Monday, September 22, 2008

Welcome To Sajjanpur

The past week was full of news. Some bad, the Investment-Banking industry and some good, the great news about the Indian oil & gas sector. The week ended with another bomb blast on a Saturday, this time in Islamabad. However this post is not about any of these events. Thanks to the torrent downloads, I am now updated with all the happenings in the movie world. And it has been quite a while since I wrote about any movie.
Just finished watching the new Shyam Benegal directed film, "Welcome to Sajjanpur". The film is seen through the eyes of the central character, Mahadev, played by Shreyas Talpade who is an aspiring novelist. However he ends up becoming a letter writer. And we get to see the variety of things he gets to do being one of the few literate people in the village. He also abuses his position but manages to do the right things in the end.
A slightly different kind of movie from Shyam Benegal. This is set in a small village in the Hindi heartland. The film also touches on a large number of social issues, like widow remarriage, superstitions, organ selling, muscle power in local elections, the third gender, village infrastructure etc. These are mentioned in passing but the focal point remains the letter writer.
And finally acouple of random thoughts which crossed my mind while watching the movie
  1. Pen is mightier than the sword
  2. With great power comes great responsibility

Overall, the film is definetely worth a watch

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