Film Review

Peepli (Live): Of grassroots, media and reality

By

Bhawani Cheerath Rajagopalan

Under the Aamir Khan Productions banner comes a film from India’s core, one that is the axis for the way things are what they are in our Bharat. Umpteen times we’ve heard of two Indias, viz., rich–poor, rural–urban, educated–illiterate, developed–underdeveloped, North–South, but rarely has it come through in such a wry manner.

Peepli could be any village in Madhya Pradesh – nondescript with dusty haze as a canopy and clusters of shrubs providing the greenery. It is life lived at the lowest level, but what is most striking is that no one is ever shown as being aware of things like nation, nationality, the country one belongs to etc. Their lives would be a squiggle on a graph with an occasional blip when the crop is good, or a dip when the rains fail to show up on time.

On surface, the narrative is about the plight of two brothers – Natha and Budhiya who have lost their land due to their failure to meet the financial commitment. They offer their services to the politico who makes a suggestion. The government has on offer, largesse of one lakh rupees to any family affected by a farmer suicide. “Anyway you’ve done no good” so quit this world and save the family. It is a shocking reminder of how Gandhi’s India that lives in the villages gets leaders who think nothing of using the farmer as ‘fodder.’

The multiple layers in the film have fallen in sync, because Peepli (Live) is an extremely well scripted film by newbie Anusha Rizvi, who comes with experience in television.

If the film gives you a feeling that the twelve reels will take you through yet another tale of farmers’ suicide, you are not on the right track. Through dialogues of the rustic countryside, one may have to intersperse large portions with ‘expletives deleted’ a la Watergate style, the rawness of life as lived there reveals itself. Come election time and, by coincidence, Natha decides that he is taking the ‘suicide route’ so that his family will receive the financial relief from the government. This is interesting news for the TRP-chasing TV channels.

Soon you settle for the new direction to the film – a spoof on our byte hungry Media, which lifts trivia to the news value status, even as the English language media competes with the “lesser” media, viz., the vernacular channels. While Budhia and Natha grab space in the print and audio-visual media, politicians work overtime to avoid bad press. The media is the failed gatekeeper. News is what the honchos decide and not one goes by the normal definition of the word, NEWS’.  The quid pro quo built into the media coverage and the politician’s agenda setting is laid bare for us. Soon things escalate to such a point that OB Vans are parked endlessly in the village to wait for the ‘live suicide’. Bureaucrats are doormats. Naseeruddin Shah as the Union Minister for Agriculture Salim Kidwai, has the temerity to say ‘The country must industrialise”.

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 I couldn't agree with you more. Peepli (Live) made me think about my location in India/Bharat. Fortunately I am on the right side of the divide (or am I?), but at this rate, will either side survive?

Santanu Sinha Chaudhuri | August 25, 2010