To Bapu with love
By IE
Dear Bapu,
After a long time I saw you in a film, not in a documentary or a bio-pic,
but in a mainstream movie with a title like Lage Raho Munnabhai.
A few years ago watching you was mandatory in the newsreels preceding the
main show.
As a child and later as an adolescent, we resented watching the
black-and-white grainy footage covering your Quit India and Dandi March
movements over and over again. We would desperately wait for the newsreel to
end so that we could be transported into the colourful fantasy world of
formula films. When that happened we would rejoice loudly and that was more
out of relief than irreverence.
Over the years, I don’t know how and why but you gradually disappeared from
the cinema halls. From the big screen. One hardly ever saw you on the
marquee, and to be honest we got too absorbed in our progress and technology
to miss you. Our children never made any reference to you and we were too
caught up in ourselves to notice that they were growing up without an idol.
Once a while some noble soul enchanted by your charisma and philosophy tried
capturing your life on celluloid. Hollywood director Richard Attenborough
made the bi-lingual Gandhi (1982) and mesmerised the global audience with
happy and sad anecdotes from your life. A decade and half later, our very
own Shyam Benegal unfolded the anxieties of your youthful days with Kasturba
in The Making Of The Mahatma released in 1996. Now I’m told even Anil Kapoor
is ready to release his production delving on your volatile and turbulent
relationship with your eldest son Hiralal in Mahatma vs Gandhi.
Interestingly Anupam Kher also produced a stirring film inspired by you.
Though not directly connected to you, it related to your ideology and the
myth behind your assassinator Godse in Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Maara.
But no filmmaker has in all these years portrayed you as a character.
Second-time director Rajkumar Hirani in a sequel to Munnabhai MBBS is the
only one to possess the vision and genius to portray you as yourself. He has
portrayed you as an inspiration to his protagonist Munna, a golden-hearted
don.
This is a novel first experience for you and also for us as audience. When
you first appear on screen you looked strangely unfamiliar… And it took a
while to place you. There was a time when we were familiar with your dhoti,
your spectacles and your walking stick. We echoed your thoughts and took
pride in simplicity. Now it took a while to revive the old memories… even
to visualise you.
You appeared leaner, more tanned. Is this really the effect of pollution, as
Circuit pointed out, or have you been wandering extensively – looking for an
abode?
I’m curious to know, Bapu, what really made you accept Rajkumar Hirani’s
film?
It cannot be money because you never needed it. It cannot be fame because it
was never important to you. It can only be for the revival of values. Only
someone as selfless as you can think of enriching humanity. You never tired
of reforming those around you.
It’s your philosophy that transforms Munna to Murli Prasad, Circuit to
Sarkeshwar and Lucky Singh into a noble, straight man.
It’s because of you that viewers like us are reintroduced to forgotten
virtues like truthfulness, non-violence, simplicity, fortitude and
abstinence.
Many years ago B. Nagi Reddi produced Yehi Hai Zindagi (1977), starring
Sanjeev Kumar, wherein Lord Krishna keeps visiting the hero, a simpleton.
The hero is an atheist and challenges the deity to alter his life. The deity
keeps his word but the hero is unable to cope with the changes. It was an
engaging story of faith and fortitude.
In the new millennium I guess it had to be the Father Of The Nation who
reintroduces us to ourselves. In present times we needed a secular leader
and not a deity to make us introspect and alter our worldview.
Lage Raho Munnabhai is the purest, simplest and most original story ever
told on celluloid in recent times. It is a story that restores our faith in
humanity.
Thank you Bapu, for re-visiting us and restoring our conscience.
Thank you Rajkumar Hirani, for bringing Bapu back.