Chak De, India' firms up the new brand of nationalism un-spooling in Bollywood.
The film makes that all-important point about people being different, yet same.
Shubhra Gupta
In the just released Yashraj film Chak De, India, newly-appointed hockey coach Kabir Khan asks his team for introductions. As each young woman steps up, she adds the name of her State to hers. Each is asked to fall out. And then one says, India. He asks her to say it again, louder. She does. The girls — State champions all, from Punjab, Jharkhand, Haryana, Manipur and so on — get it. India, they holler, in unison. And all of them are back, in the line-up.
Kabir Khan, played by Shah Rukh Khan, is a Muslim, and a hockey player who fell from grace when he missed an all-important goal in a world cup final. By coming back into the fray, and moulding a rag-tag bunch of squabblers into a world-class team, he wants to put the ignominy behind him. We hear the familiar shaming lines, as Kabir and his mother are forced to leave his mohalla: "Partition ke time yeh log kyon us taraf nahin chale gaye" ("why didn't these people, that is, Muslims, leave and go to Pakistan").
We see the word gaddaar (traitor) painted on his wall. We see Kabir and his mother leave because they can't bear it. We see them coming back, quietly triumphant, and entering their door, locked for the seven years they have been away. And one little boy wiping out that shameful word from the wall. Time for closure. Time for wounds to heal. Simplistic? Sure. Effective? Very.
Chak De, India is an important film in the Hindi film lexicon, because it firms up the new brand of nationalism kicked off in movies like Munnabhai MBBS, and its sequel Lagey Raho, Rang De Basanti, and less obviously, Dil Chahta Hai.
First off, in Chak De, a real-life Muslim plays one on screen, giving off a strong resonance. By dealing with the nasty comments and media coverage with dignity, and frontlining his intention, Kabir Khan shows the way forward.
By having a superstar junking statehood for nationhood, the film makes that all-important point about people being different, yet same. Being joint in purpose. Being one. Being Indian.
Where are you from? We have all faced this question. Or maybe asked it ourselves, of people we meet for the first time. This desire to put a person into a box, defined by "where she is from" has acquired a sharper edge with each successive year since 1947: you can see it rear its ugly head in each successive riot or troubled spot, globally and locally — if you are not from where I am, you do not belong. That sentiment stretches, with horrible ease, into the famous Bush-ism — if you are not with us, you are against us.
Bollywood has always fought against this sort of subversion in its own populist, sometimes simplistic manner. It's hard to look at region and religion in the world's biggest film industry: you are what you bring to the table.
Mirroring the nation state
Since Independence, movies have reflected the state of the nation, from the 1940s and 1950s when the country was new, and there was optimism along with Nehruvian socialism, to the 1960s and 1970s when class and social divides became important markers, to the 1980s and 1990s when cultural chaos encompassed the breathless changes taking place in all sectors, and the present decade where things are still in the process of being rediscovered, and revamped, and a new identity forged.
This is very far removed from the sort of movies that Shri 420 and Awara were, where the fledgling nation was struggling to come to terms with itself, and its many disturbing, contradictory strands. Very different from Haqeeqat, India's first proper war movie, where Pakistan was the obvious, clear enemy, and from Border and Gadar, more than 30 years later, where it was the same. As well as the mid-1990s' Sarfarosh, where ISI was named, perhaps, for the first time, instead of that elusive, mysterious 'foreign hand'.
Manoj Kumar's Shaheed, and Purab aur Paschim defined patriotism/ nationalism in the 1960s: his take on how all-things-good-belonged-to-Bharat, and the bad things to the 'depraved West', found ready takers in that decade, and influenced the way we saw ourselves and the others for many more years.
Inventive, patriotic
It's only in the mid-1990s when the winds of liberalisation became both economic and social: the fact that you could go out and earn more money than your father and grandfather, and break free of the shackles of birth, caste, and class, at least notionally, was a powerful liberator.
Farhan Akhtar's Dil Chahta Hai was, on the surface, a paean to male bonding and the ritual of hanging-out. But it also struck a blow for freedom to be yourself, by saying that having money didn't automatically brand you a smuggler, or a dacoit, like it used to. You didn't have to chest-thump, spout vile things about neighbours, fire bazookas, or wave flags, to be a good citizen.
In the most marvellously inventive script in recent times, Rajkumar Hirani gave us a sense of ourselves and a forgotten pride in who we could be. His Munnabhai MBBS and Lagey Raho, Munnabhai are both classics in the manner in which they gave us back the goodness of Gandhi and Gandhigiri, wrapped up in the importance of being Indian.
Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Rang De Basanti reunited a lost me-mine-myself generation with their roots. Its gang of six find themselves, and discover what it is to be from this land, and its people. Despite its downbeat end, the message was very clear: it is good to be Indian.
It's a similar thing that Shimit Amin attempts in Chak De, India, albeit in a lower key. Its all-girls' team is pulled into shape by a man with full confidence in his mulk (country), and their collective ability to pull off a world cup win. So what if the Indian women's team hasn't done it in real life? "Chakla belan chalane wali hockey stick kya chalayegi? ("How can those who wield a rolling pin be of any use with a hockey stick?) This derisive question, from an indifferent sports official, is answered with utmost conviction, on screen.
The coach is free, from past stigma. The girls are free, to be themselves.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/life/2007/08/17/stories/ 2007081750100400.htm
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