Inkaar

Inkaar was a story that had potential of going awry if not directed cautiously. Luckily for Sudhir Mishra, it worked!

Rahul Verma (Arjun Rampal) is the CEO of an advertising agency, who sees ambition and potential in the spunky Maya Luthra (Chitrangda Singh). He hires her, grooms her, woes her and beds her (the familiar grind!).

But Inkaar is not a love spurned revenge story, Maya and Rahul seem quiet smitten with each other and all’s swell only until Maya realizes that Rahul cannot be tied down by just one ‘C’ - commitment. Juggling ambition, emotions and taunts of sleeping through the rank, Maya’s frustration knows no bounds as her talent becomes synonym to ‘personal favors’ and she asks to be re- assigned to another city.

Years and a fate later, the two end up working in the same office again. But this time the dynamics have changed. Can Rahul handle his prodigy becoming a superstar overnight? Can one file for a sexual harassment case if one has enjoyed a relationship with the offender? How far does being grateful require you to bend over?

There is a very thin line between flirting and sexual harassment. Can we call it most times? Work cultures binding people into 20 odd hrs, where lingerie & condoms are as easily available as office furniture, where emotions, hormones and vulnerability are active volcanoes, where a girl is required to be one of the boys (at convenience), where you let things go or be ‘accused of flattering yourself’ by reading too much…where is the bloody boundary?!!

Apart from the cliché sketch of an ad woman – a nose ring, wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Sudhir Mishra’s direction has little scope for grey areas. The story is narrated in a very unbiased fashion and at no point does he make it easy for the audience to choose sides.

The film is largely shot in a boardroom as the story unfolds in flashbacks. Given its limitations Sachin Krishn’s pacy camera work and the snippy editing rescue the movie from being buried in a bored – room

One bit of screenplay I found interesting was the scene at Maya’s house after the party. How the same one incident was played out differently, both from Maya, and Rahul’s view point. Arjun and Chitrangda though dont absolutely misfit their characters but i'd say Arjun delivered it better.

Sexual harassment is a delicate theme and Sudhir Mishra tugs the line between the willing and the unwilling, casual flirting and harassment, between being ambitious and an opportunist.

Office politics just got hotter... ( if even10% of your colleagues looked like Arjun Rampal why wouldn’t it) I’m not saying it’s a must watch, it is interesting to see how a story walks the rope without tipping.

A girl child - will it ever be a reason to celebrate?

A week after one of the most heinous crimes shook up not just the capital but entire India, the 6 accused have been arrested but 23 year old Damini, is still critical.
While there’s 24/7 coverage of the youth uproar, Baba Ramdev’s lashout against Congress, every politician trying to turn this into a government toppling event, and monitoring the progress of the ‘delhi girl gangrape’, she still remains a John Doe for many. People find it easier referring to her by the unthinkable that she was subjected to rather than her name. So for starters she is DAMINI.

It’s unfortunate that an incident like this had to happen for politicians to ‘agree’ that something must be done about women’s safety in this country. It’s unfortunate that ever since that fateful Sunday, inspite of the nation seething with disgust, wide spread awareness on woman safety, pressure on the government and police for protection,there is still news of at least one woman still being raped every day in Delhi and Bombay.
What are these creatures? Even animals only resort to this kind of brutality for survival or in defense.

Has Damini become a national issue cause she got raped and savagely beaten up along with her friend, before getting thrown out of a moving bus? Or is it because 6 men after raping and beating her up with an iron rod then stuffed the rod into her vagina, damaged her intestines and pulled out her uterus, having rendered her now to the mercy of intravenous fluids for the rest of her life?

The whole nation is praying for her survival. I find that the most ironical. Bed ridden for life, intravenous fluids as only mode of survival, vital body parts being replaced by mental, emotional and physical scars. Euthanasia too will be denied. Tomorrow she will be just news.

Introduce capital punishment against rape. So if Damini wasn’t raped, but an iron rod was still stuffed up her vagina disabling her for life, would the punishment that we’re all demanding be a little less severe? Would it then just be attempt to murder or an assault, because the Indian rape law does not address a woman’s vagina being intruded by a foreign object other than a penis without her consent as ‘rape’. Also acid attacks, slashing of the face with knife, the kicking and beating, the lewd and obscene comments and humiliation, many times killing of their male companions? Do these warrant similar indignity and invoke the wrath of the public to demand death penalty for all of them?

Will capital punishment for rape now mean that the assaulter hence forth ensures that they kill their victims, cause getting caught would only mean death. Whose would they choose?

21st Dec 2012 Bombay – 20 yr old woman from Nepal (name withheld) arrives in Bombay looking for her husband who had been evading her for the fear of paying compensation. After reaching the workshop he claimed to work at, she gets raped by the workshops owner, then by another employee of the workshop who picked her up at a garden she was dropped at by the owner, then repeatedly by a relatives friend who had been sent by the relative to rescue her. All of this in one day, for a husband who lied and never left Nepal in the first place. If capital punishment was in order, would the tormentor have dropped her off at a garden after committing a heinous crime? Or to protect himself, he would've committed a bigger one, murder? Or would he have feared the law and not raped her in the first place?

Hang until death, is just making it too easy for them. Will castrating help? Or will the frustration of not being able to exercise manhood and societal disgrace only create bigger monsters?

Today, I will be scared bringing a girl child into this world. Cause what the world has come to, she’d be unsafe from the age of 6 to 70. Today a woman has to be protected from a father, an uncle, a rejected lover, neighbors, relatives, professors, public transports, employers, fellow collegians, buildings watchmen, a thief breaking into your house. I fail to chalk out one place, just one, any one, where she could possibly be safe.
I would also worry bringing a male child into this world, for fear that god forbid tomorrow if he tries to save a sister, fiancé, mother or any other woman, he too will not be spared.

I strongly believe each man who dares to ever challenge another human being’s safety in any form should be subjected to the same treatment and publicly in addition to serving any form of legal sentence.
So capital punishment or not an acid attack should be paid back by an acid attack. Stuffing a rod in someone’s genitals should be paid back in the same fashion. If a man rapes a woman, his ass should also be served on a platter to any happy takers and publicly- to hell with you human rights! Cause man only fears the worst, when it happens to him.