2014. So next year’s looking pretty good too.