Rang De Basanti

Mujhe Rang De Gen Z

There’s nothing like the football World Cup to remind you of what a fossil you are. It outranks the scroll on year of birth on forms on a website and radio stations playing only “the classics” before cueing Nickelback.

And I’m not talking about the brutal commentary when someone on the wrong side of 30 starts running.

“Look at him go. At age 33, he’s outrunning the defence AND Father Time!”

It’s the new talent in every cup that’s bursting on the scene. Usually being someone who barely watches the cup makes it easy to ignore. But Lamine Yamal, was hard to ignore.

Not because he turned 19 this month. More so because when we were a few postal codes away from each other in Barcelona he was an 8 year old.

I can guarantee you I was not winning world cups at his age. I was living away from home for the first time. I was set up in a PG a few km from the law school I had just joined in Pune. I shared a room with a 16 year old from Sholapur who was enrolled in one of those McDonald’s combos of PUC and IIT coaching.

“I’ll make it medium combo, side of biology for backup with Diet Coke please”

I was supposedly preparing for exams too once I found out my current admission was my only option. I had ranked 100 something in the exam for NLS in Bangalore. I still remember scrolling and clicking that prehistoric mouse at the cyber cafe hoping to refresh the page into an admit. I called my parents and told them I was going to focus my energy on trying to get an admit the next year.

A few weeks in, my discovery of the no attendance requirement and new friends refocused my attention on testing my body with alcohol, nicotine and probably the worst of all- coffee at CCD. My days began to blur into each other with my time at my PG eventually becoming just a check in for laundry and the occasional nap. While my harried roommate was buried in a thick physics book, I was studying diffusion of gases in a Sheesha lab.

Few memories stand out to me from that year intact. A bus ride to Mumbai for a concert and a shared taxi back after. Watching an acquaintance pelt PETA members with chicken nuggets at the inauguration of a new mall and KFC outlet. And watching + rewatching Rang De Basanti in the span of 48 hours in a theatre.

It’s hard to state what the impact of this movie was on an 18-year-old who was yet to vote.

As a movie on its own, It obviously had a lot of things going for it. The script, the soundtrack and the relevance of its story. But for someone who’s formative years were in Bangalore, despite having one parent who grew up in Madhya Pradesh, my voluntarily re-watching a Hindi movie is like those reels you see now of Indian K-pop fans. And either because of Rahman’s soundtrack or seeing faces which were familiar, like Siddharth and Madhavan, made it feel like more of a pan India project than your average Hindi movie.

But outside of listening to the soundtrack, creating a wish to visit Punjab and a commitment to be more politically aware, it stopped short of actually making me more participatory in politics.

A few months after having made it to supposedly the best law school in the country, I figured that I would do what all the older people in my life had advocated- that the way to change the system was to become a part of it. And of course that students and politics do not mix (Like Sugar and Curd if I had to suggest an analogy) And the aggressive work load and mandatory internships left me with little spare time, all of which I tried to focus on even more aggressive assaults on my lungs and liver.

So if I had to filter and just remember three key things that I learned then:

• You are not allowed to make a profit on education in India (LMAO tell that to my family friends whining about cost of a management seat)

• Education is on the concurrent list

• Judges from sessions to Supreme Court, have big egos

I still remember being glared at by my boss at one internship because I had unconsciously not saluted the judge on entering the courtroom inner sanctum of a temple. You lift your fingers to your forehead while bending reverentially. I later found out that for good measure that some of the people exiting the courtroom would do this while walking backwards.

This was at complete odds with what we were experiencing on campus. We had a notice board that frequently featured student criticism of some actions by the college admin. And I can’t think of any of my other peers studying in India going on a protest because their campus curfew was threatened to be moved back from 12.30 am or were taking part in a sit-in to protest internet being rolled out in the hostel which was part of a ploy to reduce social interaction. (If you needed more proof on how old I am)

I think if it hadn’t been for marrying Mali, I may not have ended up physically at any protest after college. While we were living in Delhi I went with her to the Shaheenbagh protest. Despite the cold, the women who were leading the protest and the community organizers had created a space that was directly opposed to the authoritarian push for CAA and NRC happening a few kilometres away.

I left feeling excited. On some level I was also scared because then in my early thirties, as someone who was born in an upper caste family and subsequently grew up with money, oppression by the state or anyone else to me up to then was a concept in theory until my own family dynamic changed.

And based on how that protest ended, I think that fear was justified. The COVID lockdown shut down the protest, but the faces visible from it have been targeted by the state since. Multiple people are still in jail awaiting trial. Umar Khalid. Sharjeel Imam.

It was like the judiciary was trying to communicate to me everyday, “You made the right choice.” People say education is about learning and unlearning and seemingly they were unlearning a lot of the pesky constitutional stuff that I had to struggle with to graduate. And it’s thanks to them and the CJI calling students cockroaches that we find ourselves here.

A meme called the ‘Cockroach Janata Party’ snowballing into a protest at Jantar Mantar led by Gen Z over paper leaks. Gen Z is probably not the last generation that has to pin all future decisions on performance in an exam.

I take back all of my prior criticism of them. They braved Delhi heat and circumvented the main stream media’s usual playbook of discrediting it by being terminally online even at the protest. It is also why everyone was able to see the Delhi police teargas and lathi charge student protesters and state/non state elements in plainclothes wreaking havoc. Not to be left behind as worst arm of the government, the CJI again dismissed a petition to take cognizance of this violence “because he had no time to watch videos”.

It’s a shame because outside of the ones documenting state violence the rest were very entertaining. I have never seen such a high concentration and quality of trolling of the PM and his cronies. Reel after reel of hilarious protest slogans, taking selfies and videos with police, destroying the pliant media that clings to his expensive wardrobe for words of affirmation and all the uncles and aunties who would choose the BJP over the wellbeing of their own child.

You may or may not call the protest a success but the fact that they actually got one of them to resign and that the Govt is seemingly taking action by having a committee set up with Nandan Nilekani counts like a win. Nothing to beat exam pressure like waiting for an OTP.

But the most damage has been done to the brand of Supreme leader who uploaded a mournful video with a very simple selfie light and light makeup on how the situation will be fixed as the protest stopped once the resignation was announced. Its now clear that young people need something different and even my Millennial counterparts, sanghi or otherwise are uncles who don’t have a clue.

I don’t know if the state machinery using its usual playbook to shut Pandora’s box will reverse this. The central govt would rather wish everyone Eid Mubarak than be laughed at. Attempts to scrub the internet of all the reels mocking the government have already begun along with all the videos documenting violence. FIRs and arrests of protesters will rain down on all but with much more enthusiasm and vigour if they happen to be Muslim. And Arnab and his cronies trying every variation in their playbook to discredit the protesters, which may finally land at George Soros sending money to CJP on UPI while on trip to Pakistan.

And what about Bollywood?

Barring a few exceptions, they were all silently waiting for Supreme leader to let them know what to say before releasing some template message that blames no-one likely written by ChaatoGPT. After contrasting this cowardly behaviour with the students who braved Lathis and tear gas I’m convinced these Bollywood patriots wouldn’t opt for a spine even if it came free with a lifetime supply of Ozempic.

The fact that the protests primarily featured Rang De Basanti songs means its probably crossed the Dhokla duo’s mind to lean on Bollywood to manage PR like they did in Dhurandhar 2. I can predict some of the brain storming that’s happening .

Rang De Basanti 2

Cast: Aamir “Preparing for Alimony cube” Khan , Anupam “Free main karunga” Kher, R “SS” Madhavan

Plot 1: DJ, Suki, Karan find out that Aslam is a sleeper agent from Pakistan who is preparing for NEET exam to steal a seat away from a deserving Pandey/Gupta/Bharadwaj and take him to the VC only to find out the VC is a godless liberal who is also leaking papers. They shoot him and Aslam and get MLA tickets for next election.

Plot 2: Sue, who is the granddaughter of the jailer who used to spellcheck Savarkar’s mercy petitions comes to India to shoot a film on his bravery. After Madhavan’s car crashes because of Ethanol in the tank, DJ and gang organize a candle light vigil for Gadkari.

What do you think, fraands?

P.S Thank you to Rohan Banerjee for sending more subscribers my way than Arnab sends Patients to an ENT clinic