Terror and terrorism all around

Zara hans ke zara bach ke yeh hai Mumbai meri jaan...
Last week I saw Nishikant Kamat���s extraordinarily well-scripted and enacted Mumbai Meri Jaan. I said, wow, the city gets the homage it deserves. It���s too weird. Suddenly this monsoon, terrorism is the ���in��� theme in our films.
Of the multitude of films that were released last week at least two were consciously or subconsciously about terrorism.And the third Phoonk was about another kind of terror. Sanjay Chhel���s failed farce Maan Gaye Mughall-e-Azam was strangely linked to the 1993 Mumbai blasts too. The underworld strike formed a backdrop. That even a comic romp about a bunch of incompetent stage actors should be linked to terrorist attacks was too much of a coincidence to handle.
Mani Shankar���s film features Sammir Dattani as a government-appointed agent who���s trained to infiltrate an international terrorist organisation. In Kabeer Kaushik���s film Bobby Deol is a naxalite from Bihar who gets sucked into a world of crime. And Ekta Kapoor is just seen having a barrel full of laughs at the underworld���s expense in her film featuring Tusshar Kapoor.
That isn���t all. Coming up shortly are more films on terror and terrorism. Next week we have another film on the 11 July blasts and a thriller based on the Kandahar hijacking. And seasoned cinematographer Santosh Sivan who spearheaded the theme of terrorism with his Terrorist a decade ago, is going into Kashmiri militancy in his new Hindi film.
Isn���t that quite a lot on terror and terrorism? My fear is about the theme being turned into a formula.
Sivan seems ceaselessly spellbound by separatism and its offshoots. That isn���t a bad thing. But flogging the theme could get sticky. This was avoided in the West with the theme of Nazism. Every film on WW2 from Sophie���s Choice to Schindler���s List is a splendid treatise on terrorism and a joy forever.
Can we say the same about the spate of films featuring kids after Taare Zameen Par? Every director from Priyadarshan to Deepti Naval is directing films with a child in the central role. Choreographer Ahmed Khan is making Paathshaala with a bunch of super-talented kids and their teacher played by Shahid Kapoor. Let���s hope this isn���t just a case of formally formulating the feel-good factor as seen through the sensitivities of the child actor.
Worse still is the way old classics are being converted into occasions for parody and satirisation. It���s always good to look above you to see how far down below you stand. Avoids a swollen head. The appaling disregard for cinematic history is currently being revised in our cinema. In 2008, films ranging from Jodhaa-Akbar to Maan Gaye Mughall-e-Azam have drawn raw material from the past. In some cases the rawness of the material makes you cringe in embarrassment.
But what the heck! At least our cinema is reclaiming the past instead of gambling stupidly in the present with no hope for the future. Even the Farhan Akhtar-helmed musical displays a rich reverence for fugitive resonances. What we must avoid at any cost is the danger of re-mixing history. It���s okay to remake Umrao Jaan and Don. But please don���t tamper with Lata Mangeshkar���s melodies. Adding a rap section into Hawa mein udta jaye is akin to building a flank of guest rooms in the Taj Mahal for tourists.
Hospitality, like history, has its limits. Speaking of which Jade Goody���s shocking adieu from Bigg Boss was the most moving thing I���ve seen on a reality show.
Sometimes the reality of life outdistances staged reality. I hope that doesn���t happen with all the terror-related films that we���ll be seeing in the coming weeks.