Rang De Basanti is a movie very close to my heart. It was one of those rare movies which have a very strong but a very subtle message. You can take it if you want and spend sleepless nights for weeks after, or you can have a good laugh and not even notice. I wish the original team brings out a fitting sequel to the blockbuster, a story about a different set of individuals who take up a different cause and challenge the system. Whether or not a sequel is made, I imagine it starting with the following lines:
A nation used to slavery absorbed the shocking display of a rebellion and it’s tragic suppression. An eruption occurred and blinded everyone with it’s brilliance. But a giant foot stomped all over it, shaking the ground beneath everyone who stood watching, and left a colossal but harmless looking rubble of grief and self-doubt wrapped in the smoke of rumours. But right beneath the cold and charred scales were several burning, albeit isolated, hearts.
Whether they were wrong or right is a different issue all together. There methodology can definitely be argued upon. But the undeniable truth is those five kids not only stood for their cause, they were also ready to face the consequences (and that, they did).
Mellow drama followed. Allegations and counter allegations, debates and comments, tie-ups and link-ups, not to forget, petitions, strikes, bandhs, marches, etc. Commissions, committees, panels, not all in vain; some political motives resolved as usual; issue forgotten; lost lives forgotten; bullets fired forgotten. One shell was on sale on e-bay.
Life goes on, at least, here in India, it never stops. The surface stays cool and calm as if everything is fine. But this serves one good purpose, the core remains smouldering hot. The maniac inside our heads who has had enough does not get the opportunity to let it, to vent it out, tipping the world around us all the more to the point of eventual mutiny. So, even though the clock of life goes on, some moments just don’t tick. And the other loud ones make them all the more silent. Deafeningly silent.