Swades hai "tera"

A thought provoking story put with beautifull cinematography is standard recipe for good movie. Swades, was a noble attempt by Ashutosh Gowariker. I recently watched for the first time and loved it at first instance for all its ingenuity. Afterall how many movies have you watched where the "hero" sports the same shirt in 3 different shots at 3 different locations. Although there was a marathi village camouflaged as one in Uttar Pradesh and no one cared even to change the architecture of houses, and then there were marathi actors abusively faking UP accent, and it seemed like inspired by priyadarshan films where everyone was content are wearing "whites", UP villages are colourfull, atleast in terms of clothes (white clothes get dirty quickly, and we are lazy people, yes I am from UP). That is where my "production value" irritation ends.

It was a spendid story, NRI returning to India, for a practical cause, no melodrama attached. He lives in a village and finds caste, poverty, lack of education and above all laidback attitude of the village only to realise that he ought to be a part of this and give his share of contribution to its upliftment. I was a bit mellow to see the poverty, and also ashamed at the fact that I needed to watch a movie to realise the poverty which I have seen with my own eyes in real life. For a moment, I too wanted to return to my village and work for the people there (consider this as an impulse similar to crying while watching movies), but as soon as movie ends process of thinking moves from heart to head. Everything went well with Shahrukh making electricity, had the movie been a bit longer, we would have seen several government officials flockering over the village to ask for permits for almost everything.

The could have misunderstood the message from the director, but I really don't see the village as potrayed by him. To begin with the caste system, I am not an avid supporter, but it takes a lot bit more than a crying, emotional, mellow, shaved chest NRI to convince the villagers to reject the notion of caste. Also, I fail to understand why almost always the upper castes are shown elitists, and invariably all the miserable ones are the dalits, julahas et al. The poor kisaan shown in as the julaha who turned to farming, well it could very well be a brahmin, infact in eastern UP it would most probably be a brahmin.

With all due respect to them but the attrocities on these "backward" castes is highly hyped, just walk into any village from Allahabad to Buxar (Eastern UP), and randomly ask about the land ownership, almost all the land is owned by Yadavs (an OBC), Brahmins are anything but rich there, thanks to the reservation policy the employment for these "upper castes" are minimal. Last time I visited my village, there were celebrations in a fellow Dubey family because their son got into CRPF as sainik after 4 yrs of attempt, we met and talked, he told me that all his samauriyas (bhojpuri for same age peers) who were from "backward" classes had made it in first attempts and now sit a position or two above him. I woke up in the morning 4 o'clock, and in the beautifull sunrise I saw a bunch of 15 or so young boys running barefeet on a tar road for 4-5 km, before the thought of health conciousness could kick in, my uncle told me that they were preparing for army recruitment of sipahi , it didn't take me long to realise that defense had no reservations (why should OBCs, SC, STs die for the country, they are National Treasure afterall), so tht is almost only choice left, but still aren't there 50% seats left for other government services? well apart from UPSC, NO. All the vacancies are forcefully filled by OBC, SC and STs in UP Gov services, to fill infor backlog. While I was there, a notice came for the recruitment for UP Police, 300 posts and 0 for general category, by order Bahan Mayawati.
That could be just UP right? well, there are 50 Sulabh Shauchalayas in Delhi, and ALL are taken care of and cleaned by Brahmins, so much for "elite", 50 % of rickshaw pullers in NCR are Brahmins with a daily wage of 100-150, almost 90% rickshaw pullers in Benaras are Brahmins.
Yadavs sit on the 90% of assembly seats of UP and Bihar combined. 75% of domestic help in Andhra Pradesh are Brhamins and purohits are the only priest class of all major religions who live below poverty line. Village after village brahmins are displaced by dalits because dalits have 5-6 children each as they can place them with ease. Murders of brahmins, or a group of them would never be reported beyond local dailies, but "humiliation" of a dalit becomes a crime of national importance. So it should not be hard to understand that why more and more "brahmins" and "thakurs" take it to self employment of kidnapping and extortion, most famous dons on the STF top 10 list are all from these "upper castes". But still we all upper castes, who luckily make it to IITs or IIMs should "work" for "their" country to see their children slog to fight for that seat which an OBC, SC, ST might get at negative marks as well (in BHU entrance in some year in late 90's, cutoff for SC's was -5).
Now you might be tempted to talk like JNU type jhola chhap left "thinkers" and shower me with words like "social justice" etc., then either you are one of those "lower","opressed" class yourself, or you might shut up when you see your children in a position as mentioned above.

That is just to speak of the caste factor, and I also know these are just excuses because it is tough to get rid of the "ferrari" of your dreams, or the "rolex" you always wanted afterall "Hawai" is much better a honeymoon destination than "kullu manali". But it is not just an excuse, coming back to work at your "swades" is anything but as shown in the movie. My dad and I were upset over the condition of roads in our village, so my dad went and spoke to the village pradhan and asked him that we should meet the MLA or MP to talk this out, and pradhan ji idiotically replied "dekha pandi ji, vidhayak, sansad ke ihan apne laikan ka naukri lagawe bade jaai, ki i kul sadak jaisan chhot mot kaam bade jaai" (look, mr dubey, we would goto MLA or MP to get jobs for our sons, not for petty issues like roads), it might be interesting to know that the pradhan, MLA and MP all are from the same "backward" caste.

Last summer we thought of opening a good school in the village and when we were talking about the condusiveness of the idea, we got the route. Dozens of permits, bribes, life threat from a local goon (actually a pehelwan) who runs the "jagardev ahir inter kaalej", I finally postponed the idea of even thinking about that. (the school was no profit venture, infact it was a loss venture when thought from business perspective)

Coming back is not as easy as taking a flight ticket, it sounds very exciting when Shahrukh khan says "I am going places", but you just can't expect someone to leave a better life to come back and work hard to bring negative to positive, there are people who do it and think they have done something for their country, I am sorry to say, the ground reality says something else.

I have never been to US but had I been in SRK's position as shown in the movie, I would have stuck to the thought swades hai "tera", "mera" swades hone mein abhi bhi bahut der hai.

PS: generous lift of data from http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/may/23franc.htm
I don't have any grudges against "backward" caste people, I have several of them as good friends, and I realise reservation "was" necessary for upliftment.
Also neither I nor my family has any qualms against my marrying outside of caste, it's just that the look at the condition of Brahmins on the ground and the one as potryaed in the media frustates me.