Mumbai Attacks: Terror as a Religion

This placard from the Mumbai peace march struck a chord with me. It's probably meant to be an insinuation about Islam but inadvertently ends up asking an important question about the role that religion plays in politics.

I first felt uneasy about the religion and politics connection when my ninth grade English teacher asked the class if Gandhi thought religion to be separate from politics. I zealously replied, "Yes". "Wrong", she shot back, and went on to quote Gandhi: "Those who think religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means". As the year drew to a close, the Babri masjid was demolished. For many of us midnight's grandchildren that time will forever be a point of reference, an origin from which we map out our political selves. Like Americans who map themselves to the Kennedy assassination, Mumbaikars of my generation recount their personal histories of the '93-'94 days. We all knew someone who was killed, injured, or had barely escaped death. Those who lived through the Partition doubtless feel the same way about '47.

But the mix of religion and politics is as old as history itself. Today's religions are, after all, yesterday's politics.
Terrorism has a myriad of causes, perhaps none of them generally more powerful than another. First, there is the undeniable socio-economic angle; pernicious ideology is likely to find fewer takers in societies with greater general well-being. If the account given by the captured Mumbai attacker is to be believed, he was stuck at a dead-end job that paid him 200 rupees a day and desperately wanted to rob a bank.

Then there is that nagging sense of the victim hood and oppression of one's people - whether real or imagined - and the urge to lash out against it. I'm thinking not just of the 9/11 perpetrators and extremist groups in the Middle East (where Western powers have cynically exploited extremism to their advantage, exacerbating the violence) but also of extremist Hindus. Many Mumbaikars who support the two Senas feel hapless and victimized by some imaginary other; a typical complaint is that "they" take up all the state government jobs.

Having said that, I think it's important not to discount the role religion plays in terrorism. The captured Mumbai attacker's frustrations found a perfect expression in LeT, where he was reportedly shown videos of "atrocities on Muslims in India". This, in his case,was enough to turn a prospective bank-robbing dog-day-afternoon kid into a terrorist.

I'm not suggesting that religion is solely responsible for violence, nor am I saying that it's more bad than good. There's some evidence, for instance, that religious people are more likely to be altruistic. And in some ways, we're all religious. All of us have pet peeves, blind spots and noble passions. Who in their right mind can be against poetry, art, ethical behavior and a sense of awe about the universe and our place in it? But religion isn't all bhajans, qawwalis and Christmas carols. It does provide legitimacy and righteousness to actions and ideas that the moral instinct might otherwise find indefensible - if only in its skewed interpretations. As Steve Weinberg has said, "For a good person to do a bad thing, it takes religion". What would the rath yatra be without the powerful symbolism of those larger-than-life, Adonis-like Rama cutouts? Gandhi understood this symbolism very well; he tried to use this inseparability of religion from politics constructively - Vaishnav jana to is an eloquent ode to empathy. But just as religion may turn out to be inseparable from politics, within religion it may be impossible to pick the good and leave out the bad. Even Gandhi, after all, wasn't above tainting his politics with bad religion. At a conference presided over by Jinnah, Gandhi introduced him as "a learned Muslim gentleman .... an eminent lawyer and not only a member of the Legislature but also president of the biggest Islamic association in India". If a religious Gandhi was capable of being divisive, so was a secular Jinnah. That's another thing about religion - it can creep up in unexpected places. It's a common discriminatory marker of people, and leaders time and again exploit that.

I don't know if there is a solution to this; I hope there is but I don't know. I don't have any answers. I'm just another angry Mumbaikar trying to make sense of terror. Perhaps we'll always have people who turn an ideology into a religion and fight over it. Carl Sagan saw this (rightly, I think) as an innate conflict between the destructive and creative impulses within homo heirarchicus. I just can't help thinking that if we as a species want to survive we'd better root for the creative side.

Farewell, Faraz

(First at Desicritics)

Ahmed Faraz succumbed to kidney failure on August 25th in Islamabad. My first Urdu book ever was his "Be Aawaaz Galii KuuchoN meN" (In Voiceless Lanes and Quarters). But that's just one of those trivia you think of and smile wistfully when you learn of the passing of a writer you've admired.

Faraz was admired by many. Along with Faiz and Parveen Shakir (whom he graciously referred to as the most read poet after Faiz in Pakistan), he formed the holy trinity of Urdu poetry in Pakistan. Much like a Hindu god, he had many titles bestowed on him - progressive, communist, traitor, rebel, non-conformist and what not. Both India and Pakistan heaped their highest literary awards on him. But labels never do justice to an artist. So we may call him a Pakistani but he has said,
ab kis ke geet sunaate ho, woh mulk ke jo taqsiim huwaa

What nation do you sing of now, the one that broke?

With Akhtar Shirani, he penned the most eloquent paean to the country he left behind, "O des se aane waale bataa" (Tell me, o visitor from my country). Despite the Persian slant in its diction, Faraz's poetry had an earthy, colloquial quality about it. He could be scathing when, for instance, speaking of the hypocrisy of the religious. Here he notes how after the pious return from Mecca, they're back to their deceiving ways.

bazm-e-hareefaaN phir sajtii hai
kizb-o-riyaa kii daf bajtii hai

the wily craftsmen meet again
and drums of falsehood beat again

And here's an unflinching introspection:

merii bastii se pare bhii mere dushman hoNge

par yahaaN kab koii aGhyaar kaa lashkar utraa

aashnaa haath hii aksar merii jaanib lapke

mere siine meN meraa apnaa hi Khanjar utraa

I may have foes outside, indeed
But no army besieged us from without
Familiar hands sought to kill me
My own blade tears my breast, no doubt

Of course these laments against the hypocrisy of the pious and self destructive politics are particularly relevant to Pakistan, but good poetry is never prisoner to its context.
Faraz often displayed a deft satirical genius. In a single sher, perhaps my personal favorite, he could pull the rug from under all civilization:

raftah raftah yeh hii zindaaN meN badal jaate haiN
phir kisii shah'r kii buniyaad na Daalii jaaye
eventually, they become prisons
lets never build cities again

His 'Kaneez' is the only Urdu poem I know which speaks of the sexual abuse of servant-women by the feudal gentry. And, in keeping with the golden rule of speaking for the oppressed, the poem comes from the victim's point of view; the narrator, the kaneez, is pleading to a drunken master at her doorstep to leave.
Faraaz wasn't content with lament and demanded that we act.

shikwah-e-zulmat-e-shab se to kahiiN behtar thaa
apne hisseh kii koii sham'a jalaate jaate

Rather than complain of the night's darkness
Wish you'd've lit your share of lamps

The beloved in his poems was often the country he lost to the Partition - famously in ranjish hii sahiih - but he could be playful and optimistic about this troubled romance of nations.

awwal awwal kii dostii hai abhii
ik Ghazal hai k ho rahii hai abhii

Its a new and budding romance.
A Ghazal being formed, per chance

Note the clever use of "Ghazal" in its traditional sense, as a conversation between lovers.

It's a cliche, but it’s true: the passing of Faraz is the passing of an era. Here's a poet who has seen his country go from Jinnah to Musharraf via Zia, and on every occasion spoken against the injustice and questioned the prevailing absurdity of the day. He will be missed, no doubt, but the huge body of work he leaves behind is fertile ground for more of his ilk.

dil giraftah hii sahiih, bazm sajaa lii jaaye
yaad-e-jaanaaN se koii shaam na Khaalii jaaye

Meet and sing, O poets! sad though the heart may be
No evening should pass without her memory

Rustic Bond

(First published at DesiCritics)

The Blue Umbrella opens with a telling sequence: when you’ve taken in the snowflakes and the pine trees synonymous with a Himachal winter, you squint to notice a little girl with an umbrella, camouflaged in the scenery. And it’s a telling sequence because in presenting little Biniya (Shreya Sharma) as completely one with the region she belongs to, Vishal Bharadwaj is simply mirroring Ruskin Bond’s idyllic vision of a pahaaRii people seeped into their surroundings.

An interesting dualism emerges from Bharadwaj’s work so far. The films he’s made with child protagonists (Makdee, The Blue Umbrella) are infused with the innocence that adult nostalgia projects onto childhood, and his adult films (Maqbool, Omkara) are unmistakably dark. In this film, the nutty Nandkishore Khatri (Pankaj Kapur) embodies this conflict between childhood and growing up. His coveting the blue umbrella – Biniya’s little piece of heaven with clouds sprinkled on its canopy – is after all an adult's longing for a lost childhood.
Having spent a calculating life in pursuit of profit, Nandu sees his possessing the umbrella as his one shot at redemption – priceless precisely because it offers no real advantage, like “watching a sunset”. And this is what gives the plot its bite: Having grown up, we too have robbed childhood of its gay innocence and coated our worldly concerns on it. We too have, as it were, stolen and painted the umbrella red.

The film is a visual delight - the use of the blue and yellow tinted night scenes, a toy scarecrow, a woman sieving wheat, a Ferris wheel in a tizzy, and the picturesque Himachal hamlet with its motley characters - all make the quotidian seem quaint.
Mark the swooshing shot of the umbrella’s descent, as if it were an angel seeking Biniya out. Bharadwaj’s background score and the gifted Gulzar’s lyrics add an adorable touch to the proceedings. There’s a lot to laugh about: the idiomatic dialogue; Nandu swaying his head religiously to a bhajan set to the tune of “You are my Sonia” from Kabhie Khushii Kabhii Gham; or a Beatrix Kiddo-esque montage of Biniya wielding the umbrella followed by a remark emphasizing what “khilbil” (mayhem) she caused!

The only false note is the morphing of Ravana’s heads into Nandu’s; the cut from Nandu’s speech to the Ravana-burning shot is enough to convey Nandu’s villany; spelling it out robs it of its subtlety.

Pankaj Kapur deserves a hundred hat-tips for his comical, childlike, neurotic and vulnerable rendition of Nandu. Here is an actor for all seasons: quirky carrot-loving detective (Karamchand), tormented cop (Raakh), tragic scientist (Ek Doctor Kii Maut), harassed teacher (Zabaan Sambhaalke) and Marlon Maqbool Brando. Clearly, the man is no Phateechar when it comes to acting.

In some ways, Vishal Bharadwaj is the most Indian of mainstream Hindi filmmakers. He seeks out the rugged, rustic, forgotten-by-Bollywood India – a decadent Urdu speaking Mumbai mafia, a political fiefdom in the cow-belt heartland, and a tiny Himachal hamlet. And he’s at home in this ‘other’ India; he isn’t the voyeuristic urban outsider (think Swades). Instead, he revels in becoming and making us become one with them. That is what makes his cinema refreshing and real.

A Purely Natural Theology

(First published at Desicritics)

As soon as I finished reading The Varieties of Scientific Experience – A Personal View of the Search for God, an anthology of Carl Sagan’s 1985 Gifford lectures in Natural Theology, I wanted to grab every person on this ‘pale blue dot’ planet by the shoulders, and ask him/her to read it. Sagan was a man who, per Ann Duryan, the book’s editor, “spoke extemporaneously in nearly perfect paragraphs”. Here’s a typical passage.

‘By far the best way I know to engage the religious sensibility, the sense of awe, is to look up on a clear night…every culture has felt a sense of awe and wonder looking at the sky. This is reflected throughout the world in both science and religion. Thomas Carlyle said that wonder is the basis of worship. And Einstein said, “I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.” So if Carlyle and Einstein agree on something, it has a modest possibility of even being right.’

This is about as poetic as Kabir, Meera and Bulle Shah will ever get.

Sagan’s tone in these lectures is benign and almost avuncular; only the patently prissy would accuse him of disrespect. His gifts as a science writer are many. He has a keen eye for the beauty in every facet of human inquiry-literature, art, science of course, and even religion. He has the sort of wit that pokes to tickle, not to hurt. For instance, when pointing out the obviously anthropocentric view of the afterlife, he recites Rupert Brooke’s Heaven. And here’s a snippet from a post-lecture Q&A session.

Q: What is your opinion on the nature of the origins of intelligent life in the universe?

A: I’m for it!

The book is rich in poetry (that of rhyme as well as reason), artists’ depictions of astronomical phenomena, and of course those breathtakingly wondrous NASA photographs. Sagan dazzles us even when citing numbers - a couple of hundred thousand million suns in the Milky Way, ten to hundred times as many galaxies in the universe, and an equation attempting to estimate the number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy. Above all, his clear yet sophisticated ethics give these talks a halo of nobility. For instance, he rejects miracles not because they’re absurd but because, following Democritus and Hume, the likelihood of nature changing its course is much smaller than that of a person lying. Or consider his nuanced take on the preserve-destroy conflict innate in civilizations.

‘ [It is] a conflict within the human heart…between the bureaucratic, hierarchical, aggressive parts of our nature, which in a neurophysiological sense we share with our reptilian ancestors, and the other parts of our nature, the generalized capacity for love, for compassion, for identification with others, who may superficially not look or talk or dress exactly like us, the ability to figure the world out that is focused and concentrated in our cerebral cortex.’

Note the “superficial” and “exactly”, implying that the similarities among different peoples far outweigh the differences; and the references to “reptilian ancestors” and “cerebral cortex”, as evidence of his commitment to a purely natural theology.

Speaking in 1985, the heyday of Reagan and the Star Wars, Sagan constantly returns to the nuclear threat and warns us that we have (still true, I gather) nuclear weapons capable of destroying our species many times over. And this is a scientist’s warning, so he duly backs it up with some morbid math on how many warheads it’d take to get to doomsday. Here he is championing the ethical legacy of such heavyweights as Spinoza, Einstein and Russell - not just in their espousal of laws of nature as the only plausible god, but also in their compassion and pacifism.

By itself, atheism is a negative and that very fact weakens its sales pitch. It’s no co-incidence that the word consists of a negating prefix followed by two harsh syllables; it is supposed to signify a rejection of something. What we want is something we can embrace, something positive. Sagan offers a recipe for that. Take what is best in religion: the deep questions it seeks to answer, the compassion it seeks to advocate, and the poetry it touches upon. Add what is best in science: the persistent chipping away at the wall of ignorance; the humility and awe of knowing that we live on a planet of a sun in the ‘boondocks’ of a galaxy (to use Sagan’s imaginative expression) that is itself a miniscule part of the universe. Cook this mixture in Sagan’s funny, lucid and lyrical prose, and what you get is a literary feast of a book.

On Jodhaa Akbar and Dismissive Reviews

I like Ashutosh Gowarikar. He stands out among contemporaries because of his commitment to a forgotten fact about cinema: technique must give in to the story. (Ingmar Bergman : "People don't see a picture, people see people"). His cinema is old school-it relies mostly on its cast, dialogues, intense close-ups and suchlike. It's more theater than cinema.

Granted, Jodhaa Akbar is longer than necessary and editing is not Gowarikar's forte. But the movie has a lot going for it.

Take Gowarikar's vision, for instance. Here is a director who uses a poilitical marriage between two people in history to reflect on the political marriage between two religions. Mark the bold interruption of a Maulanah's harangue on Islamic purity by a Krishna bhajan; Akbar's constant snides to said Maulanah, insisting upon the separation of huquumat from mazhab;and the use of semi-transparent curtains depicting the known-yet-unknown "other", with whom one happens to be welded by history. Show me one Bollywood film in the last decade to so depict the Hindu-Muslim equation.

Much of Gowarikar's screen spacetime is occupied by his actors. The characters get to speak through their dialogues, faces and their bodies. Which is why Ila Arun leaves a riveting impact, Aishwarya Rai is poise personified, and as Gowarkiar's center-of-most-frames-muse, Hrithik is simply outstanding. He embodies his director's vision of Akbar: a virile, romantic, individualistic emperor.

A truly perceptive criticism comes from Amrita Rajan, who wishes (as I do) that the darker side of power had made Akbar grayer than he is in the movie. One line (again, note how theatrical it is - Hrithik moves closer to the camera, occupying centrestage, and delivers this monologue), "Why do my near and dear ones fall under my sword's shadow?", just isn't enough.

Here, for completeness, is the brilliant Baradwaj Rangan's characteristically insightful review.

Jodhaa Akbar has all the grandeur and pomp of a Bollywood historical romance. Perhaps we, the audience, have moved away from such theater. Gowarikar's film is perhaps too much like the theatrical Mughal-e-A'azam, and our sensibilities are too multiplexed to appreciate that. It's way too easy to be dismissive of commercial Bollywood romances; engaging a filmmaker on his own terms, however, takes something else-something that our supposedly cinema illiterate (and therefore more egalitarian) audience seems to have.

An Idiot's Guide to His Politics

(First published at Desicritics)

An uncle once teased me that at some point in time, the word 'idiot' used to refer to one who does not vote. I'm going to be thirty and have never voted. I did try once. On a typically sweaty Mumbai morning, I diligently queued up at a municipal school to get my voter's ID. As luck would have it, I was fourth from the counter when they shut shop. Since then, laziness and a strong dislike of queues have prevented me from exercising adult franchise.
The recent US primaries and the nomination of prime ministerial candidates in India have made me feel terribly left out. In true spirit of active citizenry, therefore, I decided to voice my opinions. Idiots are people too, and a minority at that, so I wanted to speak on their behalf.
Since politics is about rationalization of one’s preconceived biases, here are my cop-outs for being an idiot.

Sensitivity:
The simpleton narrator in Pu La Deshpande’s Asa Mee Asaamee confesses to being equally convinced by opposing ideologies. This is often true of me. I find myself agreeing with both the Left and the Right on many fundamental issues.
Take capitalism, for instance. It is both ruthlessly opportunistic and (hence?) extremely effective. People fall on the political spectrum depending on which of these two aspects they emphasize. Arundhati Roy’s rhetoric sometimes moves me as much as that of [fill in your favorite libertarian blogger here]. I don’t disagree with either, the respectable word for which position is ‘centrist’, I guess. But ‘centrist’ suggests an equanimity that I am far from. Instead, this confusion disturbs me no end and makes it nearly impossible for me to take sides. It’s a bit like being the dyslexic agnostic insomniac (with due politically correct respect to all of the above) who stays up all night worrying if there is a dog. Besides, one good book is worth a lot more than all political ideologies combined.

Individualism:
Behaviorists must attribute this one to me being the only child. Having no siblings left me with a lot of time that I spent looking out of the window daydreaming. As a result, I am not too big on the communal thing. I have never understood why I must choose or form a clan to belong to, and then defend its every action to death; it is tiresome and evidently dishonest, and yet most political discourse revolves around justifying one’s own group and condemning the other.
It’s not that I don’t have group loyalty; I fire up my communal passion for the Indian cricket team (and the advantage there is that the more we love our team, the more we criticize it), but no political party has seemed that important to me.

I prefer voters who have immediate, self-centered reasons to choose their candidates - like a friend who voted for his local BJP MLA because the guy kept roads in his neighborhood free of potholes. Now there’s a concrete reason. To me, such voters seem less self-deceptive and far more sensible than ideologues.
I read somewhere that more Americans voted for American Idol than for their President. Is it any surprise they did? I mean, if the satisfaction of one’s opinion being counted for something (and that is what most of us are after in democracies) can be had for a musical contest, why vote for a cacophonous one whose outcome will inevitably leave you feeling more powerless?
The only idealistic voter whose convictions I understood (and frankly envied) was another friend who always voted for the Humanist Party in Mumbai- a front floated by working middle class people without big money or campaign. His sagely response to the mockery of my BJP/Congress loyalist friends was, “I know they’ll never win.” This irony made him a tragic hero in my eyes.

Skepticism:
This is perhaps the biggest reason I have never sworn allegiance to any side and it may have something to do with the fact that the first novel I remember reading is Orwell’s Animal Farm. For one thing, I’m not too fond of words with capitalized beginnings-President, Prime Minister, God, names of countries and states, corporate titles, Party, Communism and Capitalism - they seem to beg uncritical reverence.

Another thing that makes me uneasy is people flaunting their pride in some or another purely accidental fact. Are you proud to be [fill in identity of choice]? Well, that’s a moot question if there ever was one. Pride in oneself is best earned. Of course, one can’t discount her birth in a certain place and station in life. In my case, however, that makes me humble, not proud, for I know that I owe much of what I have to where, when and to whom I was born.
Perhaps a better question is if I like being [identity of choice here]. Mostly, yes. In any case, this whole pride thing is just posturing and chest thumping of the sort that our cousins in the animal kingdom indulge in; it’s a pity they don’t have language to give it a righteous spin.Another capitalized word is ‘I’, and I’m too skeptical to take myself so seriously as to passionately advocate anything. Bert Russell comes to the rescue, “I would never die for any cause. What if I am wrong?” These days, however, bookstores and blogs are packed with everything from passionate pleas for one’s own ideology to brazen browbeating of another, and most of them speak in an in your face, doctrinal tone. Skepticism and the humility it brings are no longer in vogue.

These, then, are an idiot’s justifications of his politics: I don’t vote not because I’m uninterested, but because I can’t bring myself to: it’s just not in my constitution.
The human drama in politics fascinates me as much as the next guy, but to my film and fiction fed mind, real politics seems too much like loud theater to suspend my disbelief. To quote Woody Allen, “Life doesn’t imitate art; it imitates bad television.”

Who knows? Someday, this idiot might just wisen up, get off his high horse and get used to voting for the lesser of two evils. My constitution, after all, is open to change. It isn’t spelt with a capital ‘C’.

Juno

(First published at Desicritics)

It isn't easy to make an intelligent, sensitive, uplifting and witty film on teenage pregnancy-especially in America, where the issue is a political hot button. With Juno, however, writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman manage to do just that.
So well written and humanely depicted are the characters that you're forced to suspend judgment on the issue; indeed, the movie makes the word "issue" sound heavy-handed, and sixteen year old Juno MacGuff's (Ellen Page, please give her an Oscar now) pregnancy seems like an innocent, youthful indiscretion. Juno is portrayed as an endearing, middle-American, precocious teenager in complete control of her life. This humanizes her and deftly overturns the stereotype that "pregnant sixteen year old" conjures (sister Spears, for instance). Sure, she has all the characteristics of her age - sarcasm, the hearts for the adorably awkward Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera, understated and outstanding), and a passion for rock- but she is gracefully intelligent.

The film's feel is neither saccharine nor preachy, and the musical score adds the right flavors. In lesser hands, humor might've made the goings on wacky, even distasteful- after all, there really is nothing funny about a pregnant sixteen year old. But Cody and Reitman put humor to its best use: as an antidote Juno and her father (J.K. Simmons, brilliant and cute), like most of us, use to cope with their lives. When Juno tells her dad she's pregnant, his disappointment is real but not over-the-top. "I thought you were a girl who knew when to say 'when'", is all he tells Juno - there is no verbose condemnation, no antics, but a heartfelt remark that is all the more effective in its laconism. "I was hoping she'd been expelled for drug use" he quips to Juno's stepmom in the same wry, deadpan tone that his daughter seems to have inherited.

Juno decides to give her child to a rich, suburban couple- Marc (Jason Bateman, doing justice to an important and difficult character) and Vanessa Loring(Jennifer Garner, transitioning beautifully from a Stepford wife to a nurturing mother). The dialogue at their first meeting is top-notch funny and wonderfully pits the folksy MacGuffs against the yuppie Lorings. The fleeting attraction between Marc and Juno is handled with restrained sensitivity; it proves to be a coming-of-age experience for Juno but not, alas, for Marc, which gives us an interesting and tender twist at the end.

Here is an adult film about adolescent mistakes that asks us to understand rather than judge. Deservedly, the queue for tickets to the show after mine ran around the block; after all, not often does a topical movie make you chuckle, choke and chew on its subject.

Notes on Taare Zameen Par

Aamir Khan and Amol Gupte know cinema. That much is evident from the spirited depiction of a child's (a dyslexic child's, at that) inner world filled with puddles, gutter fish, splendid colored golaas (sorbet/ice candy for the non Mumbaikars)- nods to the childhood celebrating 400 Blows and Kitaab. For a Bollywood star turned first time director, this is as unconventional and artistic as it can get. Taare Zameen Par is one of the finer films to emerge from Bollywood; after all, who cares to make a film about the Ishaans of India?

So, it almost makes me feel guilty to point out why it fell short of becoming a personal favorite. Khalid Mohammed covers many of the reasons, but there is one more: Aamir Khan. Clearly (I'll eat my words if this was Amol Gupte's idea), he cannot resist making a splashing entry as a clown; and from that entry onwards, there seems to be a jostling for screen space between him and the little child (for me, the art competition at the end took on new meaning in that light). The somewhat one-dimensional and unimaginative characterizations of everyone except the kid and the teacher betray how Khan doesn't quite have his finger on the middle class pulse (compare Mani Ratnam's Anjali or Kannathil Muthamittal, where tensions in the nuclear family are much more palpable). He even fails to conceive of a last shot without positing himself in it, and concludes with Ishaan running back to him so he can lift him up to the skies. What a marked contrast from the wonderfully understated first few minutes!

Hopefully, his promising directorial debut is a sign of better films to come.