Is this love?

A few days back one of my friend had put a rhetorical question "Is THIS love?" on her Facebook status message only for me to reply with a wise-ass crack (no pun intended), "THIS is not love. THIS is a demonstrative pronoun." I know that it will be impossible for anyone to come up with a definition as to what constitutes a feeling called love. So this post is just my way of expressing what I feel is real love, or, how an ideal love should be.

When we are in love, it feels as if everything in this world suddenly seem to make more sense. Birds are chirping, rain is falling, and the world stops spinning. We get many forward mails that seem to define what true love is. Love is life, love is sharing, love is understanding, love is this, love is that and what not. And then there are the types of love. Love at first sight, love from friendship, and even love from hate. But all that matters is that when we are in love, everything else just doesn't seem to matter at all. The body, the brain, and six senses just want to be in company of our better half. We have heard so many dialogues that people throw when they are in love: "You are on my mind all the time. I'll give my life for you. You are carved in my heart. You are a part of me. I am in you. I am you. You complete me. etc." Many do mean what they say, and some just to take advantage. I always wondered, how true is the statement that our partner's  feelings are imbibed in our senses when we are in love.

What if we are stripped of all senses, feelings and emotions?  Would we be still capable of "feeling" love? We have seen people in vegetative state where they are incapable of expressing their emotions. But does that mean that they don't feel love? Is love truly magical that it could exist in absolutely nothing? To evaluate this assumption, we need to understand whether there is a possibility of being in a state where we are devoid of senses and feelings. Medical theory says, hell yeah! According to evolution, underneath all these facade of  sophistication, culture and logic, we basically are animals. So when we are under stress, the brain stimulates adrenalin and switches off all supplementary bodily functions such as sexual arousal,  pleasure...etc. There is only one primitive function that will exist, fight-or-flight. This is our body's mechanism in response to stress. Imagine staring at a hungry tiger, what would go in your mind? McDonalds? Titanic? Come on! You would want to get the hell out of there. Could you feel love in this state? What if you are stripped of even this level of  sense? Imagine standing on a railway track with a train approaching you at a breakneck speed. You are unable to move. Brain overload! Can you feel love then? Is it even possible for any kind of feeling to exist in that state? I say, Yes it is possible, and I have seen it with my own eyes.

One of my friend had just come to back to India on his study break, and so my other friends and I decided to have a get-together in his hometown, Pondicherry. We all started on our bikes, and had a very pleasant journey from Chennai to Pondicherry along the scenic East Coast Road. We reached Pondi around 7:00 PM, and decided to rent a room at the hotel to just sit, talk and catchup on all the lost details. The roads of Pondi, in accordance with the French and Indian tradition of road building, are pretty narrow, and the stretch where we were gathered was poorly illuminated. Having said that, the ECR is one of the busiest routes of South India, where public and private transports of all forms and sizes ply throughout day and night. We were standing outside the hotel waiting for the rest of the gang to arrive when we heard a screech of the brakes, a few loud thuds, some metal noise, and a scream of a woman. It seems that a biker, who was in his 40s and who was carrying his wife and his kid on his bike, tried to overtake government bus, but only to pull up just at the last moment. However, he was too late to swerve away from the way of the bus, and the bus hit the bike from the back, making the driver to lose balance. All three who were on the bike fell on that busy road with the bike sliding along the road due to the momentum.

Medical theory predicts that it is exactly at this moment that all our body senses are shut, including the fight-or-flight mechanism, and we are left in the hands of fate to decide our life. It is at this moment, the woman and wife expressed what I consider the benchmark of love. She screamed. Whats' the big deal in screaming when you are about to die? I believe that no matter what accent we cultivate, or what languages we learn, when we feel pain, we just seem to shout "aaaa", an incoherent and meaningless grunt to express our pain. This woman didn't scream "aaa." She screamed "ennanga." ( என்னங்க - a tamil word, a very respectful and loving way of calling one's husband). The moment when every sense in her body would have shut, she impulsively managed to call out, perhaps for one last time, to her husband, to make sure that he is alright. She is just a normal Indian woman, in her mid thirties, with a 12 year old kid. She is the type of woman where we take for granted that she might not approve of love marriage, or might not have experienced love, or a conservative woman., or someone just too insignificant to include when we young generations discuss about love. She didn't scream for her. She didn't scream for her own flesh and blood, her son. She didn't scream for her mother, the second most usual response to pain. And she didn't call for the God. She screamed for her husband. The love for her husband still evident, still active, even when every sense and hope in her body and mind has gone into shutdown mode. Love, is indeed capable of existing in absolutely nothing and everything. I dedicate this post to that woman, to all those who are truly in love, and to those who wear their heart on their sleeves so that they could keep their better half in their hearts.

P.S: The woman, man, and their kid survived with just a few bruises. Fairy tale ending does exist.
This post is just my opinion. I definitely don't imply that only women are capable of expressing love. It just happens that in this incident, it was a woman.

MLTR - Rajneeti

RAJNEETI REVIEW

Starring:

• Ranbir Kapoor as Samar Pratap
• Arjul Rampal as Prithviraj "Prithvi" Pratap
• Manoj Bajpai as Veerendra Pratap
• Ajay Devagan as Sooraj Kumar
• Katrina Kaif as Indu Pratap
• Nana Patekar as Brij Gopal
• Nikhila Trikha as Bharti Rai
• Naseeruddin Shah as Bhaskar Sanyal

Directer: Prakash Jha,
Music: Wayne Sharpe
Cinematography: Sachin Krishn

A modern re-telling of Mahabharata, Rajneeti has all the ingredients to keep you engrossed throughout the movie. Imagine the role of Chanakya being performed by one of the Pandavas himself, and you got yourself a very interesting storyline. A very vivid portrayal of our country's political affairs, Rajneeti shows how everything is fair in love, war and politics. Bhanu Pratap, the leader of Rashtrawadi political party, suffers from an heart-attack during a crucial moment before an impending state election, leaving him paralyzed and hence, preventing him to continue as the party president. In his absence, he appoints his brother Chandra Pratap and his son  Prithvi Pratap to be in charge for the party affairs. This leaves Veerendra Pratap, son of Bhanu Pratap, furious as Veerendra believes that he is the rightful heir to the party's throne. Veerendra Pratap is at odds with every decision made by his uncle, including the appointment of the party candidate to Azad Nagar constituency, culminating in a friendship between the local dalit leader Sooraj Kumar and Veerendra Pratap. It is told in a flashback that Sooraj Kumar is actually the son of Bharti Rai, wife of Chandra Pratap, and was born out of wedlock when she shared a moment of passion with her political guru and leftist leader Bhaskar Sanyal. Brij Gopal, brother of Bharti, wraps the child in a cloth and abandons him in a boat. This child was found by a Dailt family and is being raised as one of their own. Because of his valor, Sooraj Kumar quickly becomes the favorite of Azad Nagar.

Samar Pratap, the younger brother of Prithvi Pratap, doesn't wish to be a part of the family politics, and hence decides to go back to New York to finish his PhD. After Chandra Pratap sends off Samar at the airport, he is assassinated on the way to his home by an unidentified gunman. This makes Samar to postpone his trip and come back  to be with his family. Prithvi Pratap becomes furious at the lack of security of his father which led to his assassination, and vents his anger at the police officers. Prithvi is then taken into custody, and while in jail, he is also filed under charge of rape on one of his estranged woman party member. Samar understands that these moves against his family are being made by Veerendra and Sooraj. Samar, with the assistance of his uncle Brij Gopal, vows to take revenge. And thus starts the tale of Rajneeti of Samar Pratam.
By meticulous planning, Samar makes all charges against Prithvi Pratap to be dropped, and makes Prithvi the Chief Minister-nominee of the party. However, Veerendra manages to convince his paralyzed father  Bhanu Pratam to sign an edict that dismisses Prithvi Pratap from the party. This is exactly the outcome Samar wanted, and he, along with his brother and his uncle Brij, floats a new party in direct opposition Rashtrawadi political party. However, Samar finds it difficult to garner the required funds to manage the party. He then manages to convince Indu, who has a huge crush on Samar, to marry Prithvi to assure the funding worth 50 crores from Indu's father as Indu's father would only lend his hand to the person who would eventually become the candidate for chief minister.

Exit polls indicate Prithvi to be the forerunner for the chief minister post, and this makes Veerendra angry for not being able to fulfill his dream of becoming a chief minister. Sooraj kumar, unable to see the sorry state of his friend and mentor Veerendra, arranges a successful plot to kill Prithvi in a bomb blast, leaving only Samar and Indu as the heirs of Chandra Pratap's legacy. Samar then convinces Indu to run for the elections as the chief minister nominee, and she is shown to be able to sway the emotions of the mass to her side. Meanwhile, Bharti Rai meets Sooraj Kumar and reveals the true lineage of Sooraj. Sooraj, though moved by his discovery of his real parents and siblings, is still unflinching in his support of Veerendra Pratap.

Samar finally decides to end the family war once and for all, and arranges for a scheme to entice Veerendra Pratap to come to a secluded place without his cohorts. Sooraj is intimated of the sudden departure of Veerendra, and realizing something is amiss, he follows Veerendra. After making Veerendra to come out his car, Samar and his party people try to shoot down Veerendra. Even though Sooraj has a chance to take down Samar, he flinches for a moment perhaps due to his new found brotherhood, and gives a chance for Samar to escape. However, one of the bullets hits Veerendra in his chest, and Sooraj, realizing that the only chance of Veerendra to survive is to immediately take him to hospital, tries to make a deal with Samar wherein Veerendra and Sooraj will relinquish all of their political ambitions in exchange of Veerendra's life. However, Veerendra dies on the arms of Sooraj, and Brij Gopal convinces Samar that the only way to end this feud is to kill Sooraj too. Samar, still unaware that Sooraj is his brother, kills him, hence, bringing this "Kurukshetra" to an end. Indu is shown as becoming the chief minister, and Samar leaves his politics behind to leave to New York.

All of the characters have performed really well, including the perennial underachiever Arjun Rampal. However, the break-out characters out of the ensemble cast are Manoj Bajpai and Ranbir Kapoor. Manoj Bajpai adds his own elements of acting to skillfully portray the ambitious Veerendra Pratap. Ranbir Kapoor, portraying Samar Pratap, gives one of his best performances to this date. In contrast to his chocolate boy image, Ranbir Kapoor is shown as a shrewd mind, and who would go to any extent to protect his family and his party's ambitions. And how can I forget to mention the transformation of Katrina Kaif from an ultra-modern girl to a Sonia Gandhi-esque politician. Overall, I found the movie to be very enjoyable and definitely a paisa vasool.

As mentioned above, the story line is very similar to that of Mahabharata, albeit with few changes. Some similarities and contrasts that I am able to find:
1. The role of Nana Patekar is very similar to that of. Bhishma. However, unlike Bhishma, Nana Patekar is on the side of  Samar Pratap (the Pandavas)
2. Unlike Mahabarata in which there were 100 Gauravas and 5 Pandyas, there is only 1 Gaurava (Manoj Bajpai) and 2 Pandavas (Arjun Rampal and Ranbir Kapoor) in Rajneeti
3. Arjun's character resembles to Yudhistra, and Ranbir's that of Arjun. However, I find that Ranbir's character is also show to have the characteristics of Chankya. The absence of a visible Chanakya type character in support of Manoj Bajpai only strengthens my point of view.
4. Ajay Devagan as Sooraj is the modern avatar of Karna. The resemblances are uncanny. For example, Karna's adopted father was a Charioteer, where as Sooraj's adpoted father is a car driver for the Prataps. Also, as Karna's anger against Pandavas gets dissolved when Kunti reveals his true lineage, so does Ajay's anger against Samar Pratam, making Ajay to exhibit reluctance to shoot Samar when he had a choice. While Duryodhana makes Karna the King of Anga, Veerendra Pratap gives Sooraj one of the posts in party high-commission.