The long dark tea time of the soul

That seems to be the mantra in selecting Rang De Basanti as India’s official entry to the oscars. Of course, we know that it won’t win the nomination for best foreign language film. But we are going there to participate, winning does not matter and its the spirit of participation that needs to be kept alive. RDB might be a very good movie, with superlative performances, has a deep connect with the young generation, but as I see it sending RDB as India’s official entry for the oscars is not going to increment the number of India’s oscar nominations. RDB is not lagaan.

Iam not going to launch into a long diatribe about synonimising mainstream bollywood cinema as the whole of Indian cinema, and how the wonderful regional language movies, despite being a hundred times better, are never allowed to represent our country. Somebody else is going to do that for me. That movies like krish with an extra r, and kabhi alvida na kehna were even considered, tells us not of the lack of good films, but the paucity of intelligence among the selectors.

Kasaravalli’s Nayi Neralu or Jhanu Barua’s Maine Gandhi ko nahi maara or Rahul Dholakia’s Parzania (if they have made a hindi version), are some of the movies that would have had a strong chance of competing with the best of the world. Unfortunately, the rest of the world have normal sensible people choosing the movies to represent their countries.