LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

On Gangs of Wasseypur 1 & 2

As part of the Sydney Film Festival’s Focus on India this year, the two-part epic Gangs of Wasseypur screened on the last day of the festival to extremely enthusiastic applause from a mostly non south Asian audience. This is the first film ever to be invited into the festival’s international competition.

It has already been lauded internationally by being invited into the prestigious director’s fortnight at Cannes film festival.

In a nutshell: Peckinpah and Tarantino are reincarnated in one director who remakes The Godfather trilogy in India with an amazing sense of humour and social and political awareness.

The measure of a good film is that one thinks about it long after one has seen it. I have not stopped thinking about it.

The Godfather Trilogy deals with how a person or family becomes entwined in the cycle of crime and violence. It is one of the great achievements of cinema history.

Bertolucci’s 1900 deals with the struggle of ordinary people for some autonomy and freedom from oppression. It is also one of the great achievements of cinema history.

Gangs of Wasseypur does both and more. Moreover for an “art” film it is as entertaining as any Bollywood block buster and has great songs!

Most people take the government, police and legal systems for granted. It seems to have a god given authority and whilst there are corrupt politicians, judges and police, these are seen as the exception rather than the rule. The basis of the authority of the state is rarely questioned: we distract ourselves with arguments over which gang should rule the state, not what powers the state should have.

By tracing the oppression of the people of Bihar from British colonial times to the present day, Gangs of Wasseypur brings into sharper focus the meaning of “authority”. Shortly after the British leave India it becomes clear to the mine workers that their new Indian overlords are worse than the previous foreign ones.

The state, the legal system and the police are largely sidelined in the power struggles of the gangs of Wasseypur. Where they do feature in the discussion, they are merely tools of which gang lord has them in his pay.

The people of Bihar accept rule by gang lords as a fact. They pay extortion cheerily and willingly in exactly the same way as people pay tax, without thought.

What difference there is between a gang lord and a politician is the sophistication of their manipulative powers. The gang lord uses intimidation and reputation. The politician uses rhetoric and ideology. The politician is merely the better and sneakier liar.

In countries like India, the nexus between the gang lord of two generations ago and the politician of today is clear to thinking people. In the developed world the state has assumed an almost irresistible authority.

But the process is the same. Most people are too busy trying to stay alive to bother much with the machinations of politics. They are resigned to paying extortion (tax) for protection from chaos. It is only when this extortion becomes unbearable or the chaos too disruptive that governments are deposed, by ballot or bullet. Then a new gang of war lords take over, full of promises. And the cycle starts again.

This film deserves a place of honour amongst the great achievements in cinema.

Riju Ramrakha Glebe, NSW

It was a pleasure to read Sunny Cherian’s article on the Mohammed Rafi show that was held in Sydney recently (Indian Link, June-2 2012 issue).

To add to that, it would have been nice if some more songs were included in the show. There are plenty of Rafi numbers that people seem to skip in most shows.

I have never seen anyone singing Nain milakar chain churana, Jaane jigar tu hai hasi, Main kab gaata apne swar main, Unse rippy tippy ho gayi, Tumse kahoon ek baat, Dil tadpe tadpaya etc at any of these staged events.

The shows all present the same songs again and again. Rafi had a very large collection of fine songs and hence it would be nice to hear different songs in different shows.

Renjith Menon Belmont, WA