One of the reasons given to explain the bleeding cuts inflicted on Abhishek Chaubey’s Udta Punjab is that Shahid Kapoor’s Tommy ‘Gabru’ Singh swears when drugged and even when sober! The problem with the film however is not profanity or vulgarity. In any case, the current head of the Central Board of Film Certification of India, Pahlaj Nihalani’s cinematic record will throw up gems that will put Udta Punjab‘s Tommy Singh to shame. Just google the songs of his 1994 masterpiece Andaz. Not to mention the dance moves in his blockbuster production Aankhen.
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The real reason why the film is being stonewalled is that it cuts too close to the bone. Elections make governments touchy especially if beneath the varnished poll promises, lies something so incriminating that it can destroy all attempts at image management. There is a drug epidemic in Punjab. And it has roots in hopelessness and lack of opportunity. And nobody wants the election rhetoric to be revealed for what it is. Empty.
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On a recent trip to Punjab, I met a retired academician who simplified what was going wrong with this once prosperous, beautiful state. The state where I grew up, lived through terrorism but still had access to the best possible education and a sense of unvanquished hope that every Punjabi is born with. This time when I took a local bus from Chandigarh to Patiala, I saw more food courts than dhabas on the Highway, and also shrunken farming land though there were a few prosperous, walled in farms. Like everywhere else in India, land appropriation by the rich and powerful has begun in Punjab too. There is a lot of real estate rumble, apartment blocks and malls threaten to overtake the once simple and wholesome milieu and there is a sense that somehow the fundamentals have gone awry.
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Something is eating away at the soul of my Punjab and so when I asked the academician what it was, he said simply, “There is a difference between development and human development. Every citizen of this country, Punjabi or otherwise must have access to education and healthcare and somehow, these two fundamentals have been ignored widely, more so in Punjab. The quality of education where it is available, has gone down drastically. And when there is no education, there are no jobs. The drug culture in Punjab is a direct result of this hopelessness. And also because you can find drugs easily. They are everywhere. They are sold in shops. On streets. In campuses. In villages.”
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Where are they coming from? Said my host, “They are being smuggled into the state by people hand in glove with the government and the police. This kind of inflow is not possible otherwise. What bothers me is that when drugs come in so easily into the state, the next step could be arms. Because that is the natural next step.”
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He also spoke about how agriculture all across the once flourishing state was suffering because there simply was not enough water to feed the crops. Groundwater, he said had been over used and overdrafted over the decades and the water table had receded dangerously low, causing deep drilling that was depleting it even further. “In the years to come, Punjab could turn into a desert. It is a possibility,” he warned.
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But well, all we seem to be concerned with is how a film about the clear and present drug menace in Punjab must not mention Punjab. We must butcher the messenger because the message is so damning. The film cannot in any way make the reality worse than it is but the wiful, uneducated and arbitrary manner in which both education and cinema have been treated in recent times should make us worry. And make us ask why information and anything that provokes thought is being treated like a pile of live explosives. Maybe because the human mind and its ability to process facts and come to conclusions is the last frontier left to be conquered. And what cannot be dumbed down must be censored and suppressed beyond recognition.
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Reema Moudgil is the editor and co-founder of Unboxed Writers, the author of Perfect Eight, the editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul-Indian Women, a translator who recently interpreted Dominican poet Josefina Baez’s book Comrade Bliss Ain’t Playing in Hindi, an RJ and an artist who has exhibited her work in India and the US and is now retailing some of her art at http://paintcollar.com/reema. She won an award for her writing/book from the Public Relations Council of India in association with Bangalore University, has written for a host of national and international magazines since 1994 on cinema, theatre, music, art, architecture and more. She hopes to travel more and to grow more dimensions as a person. And to be restful, and alive in equal measure.
