The first review I read on Peepli (Live) compared it with Jane Bhi Do Yaaron. The second, third, fourth and fifth talked about its novelty of concept, skillful artistry, perfect depictions, topicality, and message. An editorial used Peepli (Live) as a metaphor to comment on the much written about urban rural divide. The very media that Peepli (Live) took to the dhobi ghat can’t seem to stop talking about it! So, when I went to see Peepli (Live) I went with trepidation. After two and half hours of it, I have decided not to write yet another review but what I felt sitting there, walking out, driving back home and now sitting at my laptop.
The first thing that struck me about the film is the clothes people wore. I am tired of seeing either Rin-safed kurta dhoti or the Anokhi style bandhi print ghahra choli clad people from our villages on Bollywood screens. The opening shots of Budhiya and Natha wearing what they did made me settle more comfortably in my seat. However, that was the last bit of comfort I felt throughout the film. It is one of the most violent films I have seen from Bollywood in recent times other than Oye Lucky Lucky Oye. The barren terrains of Mukhya Pradesh, the helpless submissions of Budhiya and Natha, the smiling faces of the various power players, the antics of the media, the sharp tongue of Dhaniya and even the colourful mela that sets itself up outside Budhiya’s house speak of a violence that is so powerful that it remains silent throughout the entire length of the film.
The violence seethes, it fumes and never erupts. I felt I was sitting on an ugly, annoyed, powerful giant who has just been woken from his sleep and he does not like it. I waited for him to wake up fully, come out from the underworld, reign havoc - but he never did. And that is the most fearful part of this story. The ferocity is not just in the story but also how the story is told. Anusha Rizvi does not let Shankar Raman’s camera tire even once of staring blankly into the faces; does not once bend or shake or shy away. She tediously follows the terror that enters each frame and refuses to leave. The terror of the silent bystanders who have nothing much to do but become fodder for the media, conscience- striken young bureaucrats who have not yet learnt to play the game and that of Rakesh, the young journalist from Peepli who broke the news in the first place in the hope of a better future.
The audience laughs at lines with abuses quipped by the characters throughout and I laugh with them at the perfect timing of the actors. And I am also thinking how so much has gone wrong so quickly. But then when Natha goes missing and the accident clears any doubts of keeping the story ‘newsy’ for them the TV crews start leaving. And the screen goes quiet, very quiet as the dust settles on Peepli. You don’t even hear the leaves or the wind - just the everyday routine of Dhaniya serving water to Budhiya as they sit outside their now forsaken home wondering if the money will ever come. And I probably begin to understand when Anusha leaves Peepli and the roads fly back to return to the city where I belong – the distance, the gap, the two world of this country so far apart. And I realised that it's not ironic at all that the media is giving this film so much attention. The very phenomenon that the film critiques is the reason for its popularity. There is no bigger Tamasha than other people's misfortunes and helplessness thrown to us LIVE.
Dhaniya stays will me as I drive back. She is the only woman I remember from the film. And I think warily - perhaps the man was right, “There is hope, but not for us.”
