One review called it a ‘preposterous-bad-action movie’ climax and the local RJ on a FM channel found it comic. For a reviewer on a TV channel, this was one scene indicating that the script was ‘begging for a rewrite.’ “Too bizarre, unnecessary and bordering on the ludicrous,”  another review said.
Yet another makes a direct question to the director, “What were you thinking when you wrote this part?”

Instead of always asking this, we should sometimes ask ourselves, “Was I thinking when I watched this?”

Turning the usual thing about small events occurring and something Much Larger is at stake on its head, the director has just told us how large events happened and something very small was at stake. Something as trivial as the meeting of two lovers.

But is it trivial? Didn’t you feel their pain?
And if love is the most meaningful aspect of life, then how meaningless those large events were!

And to tell us this, instead of giving a character a long sermon, the director suddenly collapses the boundary between fictional and the Reality  which we are about to step into.

Step Out to, actually.
It is the end of the film , and there’s a Ferris wheel!

Am sure the director’s  film colleagues, students of cinema, critics saw/wondered whether it was a tribute to Fellini.
Fellini, the master of  the carnivalesque mode in cinema.
But we needn’t go into all that here. The rest of us, the viewers don’t have to know about Potential Space, Psychological aspects of the carnivalesque mode etc. to enjoy this remarkable scene.

It is enough to see the giant wheel.

Even while reminding us of Fellini, unlike the freer, even vulgar performances, the clowns etc, Mr Pankaj Kapoor shows us what we recognize as jatra/mela/carnival!

We remember that mode of enjoyment from a time where we didn’t need someone else to create Spectacle for us to be entertained. Our screams of joy and fear, our holding on for dear life Were the spectacle.

The  elements of carnival- the Ferris wheel etc are introduced to emphasise  Participation. Suddenly , from well-shot locales travelling all over the world (characteristic of cinema), we are brought to the Ferris wheel, to the world of carnival.

And what is one important feature that sets apart cinema or for that matter any fiction from the carnival?
Participation.
I was not telling you a story, the director says to us. You are a part of this destruction in the name of differences.
Those events which caused so much pain to these two separated lovers did not happen just like that.
You Participated.
You were also responsible .

Also, what has happened here? Riots.
A time where a mob behaves in a way individuals who are part of the mob would probably never have.
The carnival mode draws our attention to this fact.
The perpetrators of such crimes do not have names, they are faceless, Harry whispers- they are like a Saaya, a shadow…

The plane of carnival also emphasizes realness by underlining the artificiality of masks. Where the accepted notions of social behavior are forgotten and the grotesque is indulged in.  Where mobs indulge in unthinkable behavior, unimaginable violence?

Would you, innocent people in this harmless group activity of film viewing also turn violent in the mob-madness of riots if you had masks on to protect your faces?

Were my co-viewers listening to this question? Well, I hope some were.
Mostly I heard – yes the lack of desire to engage, to understand, is sometimes audible; am ashamed to say- giggles.
And then, a few rows above me, laughter at the appearance of the horse.
But most of the others were silent when the horse appeared.

The horse.
The white horse.
Are you Kanthaka, Prince Siddharth’s horse? Would we realize the terrible nature of violent fighting against our brothers? Would there be peace?

Are you Uchchaihshravas? After the churning, after the poisons have been thrown out, have you appeared along with Amrit, the nectar?

Or are you the white horse that  helps the virtuous to navigate the Pul Sirat to heaven.

Have you been formed out of the true love, the goodness of Harry and Ayaat?

It did seem like that. The horse accompanies them on their way to their paradise- a future, a life together.
With that representation of innocence- a child saved from all the destruction.

But before they walk away- Almost in a tableau-  The horse, Harry, Ayaat and the baby. Reminding me of  that other great master- Ingmar Bergman-1957- the scene at the end of The Seventh Seal.
Man, woman, child and animal who survive the storm.

This scene made me think, made me feel.
And so, giving stars is in order- Just like the real reviewers do.

Have often wondered how they arrive at that exact number….

Nadi (Dr. Manasee Palshikar) was an MBBS doctor for 10 years when she went back to studying. A course in Women’s Studies at Pune University was followed by learning the art of Screenplay at FTII. Nadi lives in Pune with her husband and daughter.