This is not intended to be a review.

*spoiler alert* Some points give away the story line of the movie.

Peepli Live is a slap fest. It’s a slap across the face, for today’s politicians, the government, it’s babus, their yojanas, and above all, the MEDIA and us, it’s viewers.

Live television has long crossed the boundaries of absurdity. An year ago, the CM of Andhra Pradesh (YS Rajashekar Reddy) passed away in a chopper crash, and the media created a mass hysteria among people and portrayed several hundred ‘shock deaths’ – death of many average souls, who died of shock when they heard the news. For a major part of the week, including the night of the disappearance of the chopper, the news channels went wild, especially the one owned by the CM’s son (and apparently the heir to the CM post in the next few years), broadcast images of people weeping inconsolably for a CM they most probably never saw in flesh and blood ever in their life. His popularity exaggerated and magnified a million fold, and gaining maximum political mileage out of a personal tragedy.

That is a tiny example of our mis-information age, and Peepli Live makes a satire of it. Farmer deaths is something we hear about everyday, (right after cricket, dynasty politics, Pakistan, world, Chinese made gadgets and 10 tips to improve our sex lives). The characters in the movie are in abject poverty, and their cuss words may make you laugh, or cringe, but they are pretty unfiltered.

In the first few minutes you hear a pair of newsreaders relaying the news about Shilpa Shetty, denying the rumor of an affair with Prince William. You thought that was exaggeration? Over an hour into the movie, a TV presenter is shown examining the poop of a person they are unable to get hold of, for a millionth interview.

Budhia, a simpleton who is talked into giving a statement about committing suicide, as he is about to lose his ancestral piece of land, is now on the run because the media had made a circus out of his life, and his tiny little home in an unknown rural town of Peepli. His half hearted suicide talk has become a national sensation, and everybody in an official position in the country, and the media, have a vested interest in his death.

The stress of this turn of events has given him a diarrhea, but the media won’t allow him to attend his ablutions in peace. If this doesn’t tell you something, then good. The real world media has done its job well. We have been desensitized, the level at which we can be shocked is so high up, that nothing trivial like suicides because of poverty, bother us anymore. We couldn’t do much about it anyway.

While the suspense of Budhia’s life or death is gripping the nation, Mahato is out digging a ditch to make money by selling the soil, and ironically, his weak body gives away and he dies in the very ditch he is digging. Nobody give’s a sh*t because they are busy analyzing Budhia’s sh*t.

The outcome of Budhia’s life doesn’t really matter anymore, there’s a wonderful 3 min scene about what ‘yojanas’ can help him. There’s one for widows, disabled and the destitute. But the only one Budhia qualifies for is either ‘Lal Bahadur’(a hand pump) or the 1 lakh compensation that his wife gets if he dies.
Again, a wonderful satire on how our national leaders have been idolized under different schemes (mostly for political purposes). There’s wonderful characterization of IAS level/Block development officers, who say nothing but, ‘yes sir’ to the minister. The educated secretary of Agriculture, who won’t do anything except wait for a court order, and the high rung politicians, for who, everything is just a political game. To get into power, and remain in power. Absolutely no other objective.

Peepli live is uncomfortably funny, has no songs, has exceptionally talented actors, is produced by Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao, and is a very simple and straight story that was born out of frustration with things that are wrong in India today including the media, which has long lost its original purpose of information, and fast moved into the world of entertainment. LIVE entertainment. And Peepli Live is a wonderful window that captures this in less than 2 hrs.

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Last year, Outlook India published a list of ‘villains’ that Über Desi blogged about here, and what struck me was an entry into the list that is probably the most relevant today, the faceless terrorist. This entry made it into a list in a respected Indian journal. Would you ever see such an entry in a magazine of international repute like say, Time? I would say, probably never.

We do not have a specific individual in a specific group to point to, like the world sees in Bin Laden, the chief of an organization named Al-Qaeda. One group, one name, one enemy and yes, one major tragic event – 9/11/2001/. What would be the date of India’s tragic events? One too many-
March 7 2006, Varanasi.
July 11 2006, Mumbai.
September 8 2006, Malegaon.
May 18 2007, Hyderabad.
August 25 2007, Hyderabad.
May 13 2008, Jaipur.
July 25 2008, Bangalore
July 26 2008, Ahmedabad.

These are just the list of bombings only, not all attacks, and that too in the past 2-3 years in temples, mosques, markets, trains, hospitals and you name it. Any place where people throng, there’s a chance that it’s a probable place for a terror attack in any major city in India. And the perpetrators? It’s a meaningless list of names. We keep hearing about organizations backed by Pakistan’s ISI – Huji, LET, and ‘homegrown’ SIMI. Except which, every other organization is a combination of Arabic origin Urdu names branded as organizations by the media, even though we are never sure of the existence of an operational structure. And the name SIMI also stands out. Student’s Islamic movement of India – almost nothing about the name is accurate today, irrespective of how it was started way back in 1977, by Dr. M.A. Siddiqui. The terrorists may/may not be students – we do not know, but are definitely violent, criminal minded terrorists. They are generally perceived to be extremist Islamists, but bomb Hindu temples and Muslim mosques with the same violent vigour. And there’s no ‘movement’ either, the organization is banned and its leaders are in jail. They care two pence about the victim’s religion, ethnicity or race. Of course, almost all victims are Indian. And before I stop short of branding them as fools for not coming up even with a proper name for themselves, they are doing exactly what they want – create terror and fear. And from what I hear from the media – they have a new name – Indian Mujahideen. Stressing every time in clear letters, they are Indian based. Can you name one other terrorist organization in India that stresses the country of their base in their name? A handful as I can see here, with CPI(Maoist) the only well known one in the list. And before long, all media outlets, especially out of India, have come up with headlines about Indian Mujahideen, focus slightly off from any names linked to Pakistan’s ISI.

As for individuals, first it was Shahid Bilal a resident of Hyderabad, India. Whose origin is somewhat known, but his current place of existence or state – alive or dead has been a big question mark for more than an year. B. Raman, a leading writer about terrorism in India predicts the trend to shift towards killing Americans and Jews (from Israel) in India, and in a different article, he names one Abu Abdel Aziz as the possible perpetrator whose details are little known to the Indian intelligence agencies. And there are reports pouring in about a Abdul Halim’s arrest.

This faceless terrorist has no clear objectives apart from – strike to kill, instill fear, and prove their twisted bent of mind.

We have suffered in terms of failing every time to flush out the real persons and organizations behind every terrorist attack, and our politicians busy issuing, almost false assurances of fighting back and getting highly involved in politics about inefficiency of each other, repealing of laws (like POTA) which are highly controversial and abused by police in India. And intelligence inputs are way below acceptable, assuming the attacks in Bangalore and Ahmedabad are linked, about 30 blasts in two cities in different parts of the country. In no way is it a small operation, yet nothing was heard, known or anticipated even though it should have involved anything more than 30 people at the minimum just for carrying the explosion. Planning, procuring and instigating these 30 people could be done by a lot more number of terrorists, yet intelligence inputs have totally failed in all aspects, given the complexity of gathering intelligence-what could be made easier , is for the government and the opposition to stop slinging dung at each other (we surpassed mud long ago). And for criminal minded politicians to take advantage of the situation like they have done in the past. Violence breeds violence, and its high time our political system cleanse itself of the extremist zealots – be they Hindus, Muslims or communists or any other school of thought. Without good leaders and a system in place, such attacks will continue to take place and the faceless terrorist will keep appearing in different forms throughout the country mercilessly killing and instigating mutual hatred.

The only positive thing being, they haven’t been successful this time, in instigating any communal riots.