'Mohalla Assi': Provocative, pungent, relevant (Movie Review)

'Mohalla Assi': Provocative, pungent, relevant

(Movie Review) "Why do you need to go to Ayodhya to encounter Ram? Just stay here and chant His name," the wife snorts from her meal-time thali.

'Mohalla Assi': Provocative, pungent, relevant (Movie Review) on Business Standard. Film: Mohalla Assi; Director: Chandraprakash Dwivedi; Cast: Sunny Deol, Sakshi Tanwar, Ravi Kishan and Saurabh Shukla.

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» There is a lot to be said about Varanasi, the

holy city at the riverbank of the Ganga where culture and religion are the twin life savers. Everything including gangajal is for sale in Varanasi.

Based on Hindi litterateur Kashi Nath Singh's "Kashi Ka Assi", a scathing indictment of merchandised religiosity in Varanasi, Dwivedi's freewheeling adaptation doesn't shy away from letting the narrative hang loose to accommodate characters from different strata and owing allegiance to polarised political interests which seem to have a meeting point in the dhaba, an adda of ideas where political opinions are fired fearlessly.

Mohalla Assi Movie Review Some of the thoughts expressed on the communal conundrum of this great nation of ours, are so steeped in relevance and immediacy that we have to remind ourselves that the film is set during the years just before the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

So it isn't surprising really, that one elderly wise man asks, "How can the Ram temple in Ayodhya be built brick by brick? Have you ever heard of a temple built of bricks?"

This atmosphere of free speak allows renowned actors to come together for a pow-wow that is layered in sarcasm. At one point, Sunny Deol playing an impoverished semi-redundant Brahmin priest, tells his screen wife Sakshi Tanwar that he must leave for Ayodhya to support the construction of the Ram temple.

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