No promising future: Kya Hua Tera Wada

I don't know why I watch TV soaps. I have been planning to quit. I don't remember why I started in the first place. Yes, they are entertaining, devoid of logic or consistency in characters or those who play them. The thing is, I have a night job and I wake up late. As a result, it is noon when I have my breakfast and there is nothing interesting to watch on TV except the re-runs of these soaps. I repeat, they are often entertaining.
It was one such noon, when I first watched the re-run of Kya Hua Tera Wada. I had seen the promos and had no intentions of starting it, but unfortunately the re-run came at 1.00 and at that time I am full of food and too lazy to move. My cousin had said that Mona Singh who plays 'Mona' and Pawan Shankar, who plays 'Pradeep' were excellent actors and so the show must be good. And so I started watching it off-and-on. But now the story has reached to a point where I am reminded why exactly I don't like these serials.
The ex-girlfriend of the husband returns in his life as his boss and helps him in his career and they both have an affair. When the affair comes out in open, the husband breaks off relationship with his wife of 11-years and his three kids with a promise to support them financially. And what does the wife do? She goes and begs the girlfriend to return her husband who is her "whole life". The girlfriend (Anushka, played by Mauli Ganguli) says that taking care of home and rearing children is job of a maid and that Pradeep needs to go after his dreams and so-on. Mona then tries to commit suicide, but is saved by her mother-in-law, who convinces her to work towards winning her husband back and show him the difference between "gharwali" and "baharwali". And how does Mona do it?
She files for divorce and says that her husband has to take care of the kids. Anushka, who stays in pent house has to shift to 2BHK flat and take care of three kids and from the looks of it, she is done with.
My problem with the serial is that it stereotypes roles. A career oriented woman, who has made it big, is not a good news.A housewife has no identity without her kids and husband and hence she must get her husband back.    
Now, why would an unmarried career-oriented woman not understand importance of family? Sometimes it is the thing you don't have that you value the most. Besides she liked the guy from college and wanted him because he had loved her when she was a nobody. The attraction was normal. The guy liked her too. His wife "never understood him, never supported him in front of others and nor did she take out time for him". So he drifted towards his old love. Fine. But that doesn't mean they will not find happiness. Or that Anushka can't learn to take care of the kids and love them too. She needn't be the classic "stepmother".
And why should Mona want her cheating husband back? Is it her love or financial insecurity? Would she try to find out the reason he left her (usually they don't, not on the soaps that is)?
My guess is that the girlfriend, finding it hard to handle the kids, will try to send them to a boarding school. The husband may oppose the move. The wife would learn ways of the world and present herself in a different light to her husband. Meanwhile, the husband and the girlfriend will keep fighting and he would miss his wife, or not. Eventually, the two will be reunited. The wife will either forgive or let him back "for kids' sake". That is the usual trajectory such serials take.
It is true that in our society it is difficult to live as a woman whose husband has left her. She is certainly vulnerable and the state institutions provide no comfort for such women. Given that she is merely a graduate and has no work experience it will be hard for her to get a job and even when she does the scope of growth would be limited. Such woman are also easy target for criminals and if anything happens the police will blame her for it. The expose by the Tehelka magazine into the mindset of the Delhi police substantiates my point. Even when a woman is murdered the first thing that cops do is to slander her character. However, this doesn't mean she has to go back to her husband.
The situation in Balika Vadhu is far more realistic and well, complicated. (Although Avika Gor, who played young Anandi, is now working in a nauseating serial called Sasural Simar Ka, where she plays the role of a married teen).
But Mona, unlike Anandi, is from a liberal family. She can become financially independent (though that will be difficult as I've mentioned before) and perhaps find herself a new man. At least I hope that happens.
I really wish these soaps try to break the social stereotypes of woman rather than reinforcing them.
 

Kahaani review

*SPOILER ALERT*

The movie starts with a masked man experimenting with rats. He drops a glass tablet inside a cage and as soon as it crashes, a poisonous gas spreads through the cage killing all the rats. The scene shifts to a man (Abir Chatterjee) boarding a crowded Kolkata metro while talking on a phone. He is looking for a bag, which presumably has some device of mass destruction. At the next station, a milk bottle crashes and poisonous gas kills all those aboard.

With this well-edited thrilling start, the story moves two years forward to a seven-months pregnant Vidya Bagchi (Vidya Balan) arriving at Kolkata from London in search of her husband, who went missing a few weeks ago. A young police inspector Rana alias Satyaki Sinha (Parambrata Chatterjee) helps her in her search, which gets them a close encounter with the street life in Kolkata.

The city is preparing for Durga pooja. Idols are being prepared, woman are dressed up in traditional white sarees with red border, the crowded streets and the street food, the dingy hotel room covered with layers of dust – all this adds to the flavour of the city.

From it being a search for Arnab Bagchi, it becomes search for Milan Domji (Indraneil Sengupta) who looks like Arnab, or perhaps is Arnab and is prime suspect for the metro attack. A R Khan (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), second-in command at the Intelligence Bureau, who was once assigned the task to capture Damji becomes involved in the search, though initially as a detractor. It is revealed that Damji was a Bureau member, handpicked (along with a few others) by the current IB chief Bhaskaran (Dhritiman Chatterjee), to be trained as super cop. The training was undertaken by Vajpayee (Darshan Jariwala), who retired after Damji’s defection.

Khan uses Vidya to reach Damji, and admits it to her rather brashly. He tells her that she can succeed as “nobody will suspect a pregnant woman.”

Meanwhile, those protecting Damji hire Bob Biswas (Saswata Chatterjee), who works as a lousy insurance agent in the morning and a contract killer by night, to kill those who might reveal the secret. After many twists, it turns out that Bhaskaran was the mole in IB and using that information Khan, Rana and Vidya lure Damji out of hiding.

On the last day of Durga pooja, Vidya goes to Triangular Park to meet Domji, who has promised to return her husband. The park is jam-packed with people celebrating Durga pooja. Vidya meets Domji, kills him and runs away. Rana, meanwhile, figures out everything and reaches the scene. He explains to Khan that Arnab Bagchi and Vidya Bagchi are just a story, the woman (whoever she was) wanted to kill Domji and was in fact using them to reach him. Of course nobody suspected her- who would suspect a pregnant woman! She leaves evidence against Bhaskaran with them.

Post-climax it is revealed that she was wife of the IB agent (Abir), who was on the metro to stop the attack. She was pregnant but had a miscarriage shortly after learning of her husband’s demise. Vajpayee, trains her to enable her to take revenge.

The director, Sujoy Ghosh, has drawn an analogy with how Gods gave demons power and when the latter misused it, Gods created Durga. She was given powers to destroy the demons and after she purges the earth, she disappears.

As an audience one tries to speculate what comes next, but the director has played his cards well by throwing unexpected twist every time you think you know what’s gonna happen.

The movie provides an interesting array of characters. There is Bob, who is a cold-blooded killer but no athlete. He is baby-faced and always has a smile on his face. You would expect him to be a content middle-class family man, certainly not a contract killer. There is Rana, a young and smart police officer, who helps Vidya out of his sense of duty and in parts out of chivalry. Throughout the movie he tries to deal with his growing attraction and admiration towards an already married and heavily pregnant Vidya.

Then of course there is Vidya herself. At first she is a loving wife determined to find her husband come what may. At the climax she is shown to be vengeful and driven by righteous-anger. This character, poles apart from the one Balan played in ‘The Dirty Picture’, establishes Balan as a versatile actor. It is to her credit that she has pulled of the movie on her own, without any ‘hero’ per say.

Also, you would never suspect a mother with a wailing infant to be carrying poisonous gas with her (was it even her baby? Was she blackmailed into doing it?)

There were loopholes too. You cannot open a padlock with a hairpin. Right after having a near-death incident, Vidya seems pretty calm when she meets Rana and does not talk about the incident immediately. Even though she cleans after her, she has to have left fingerprints (like on the rubber stomach pad she wears to fake pregnant look) unless, she didn’t have any.

All said and done, this movie is worth a watch, though if you have read this far and haven't seen the movie, you probably shouldn’t go for it now (you were warned).

Fading Memories

At times, dreams and memories intertwine and it is hard to tell them apart. And at times, the difference changes life.

Shruti turned 22 this year and by all means she is a happy girl. She is the college topper, has a vast array of friends and is an ideal daughter to proud parents. Shruti was studying Psychology and though she would never admit it, she had chosen the subject hoping to unravel the truth behind a mysterious incident that occurred almost a decade ago.

There was little activity in the city suburbs on a balmy Sunday morning 10 years ago. Roads were empty, save for a vehicle or two.Tucked away on a small street that branched from the main road was a double storied house, or a part of it, as a wall divided the duplex into two homes, each with a separate entrance.

Twelve-year-old Shruti sat in the veranda of the left-side duplex, gazing out at the lawns, lost in thoughts. The veranda door opened to a circular lawn circumscribed by a cemented driveway, which in turn was surrounded by trees on both sides. It was a nice house. Shruti loved it. She was thinking about her upcoming birthday party.

Outside the door, on the right, would be a kiosk where she will keep prizes for the winners of different games. Maybe not. Towards the right, the driveway led to the garage and that’s where all the vehicles will be parked. So the kiosk can be put towards the left, under the porch. Perfect. She pictured it as she planned.

There will be several games. Musical chair, which can be arranged in the lawn. The music system can be put in the veranda, though speakers would be required. Sharmas have nice speakers, and will surely lend them for a day. She will ask her mother to see to it as soon as her parents return form shopping.

Then there would be dumb-charades. That would be fun! Shruti could hardly wait to see how Anshul, a really stupid kid in her class, would act. She laughed to herself. She can also organise a relay race. Circular lawns have so many advantages, she sighed.

Shruti was so engrossed in her thoughts that it was while before, with a jolt, she realized what she was seeing.

On the driveway towards the right, where the cars would be parked on her birthday, ambled a massive lion. It was followed by a wild boar and a grub, both of which were of the same size as the lion and strode at the same pace. The bizzare group circled the driveway on the far side of the lawn, leaped over the gate and disappeared in the alley.

Shruti, who stood frozen, was seized by a rush of adrenaline. She quickly shut the veranda door and rushed inside the house, bolting all the doors and windows and pulling up curtains.

When her parents returned in the afternoon, Shruti narrated the incident. As was to be expected, neither believed her story. They said she might have hallucinated. Nobody in the neighbourhood complained about seeing a massive lion or a wild boar or an unusually large grub. But Shruti was sure it wasn’t a hallucination or a dream, even 10 years after the incident.

She saw what she saw, though what she saw would always remain a mystery in the back of her memory. Even today, she sometimes woke up in the middle of the night with dreams of the memory. Or, perhaps, it was memory of a dream.