a Wednesday!!

a Wednesday! I had been seeing the promos of it on the television of late. Actors like Nasiruddin Shah and Anupam Kher performing in a same movie and that too, in a movie like this which is based upon the fanatical terrorism in today's India and the narrow and despicable concept of communalism which is given as the reason for this so called "religious war" by those radicals was something I was looking forward to. And then, I saw "a Wednesday".

Shah is shown as a common man. A common man for whom democracy works, industry develops, grains are produced, trains and buses are run. He lives in today's India where a blast in a railway compartment in which he travels daily is not uncommon. He lives in a country where riots blow out of some petty reasons and the rivers of blood flow. He lives in a country where the Khans rule the Bollywood yet the Muslims are regarded as a minority. He lives in a country where media tries to entertain people rather than to educate them. He fears to grow beard or wear a cap as ordered to any disciple of his religion because that very beard can turn a needle of suspicion towards him. He fears death. He sees the law & order of his city as well as the whole country in jeopardy. He hates the system where authority does not have the will and the will does not have the authority. He decides to create his own path. He decides to build a parallel system which functions much quicker than the existent and accepted one.

Kher, on the other hand, plays the police commissioner of Mumbai. He is well aware about the discrimination against the innocent Muslims as well as the humiliation they have to undergo in the society for no fault of theirs. He has the ability to inspire his juniors to function their duties with utmost passion. He, himself, is an avid observer of the society. He sportingly accepts the hard fact a college dropout brings to his attention that most of the machines and gadgets that the cyber cell unit uses to crack cyber crimes are outdated. He lives in a real world. He lives in a partisan world where he has to deal with the issues like majority/minority, jihad/bandh on a daily basis. Kher gets a call on a wednesday from an unknown person who tells him that he is going to bomb the city with 5 bombs planted in a city at different places. He has the will and force but lacks in authority. The weak-kneed chief minister prefers to stand muted in a corner and look on as he handles whole and sole authority to bargain and to compromise with the bomber to Kher. The commissioner is put in awe by that unknown, unseen common man who talks to him with so much conviction, desperation and a definite but shocking idealism in order to secure a peaceful future for our coming generations. He travels all the way alone just to catch a glimpse of that rebellion who has had the guts to walk in the lives of all the city-dwellers and to blow it apart. He decides to let go the common man. He thinks such "common men" are required.

This is not a conflict between majority and minority. This is not a fight between law & order and terror. This is not even a mutiny of people against the government. This is a fight put up by a common man, like you and I, against those cowards who, by the name of religion, weaken the bondages in people and bring about blasts and riots which take hundreds and thousands of innocent lives. This is something what happens when a comman man like you and I, lose prolonged patience. The message is clear: a parallel can always be drawn.