Post by GJ Jagannath

" Dhurandhar 2 accused of being a BJP favored propaganda film! " Bollywood which has languished in misery for over a decade acceding to south Tollywood and Kollywood recently got a shot in the arm with the release of "Dhurandhar" movies. Though India and Pakistan had about two and a half mini skirmishes the last five years, Bollywood has been exploiting them to the hilt making oodles of money. Raazi, Bhuj, Border, Gadar are some of the recent films which have made hundreds of crores in box office receipts. Late actor Dharmendra's son Sunny Deol who produced and acted in Gadar 1&2 is now said to be worth Rs. 1000 crores! The stories in these movies are quite simple and straight forward, Indian heroes are strong, brave and smart, Pakistanis are dumb and stupid. My Mumbai buddy Ritik Bandarwala told me that these two Dhurandhar movies have become so popular in Pakistan their pirated copies get shown at wedding and birthday parties there with guests applauding. Does this mean Pakistanis are agreeing with Bollywood's assessment of their grey matter? The violence depicted in the second movie is also said to be grotesque, even worse than the first one. It has a scene where a character beheads his opponent and plays football with his head! Wow! Anyways back to Dhurandhar 2, the storyline in the movie is said to begin with a flashback for Hamza, who is actually Jaskirat (Jassi) Singh from Punjab, India. Played by Ranveer Singh, Jassi seeks revenge for the murder of his father and the rape and murder of his sisters. Convicted of multiple murders, including that of an MLA, Jassi is abducted by Indian intelligence operatives. That is how he becomes an Indian spy in Pakistan. One of its reviewers D.N. Guruprasad writes, "One-sided films like this, which promote a political party in the name of the “nation”, are far more dangerous than those with purely nationalistic storylines, such as ‘Border 2’. At least those films attempt a humanistic approach to the conflict. The sole intention of 'Durandhar 2' is to create hostility towards “enemy” countries, a particular religion, and a political ideology. It presents a distorted and skewed view of India’s history and politics". It is sad that jawans who died on the field during these battles died dirt poor, their families now living in misery while Bollywood producers and stars telling highly embellished, over the top versions of them are making hundreds of crores of rupees! We have Netflix at home; it started screening Dhurandhar prequel (the first movie) last month. One evening with a glass of cold chardonnay in hand, I started watching it. It was too loud and too garish, it was an assault on my sensory system, I simply could not handle it. After just 2 minutes I quickly switched to my old favorite "Forrest Gump"!