RDB

I watched RDB a couple of weeks ago and the effect still lingers. It was an ordinary story in the beginning depicting the care free genX of today's India. The easy going, cop-bribing, rough-riding, careless youth whom we find by the dozen in colleges today. I thought that was it. This is another DCH kind of flick where the protagonists finally come of age in the climax. I wasn't aware of the story line before I went to see the movie. What followed later on was quite a surprise and the movie during the later phases seemed quite a handful to handle, emotionally.

Every gang in college will have its own DJ, its own patriot (one who wants to join army or do other kinds of greater things), its own Sukhi (always after girls) and the financier (a rich kid who funds the operations). The beauty of RDB lies in the fact that the story took some turns that brings the protagonists face to face with reality. From the initial "System is rotten and nothing can be done" to "We have to do something", the characters under go a sea of change. It made me think as how these carefree youth could bring themselves to do those deeds that they have done! It was something which I would classify as "some one in the right mind would never do". It made me re evaluate decisions that I have made in my life.

As the British jailer in the movie would say "Some would go to their deaths screaming, Some would face their deaths in silence ... and then I met the third kind". The third kind - those who go to their deaths smiling, mocking at death itself. The protagonists in the movie might not have actually thought they would meet such a fate when they embarked upon that venture. I actually think that it was the logical ending. They matured from "Yeh nahi badalegaa" to "Hum iss desh ko badalenge". The final few minutes were heart-wrenching. Even in those last few emotionally heavy minutes the director elicits a few laughs from the audience through the dialogues mouthed by the character of DJ. At the end of it all the director depicted that a flame has been lit in the hearts of young India because of the sacrifice.

Let us think for a moment that the story was real. Had I been one of them would I have given such a sacrifice? Would the flame have endured even a single day in the hearts of the people today? How many times do we think that we need to change the system and then fall into the same complacent mode again? Public memory is short lived. Agitations are no longer the page 1 stuff unless they are backed by some political big wigs with vested interests. Being one among the current generation I would think not twice but "n" times before committing such a sacrifice because I know that public would soon forget all that was done and the ends would not have been achieved whatever may be the means whether - just or unjust, violent or non-violent! People might remember me but the flame I have lit through my sacrifice would have long been extinguished probably just after hours of my death and people become complacent again. They were just woken up only be lulled into sleep again.

Note: Aamir should be given a pat on the back for giving a relatively unknown actor from south India, Siddharth, equal footage with him. He accorded the same respect to Toby Stephens(Capt. William Gordon) in Mangal Pandey too.