Review: Khuda Ke liye

“In the name of God“ (Khuda Ke liye ) is a hard hitting movie from Pakistani cinema. The producer cum director must have got real courage. The story starts with a band rehearing for a music concert on a New Year eve in Lahore, Pakistan, is unexpectedly attacked by a mob of radical Islamist. After this attack there are some more instances which help in putting through different kind of radical views setting proper background for the movie. The movie start on the slower side with even starring seems never ending but quickly picks up the pace. The director had wasted no time in coming to the main subject, quickly winding up the inter-linkages between different characters.

The story revolves around a family holding moderate Islamic view where 2 boys (“Mansoor” & “Sarmad”) of the family wear “Jeans”, “T-shirt” and had taken up singing as their profession. Sarmad younger of the two goes to visit Masjid where he meets “Maulana Saab” and comes face to face with the “real” Islamic views on certain aspects. Believing on the face values of those views that guy starts getting closer to “real” Islam.  On the other hand the second brother who sees religion more from a logical point proceeds towards USA to study music. Fate plays along and the brother with radical Muslim views marry her cousin sister, who is from London and is about to marry Dave (A Christian), without her consent under influence of “Maulana Saab”, while Mansoor falls in love with a Christian girl and gets married.  In between all these 9/11 had happened and story takes more interesting turns. I will leave the story here for you to follow it on CD/DVD or online.

At the far end of the movie there appears two (Hard and moderate) distinct views of Islam on many aspects of universal living principles. Naseerud din Shah plays a hard hitting cameo role and delivers dialog which delve into Islamic sense of dressing, music, girls marrying outside Islam and many more. The reasoning backed by strong dialog delivery produces a mesmerizing effect.

On the acting front, it is average performance by everyone except Naseeruddin Shah which is awesome. The dialog writer has done good job, with the witty and hard hitting dialogs on every point in the movie.

Overall the movie is a good watch, with Nasseruddin cameo can be applauded multiple times.

School: Some special category of students

During my school days there used to be one category of students in class: they would answer all the questions being asked in class, they were always ready for quizzes and also would pass the test with flying colors, and if I asked them how you people are always ready with answers, they in humility or rather to keep their mission studies secret would say “are ismein kya hai, ye to koi bhi bata sakta hai”,(they are very simple anyone can answer) in a way ridiculing me and making me think that “yaar main itna bewkoof hoon!! jab koi bhi bata sakta hai to main kyon nahi??” (M I that big nut, when everyone can why can’t I??). If I ever attempt test solely depending on my hard work and didn’t depend on others because on that particular day invigilation was strict, I used to score marks that usually fell short of full marks by a good 80%-90% margin and sometimes even absolute 100%. So if class test is of 10 maximum marks, my score would usually range between 0 to 2 marks. That was quite depressing, but the real and only consoling factor was that I was not alone; there was big chunk of student who used to be with me. Some people were permanent fixture in that chunk who would neither cheat nor study for test citing some new ‘ethical’ reason for every time they flunked.

There was one more category of students who would spend their time advertising how much syllabus they have already finished even before the session started, number of hours they studied on daily basis and there superhumanly gestures suggesting that some or other calculation going on in their mind. But in terms of scoring these students were not very far from me and they would have to depend on the ‘real’ studies of others to clear the test.

How long it will take to end corruption

With corruption at outrageous level in government departments, it is highly improbable that a single bill (whether Lokpal or any other bill) will be able to root-out corruption. Corruption has got so much ingrained in the system that if we intends to be corruption free it will require at-least present generation to retire from government offices and to ensure that the new generation that replace the present generation should adopt new corruption free systems. India will not become a corruption free society in one day or by single government or single anti-corruption act. Rooting out is way too difficult and it will be very similar to how the Japanese rebuilt Japan after 2^nd world war; in that they required 1 generation of working population doing unwavering work to become super power again. But it’s not that it can’t be done and the first step toward anti-corruption movement will be establishment of effective anti-corruption agency at the system level and at the individual level initiating thinking as well as starting action against corruption.

“Cast vote to change the government not to make them continue”

Every other day we hear, we say, we gossip, we shout that corruption in India is because of the congress government rule of 55 years. And most of the present day problems are because of systematic trouble that was brought in by ineffective governance by congress both at state and at center. With the current state of affairs it appears that congress government is hell bent upon proving that right by not  doing anything except for ensuring way for Gandhi Dynasty to rule by indulging in populist politics (Food Security Bill, Minority Quota Bill etc). 

There is very famous saying: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely” and this saying becomes very pertinent with respect to gross level of corruption that our country is facing today. It is primarily because of absolute power that was given to a single party government for 55 yrs that there were no checks and balances on government working leading to system going out of order and taking the present shape. There are many examples at state level that even a single term of 5 yrs can lead to disproportionate amount of corruption so one can get an idea of the amount of corruption a single party government for 55 yrs could have committed. Had there been different parties in charge of governance at center ours would have been different country, for better.

But there is a point to ponder that whenever any non-congress party had got chance of forming government at center or at state, have they done anything different from what congress government had done with regards to anti-corruption? Not much, and the impact of that on country/state is very much debatable. On committing corruption, if not more the non-congress governments have competed with congress government in every aspect. So in most of the cases it is very difficult to conclude that non congress government are lesser evil (exceptions are always there). 

With the present hopeless situation of politics and politicians in our country and no new alternatives at disposal we have to make the system work with whatever little good i.e voting power, we have. We as citizen/voters have to use our voting power in a manner whereby ensuring that no government rules for continuously longer period (say for more than 2 terms) at both state as well as at center. By doing that, the governments will not have a dictator like say for long and also the wrong and corrupt practices of previous regime will be checked by present government. The days of loyalty to a single political party are over, now we need to cast votes to change the government not to make them continue.