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Andhra Pradesh
Reliving a community’s angst
Film: A Wednesday!
Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Anupam Kher
Direction: Neeraj Pandey
Why does the common man shy away from growing a beard these days? Why does a man have to think about a “suitable name” for his new office or shop so that it won’t be attacked during the next riots? Why do many wives worry whether their husbands would come back home tonight rather than merely reminding them to have lunch on time and pick up vegetables on the way home? Director Neeraj Pandey dares to air unmentionable things in A Wednesday!, a film that gives a new dimension to multiplex cinema. Rather than being just a goody-goody exercise for the well-heeled, it also expresses urban angst, aspirations and apprehension.
Three cheers, no, just short of that to Neeraj for coming up with a film that has a racy momentum, focussed narration and a tightly woven script that allows for no stop-overs.
A brave new film that has no songs, but makes a telling statement on what it is to be a Muslim in today’s world! Suspected by law-enforcing agencies, often avoided at the time of giving away property on rent or selling it, serious, respectable but nowhere to go.
Yet Neeraj does not take the sermonising approach. No essays on communal amity or on the pluralist spirit. Instead, he starts it as yet another bomb blast story. There is a bomb waiting to explode in front of the police station. There are four others in different parts of the city. As the police commissioner gets the dreaded calls, there is panic. The bombs will explode if four dreaded militants are not released, says the would-be killer! The negotiator means business, so won’t settle for some orderly to represent the government! Seems to be the work of some militant organisation trying to free its activists thrown behind bars? Well, not necessarily, as Neeraj’s film proves. Kandahar hijack is the farthest thing from his mind.
Rather than talking of sundry militant outfits, he focuses on the common man, the man who must raise his voice at being used and abused, the man who must finally give expression to his feeling of being discriminated against! Remember after every blast, be it outside a temple or a mosque, only people of a certain community are rounded up by cops!Neeraj is helped greatly by two of his leading performers: Naseeruddin Shah as the tech-savvy would-be killer is, well, a killer. In what is easily one of his most memorable performances, he imparts new nuances to the role of a man holding the State to ransom! He is matched almost expression for expression by Anupam Kher as the police commissioner who must act before it is too late. Not to forget a fine helping hand by Amir Bashir as Inspector Jai, and Jimmy Shergill as Inspector Arif.
Why not three full-throated cheers then? Simply because the end is a little simplistic, and a shade too sudden. And the director leaves a few loopholes along the way. For instance, he equivocates in the realms of grey rather than take a stand in black and white.
Yet, this Sunday A Wednesday! is compulsory viewing.
ZIYA US SALAM
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