Yikes

So I'm sitting here at Goa Airport and there's this movie on Zee Cinema, muted ofcourse. I can't for the life of me figure out what the heck is going on but I have to admit, it's absolutely fascinating. I have no idea what the story line is. No idea who the protagonists are, can't for the life of me recognise any of the actors..... But man, the visuals I do see are so weird I honestly can't look away.
When I started watching it, there was this bare chested, long haired dude, slightly flabby but with the required beefiness. Somehow, he ended up in ice. Not on ice but in it. Don't ask. And he explodes out of the ice. So there's this beefy bloke lying prone on the floor and there are these chunks of ice strewn around him. Then this other guy, who looks like a cop of sorts, (still haven't figured out if he is or isn't) and he first acts surprised to see shirtless guy there, then shirtless guy regains conciousness and is shivering. They have words. Then possible cop guy starts kicking shirtless guy's arse and suddenly shirtless guy goes from a beefy wimp into one of those arch villian, indestructible rajnikant types. A few seconds later he morphs back. The possible cop guy also alternates between being terrified of the arch villian and beating up the wimp. Then a third dude comes in from somewhere and this totally improbable fight scene starts up.
Around this point I got bored and looked away. When I looked back there was this whole independence day thing on, with a whole bunch of cops, the requisite bunch of cute but dim kids, the constipated elder males and a woman with old lady make up and a white sari with a red border. She may have been a widow or just a highly respected epitome of womanhood, I really don't know. So now with this whole independence day celebration going on, there's this young cop going all rockstar on a santoor, some random kid spinning in slow motion and the epitome of woman hood looking fondly on. Womanhood then starts to sing and the elders start looking even more constipated and the camera pans to various pictures of Indies Gandhi and the Indian flag and then goes back to the constipated elders. I got bored again. The next time there was a tableau of one woman in a green sari, two guys in pantyhose face masks, and a 'baddie' with glasses, a black shirt and a white waist coat. Baddie is holding a machine gun and shoots another dude running towards him holding another gun. The fellow gets shot in the armpit of all things and dies. Evil guy laughs his evil laugh.
Unfair I think. You may be an extra but that doesn't mean he has to die of an armpit shot. And that too on the right side. Sheesh.....
Now they're at a hospital. Lots of people running around outside, constipated elder shoving a really geeky looking doctor around.
I give up. I have absolutely no idea what's going on. Where is the schitzofrenic arch villian? Very confusing. Oooh I just saw Nassiruddin Shah. He's in jail. Where did he come from? What's going on? This must have started out a big budget independence day blockbuster. Still not sure what they were aiming for though. I'm still as confused ad ever.

Unrest at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Just the other day, I was a hapless but captive audience for a rather loquatious taxi driver. After breaking the ice, commenting on my destination and how it along with a couple other places in the vicinity were regular drop off points for all cabbies in the area, he proceeded to launch into his main theme. The Government. According to him, we are as badly off or a little worse off than we were under the British. The oppressed masses are as miserable as they were earlier, the same governments(individuals) keep coming to power and merrily looting the country. If you're in power or close to it you will have money. The industralists will support anyone in power. Babus are in the best position though. As inflation and the cost of living rise, so too do their requirements. Where Rs50 used to be sufficient, one now needs Rs500. Who suffers? Why the masses ofcourse! Taxi drivers and their passengers. He then went on to the whole Maharashtra for the Maharashtrians school of thought. Maharashtra without Mumbai is poorer than the badlands of UP. He spoke about this Police inspector that he once had as a passenger, who asked him why he didn't stay in his home town in UP and do something. Why did he have to come to Mumbai taking away from the Maharashtrian Manoos. My cabbi's reply was something along the lines of "Mumbai is not the only place in Maharashtra. Instead of stopping people from coming here and working, why don't Maharashtrian politicians spend more time developing the rest of Maharashtra giving the rest of the Maharashtrians a better life. Why are farmers in eastern Mahashtra killing themselves and why are Maharashtrians starving in the interiors of Maharashtra? Is Mumbai the only place that needs ministers, babus and laws?" That ofcourse took him to his primary issue which was the Brahmin rule. BJP or Congress, they're a bunch of Brahmins bleeding the country dry. Through the ages Brahmins didn't have to work. If you were born Brahmin, you had a license to live off everyone else's effort but you still had all the power. When we won our independence it was with educated leaders. Then Nehru and his successors (Brahmins) took over and the whole country went down. They made sure the Brahmins continued to make money doing nothing more strenuous than sitting on their collective asses, while the Kshatrias did their bit to keep them in power and keep the rest of the populace in their place. I tried pointing out that it was the same downtrodden masses that insisted on voting the same brahmins into power and that got me another volley of fluent hindi telling me that the masses were coerced into voting a certain way and those that were free, didn't vote. We were closing in on my destination, so I asked him what was the solution to all this. Their time is coming to an end, was his answer. The Brahmins may call it Kalyug, but their time is up. They have misused their position for too long and have become far too arrogant. They will fall. Just you wait and see.
This guy isn't a one-off case. Its the fourth or fifth time someone has said something like this to me after the middle east started to burn. A change will come. The masses will rise up against the corrupt government. My question is, what then? You bring down the existing government and then what? Who or what fills in the void left in the system? It's very easy to point out defects in the existing system. What are we to do about it? If not one of Sonia's puppets who then will lead the country? Will the group that controls this great economic powerhouse, this emerging behemoth, this market of a billion plus consumers... Will they choose to clean up a rotting system, or will they succomb to the lure of easy pickings and lap up what's offered, leaving the bottom of the pyramid exactly where it is? Or will we have nation wide riots like in the middle east with the country descending down an exceedingly slippery path into mayhem and anarchy? While I hope not, my taxi driver seems convinced that a war is headed towards us. And this one will not be religious. It will be between the castes.