My problems with Rajneeti

Right. So, after we trudged (I actually danced like a nautch girl, given my heart-wrenching stint in Gurgaon) back to campus and registered ourselves as became law-abiding inmates of a WIMNI, a bunch of us (namely RG, Sick Boy, No-Longer-Hairy, Lurch and yours truly) decided to go give the much touted Rajneeti a look-see. Apparently, my Bong credentials made me a potential Rajneeti tout, convert and gun-gaan-gaoing groupie of the movie. Here’s to shattering stereotypes:

Grouse1: (Yeah, yeah knee-jerk, belan-wali, mahila-mukti bunkum spouting feminist) Seriously, do independent, educated women let themselves be pawned just so that their men-folk (and this includes daddy and bhaiyya dearest) could play kursi-kursi ? And resign themselves to their pawn status without so much as a mummy, I mean, an ouch? Are these the Middle-friggin'-Ages?

Grouse 2: Just when we thought Indian cinema was coming of age with groundbreaking film-makers like Anurag Kashyap, Vishal Bharadwaj and their ilk who don’t feel the need to ape the Boyles, Scorceses and Tarantinos of the world, Mr. Jha (who is otherwise a pretty dependable film-maker) goes and lifts not one, but two classics , churns them through his very own Transmogrifier and comes up with this Godfather-meets-Mahabharat , confused mongrel of a movie. Not a single original idea in it. Even the blast which prematurely ends the lives of two characters, is lifted directly from The Godfather. Kya yaar.

Grouse 3: Language like “jyeshtha putra”. Need I say more?

Grouse 4: Superfluous, unnecessary un-PG-13 scenes. Why, pray, why? Just to titillate the audience? They could have been easily done away with without affecting the plot. Apparently, we’re being all grown-up and evolved and reaching new comfort levels with er, un-PG-13 behaviour in the public domain. Two of Sick Boy’s 4.5 stars generously showered upon this movie are attributed to the said scenes. So, my argument of titillation stands vindicated. Also, the nick name Sick Boy. (To be fair to Sick Boy, one of my 2.5 stars for this movie was for Ranbir Kapoor and the rest for Arjun Rampal (a.k.a His Hotness, Dreamy McSteamy and other nick names ,of which good girls from good families would refuse to own authorship))

Grouse 5: Katrina Kaif. Sweety, you’re pretty as hell, but you aint gettin’ no prizes no time soon for them dead pan dialogue deliveries. Although, she does carry the entire glamour quotient and the fragile dreams of the Sick Boys and other boys on her shapely legs, er, shoulders. And the firang chick is hardly competition. I mean, give our girl a real challenge. Seriously, what were you thinking, dear Mr Casting Couch?

Grouse 6: Which ones of our politicos, even the I-hurl-anything-that-isn’t-nailed-to-the-floor-at-the-speaker variety, actually publicly come out and accuse the opposition of killing their husband/wife/son/daughter/father/mother/uncle/aunt/sister/brother/milkman/postman/pet canary, for votes? Isn’t there such a thing as cases being sub-judice/ And, oh, the Election Commission? And, when are these rivalry fuelled killings so public? Unreal.

Grouse 7: The Krishna character. Real, slim shady. So, he can’t kill the Karna (Jyeshtha Bhrata) character himself, but eggs on his nephew to do it-the nephew being a temporarily unhinged PhD candidate (in which field, you say? Ballistics? Nope. Art of War? Nope, guess again. Exploits of Machiavelli? Nah, Victorian Poetry, silly! So, obvious). Such hypocrisy! Totally unworthy of our respectable deities. I’m sure it hurts the sentiments of some community or the other. Sue the blighter, I say. And the Bhagvad Gita reference at the end- how did Mr. Victorian Poetry suddenly develop a conscience when his sole purpose was to annihilate opposition? As if he exhibited nobility of thoughts before, that his enemy’s being unarmed would have sufficiently deterred him from harming said enemy. Completely inconsistent with his ruthless form. It was merely an untenable justification to somehow get the “good over evil” angle. But, really, who was absolutely good in this whole mess? It all happened because a couple of babies had their fragile egos hurt (remember the resounding slaff, sorry , slap?)

Grouse 8: Oooh, my burly husband man-handled a female journo (half his size) who cast aspersions on my character. Oooh, what nobility! Oooh, he stood up for my honour! Ooh, he must really love me. Oooh, what do you know? I love him too. So what if I have been pining for his brother all my life and married the boor only out of spite? So what if the boor has been accused of other heinous crimes against women? Love can happen in four scenes. Can’t criminals be in love? If you prick them do they not bleed? If you tickle them do they not laugh? If you poison them do they not die? Unka dil to saccha hai.

Grouse 9: The moral of the story. So basically, a man kills everyone and goes back to Victorian Poetry. And the pretty lady runs the state. The End.

Needless to say, this was not worth wasting precious slumber (we went for the late night show) and 150 bucks on. (which reminds me, I still owe Lurch)