Blood in the Time of Holi...


Today was just another day in my life. The fact that is was Holi hardly registered on my mind except when listening to music on TV. I had an early morning meeting at 8:30 AM and was as usual late in getting ready. It was 8:15 AM by the time I stepped out of bath. I quickly put on clothes, cursed myself for being so lazy, picked my keys and made a quick time check. It was already 8:20 AM. My daily commute to the office is 8 KM but given that it was early morning with nothing to slow me down I was confident of making office by 8:35 AM and earlier in case other residents of Hyderabad co-operate. I told myself that people wouldn't waiting those extra 5 minutes instead of wrapping the call early.

As I started my bike and headed towards office, there were no signs on the road that today was Holi. Hyderabad was becoming lazy like me and was losing zest for life. May be the city youth had better things to do. The fact that it was not a holiday for a lot of corporates might have subdued the effects of Holi.

Meanwhile, I had come about a km from home. The road was split by a divider. I was tailing a car few meters behind it and thinking of overtaking it. Something struck me.... on the other side of the road, I noticed a guy running towards the divider from the other half of the road being chased by his friends with color sprays. This wasn't an unusual scene except that he was running in a direct collision path with the car. I could almost sense an impending disaster. My heart skipped a beat. In the next sixty seconds, I saw the guy leap on to the divider while being chased by his friends with colors. He seemed totally oblivious to the fact that he was crossing the road. He was focused on avoiding his friends and nothing else seemed to matter. What happened next was inevitable.

The car driver honked with all earnestness to avoid what was about to happen. The guy leapt from the divider and was hit by the car. I don't remember if he was hit while in mid air or just as he set foot on the road. My mind totally went blank. I was hardly two meters behind the car. The car driver braked with all intent and the car came to a screeching halt. The next few seconds seemed like eternity to me. I slowed down my bike in fear of what lay ahead of me.

My first glimpse of the guy was something dripping down his hand as he lay down on the road. I stopped my bike to see if I could get down and help. His friends following him immediately reached out to him and were checking on him. For a moment there I thought I saw blood dripping from his hand..My mind started racing - where was the nearest hospital? Should I flag an auto? But slowly I was coming back to my senses. What I saw on his hand was not blood but a slight shade of pink. Thank God!! It was just a plain holi color.This relieved my greatly. I realized that my mind was playing tricks on me. By the time I reached him he sort of was able to sit on the road. People had started gathering around him. He was able to speak and was crying. His friends were chiding him that he should watch before crossing. May be he was one of those lucky guys to escape unhurt in a road accident but when the car hit him It seemed certain that this was a day he was going to remember for the rest of his life. The fact that the car driver was just ambling and not speeding might have saved the day.

Whatever happened I was thankful that nothing serious had happened to the only guy I saw celebrating holi...

Pan Singh Tomar (PST)


It is very difficult to create an interesting plot and keep the audience hooked without a central character assuming a larger than life image. Pan Singh Tomar goes about doing that and does it with such finesse that your mind never wavers to think wait - where was the all the heroic stuff?? In a long time I can say that I haven't watched a movie where the plot was central to the movie. Coming from movie goer who would stop watching the cricket once SRT gets out, it says a lot about the movie. It is a true biopic. Never was an effort made to project the central protagonist as a superhuman. Not when his superior officer does not allow him to go to war because he is a sportsperson - Not when he is mocked at for staying back while his friends go to war - Not when his cousin taunts him for being a coward running all his life - Not when he falls asleep while his gang members get slaughtered by the police . This I would say is what a normal man would do and not the Hindi film Hero.

It is a simple story of a well meaning man who has been wronged by the system and goes about seeking revenge after knocking on all the doors that he can think of. But the thing that separates this story from the rest is the way he goes about doing it. The movie does not try to justify the hero turning into the villain but narrates it beautifully enough so that the audience can empathise with his suffering.

More than the story, I should say it was Irfan Khan's acting abilities that brought PST to life. Never do you get a feeling that he is emoting - he just seemed so natural in the character. It is the earnestness of his expression when he says he wants to get into sports so that he can eat more food, you realize how good an actor Irfan Khan is. He is ably supported by the support cast who deliver a decent job be it his army superior or his coach. The director also wanted to highlight an underlying message which you realize only towards the end - the way we have treated out athletes : the apathy that has left many die penniless. But then again, if that was the message of the movie, it was alluded to only when PST echoes his sadness saying that people recognized him only for his acts as a bandit and chose to ignore all his efforts a national steeplechase champion.

If the story drags towards the end, it is because there is really no end to a story until the story dies on it own. This was the story of PST and it had to be shown until PST is no more. Perhaps the director could have ended the movie once he succeeds in his revenge. But if he wanted to get his mesage through at the end, it was imperative to show that the path PST had taken had death written all over it.The climax was a little disappointing when he tries to jump across a canal to run away from police but perhaps that is what people in real life do. When you can't fight, you take flight. All said and done PST was a total Paisa vasool!!