Gandhi for beginners
Lage Raho Munna Bhai carries Gandhi’s message clearly to a generation that
does not know about the Mahatma Munna Bhai’s Gandhigiri is shorn of
shibboleths, and is the practical side of Gandhi’s ways that can be adopted
for our time and age.
Bhagyashri Dabke
THE OTHER day, my husband went to buy tickets for Lage Raho Munna T Bhai.
Appropriately, it was October 2, Gandhi Jayanti, and we wanted to indulge in
a bit of Gandhigiri. He retur ned empty handed because the tickets at the
theatre were being scalped at twice the discounted rate because of the
tax-free status. The irony was not lost on us – Gandhigiri did not seem to
have had any effect on the theatre manager, the policemen on duty, the
scalpers and, of course, those buying from them to see what Munna Bhai did
as a new convert to Gandhism.
Two days later, when the holiday crowds were busy with the daily task of
surviving in Mumbai, we got two tickets, each priced at Rs 70.20. When
returning the change, the box-office clerk held back 60 paise due to us,
rounding it off to Rs 141! When we insisted on the change, more to test if
what was being shown inside was being practiced outside, the booking clerk
looked at us like we were insects in his soup. Heck, he seemed to think, it
takes all kinds to make this world, and forked out a 50 paise coin.
Munna Bhai, here we come, we thought, having scored twice already in our own
brand of Gandhigiri, without Munna Bhai’s help. But in the intermission, we
were in for another surprise. Two ice creams – one a candy bar and another a
cone – set us back by Rs 60, about twice as much as what the MRP on the
wrapper said. “That’s our rate,” the man at the counter said, and we went
back to our seats, eating our ice cream and licking our wounds. Munna Bhai,
I thought, you should first impress upon the theatre management the virtues
of Gandhigiri when they dip their fingers into viewers’ pockets.
But then, it was all worth it, though the film was a bit contrived compared
to Munna Bhai MBBS. But the message did come across clearly – it does pay if
you remain steadfast. Actually, we were persuaded to watch the film by a
practical Gandhian from Ahmedabad, Sudharshan Iyengar, the Vice Chancellor
of Gandhi Vidyapeeth, founded by the Mahatma some 60 years ago.
Munna Bhai’s Gandhigiri, he told us, is shorn of shibboleths, and is the
practical side of Gandhi’s ways that can be adopted for our time and age, a
100 years after Satyagraha was born as a weapon to win over even enemies. If
the language is coarse, it is because the char acters cannot speak a
language different from their milieu. One cannot expect a cockney to spout
the Queen’s English, right? Don’t shoot the messenger, someone said, and he
was right. The film carries the message clearly to a generation which does
not know about Gandhi and a people who have forgotten him. “Go watch it,” he
prodded us.
Iyengar was right. The pivot of the film is the short speech the new
convert-cum-fake Gandhian Munna Bhai delivers to a small audience of the
aged in a home. If some one has broken the arm of a Gandhi statue, give him
another stone to demolish it entirely, then remove all statues across the
country, rename all lanes, streets, roads and buildings named after the
Mahatma and remove his pictures from walls. Just keep the grand old man in
your hearts and see how the country, caught in deceit, corruption and other
venal ways, changes. It was no call to switch to khadi, or walk with a stick
in hand. Nor was it a demand that people become saints like the Mahatma. It
was about being correct and demanding that others be so, too. But to be all
that, one needs courage. In ample measure.
However, what strikes me as odd is the way Sanjay Dutt, who plays Munna
Bhai, the scoundrelturned-Gandhian-for-acause – the cause being winning a
young woman’s heart – is being portrayed as a real votary of Gandhi in real
life. The PR boys seems to see the role and the timing of the film as just
the deus ex machina were looking for to rewrite the tangled plot of Sanjay
Dutt’s life.
Dutt’s claims on TV interviews – not just promos before the film was
released when anything is said to push the film at the box office – but much
later, including on October 2, that Gandhi taught him to be calm and quiet,
and so on, is rather rich.
In his interview to the Hindustan Times, carried on Gandhi’s 137 birth an
niversary, he says that as children, he and his sister were brought up in an
atmosphere steeped in Gandhi’s philosophy. He also says something about
himself that is close to what his hoodlum sidekick says in the film: “To be
honest, I never knew what October 2 meant. I knew it was Gandhi Jayanti and
that it was a dry day! I never knew how important it was. It was only after
Lage Raho… that I understood its value.” So do many among us. But we could
have been spared the PR spin.
URL :
http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/artMailDisp.aspx?article=16_10_2006_011_003&typ=0&pub=264