Pravaaha - a beautiful movie

Since I am spending my days working from home these days, I happened to watch a beautiful movie - Pravaaha in kannada.

It stars Achyuth Kumar as Marappa - a potter in a village. He owes a rich fellow in the village a very huge money. His son Siddarama is shamed in his school for this fact. He is shamed for being a potter's son. Siddarama takes a oath never to become a potter which is his family tradition.

The film portrays Marappa making pots hysterically and trying to sell them. But he soon loses demand to a plastic seller. Plastic seller mocks at Marappa every time he hurries to the market with his supplies.

Siddarama is determined to make it big in his life. He runs away from his house to a near by town. He is scared of police. He meets a nice boy at the temple. Temple boy gets him  job at a bluffing center, Siddarama obtains a lot of money in the form of tips. Once the bluffing center is ridden by the police. Siddarama escapes and goes back to his village in a slum dog millionaire style wearing cool goggles on a moped just to find his father dead.

He brings his mother to town and live a life of a migrant in the town. Its a story of a struggle through the competition between tradition and modern plastic era. Its a story of decaying condition of rural education system, migration to cities, pollution in cities due to this and multiplication of slums for the incoming crowd.

The director Naidu has done an awesome job in bringing the realities in the form of a beautiful movie. Achyuth Kumar as usual has done his best to show the character of Marappa. In today's mainstream kannada movie industry, it is a good movie to watch and enjoy your Sunday for a thoughtful week.

Ajeya - Biography of Chandrashekar Azad

A piece of information on why I chose to read this book. When my mother was preganant with me, she read this book. When I became pregnant, I was in search of some good books to read. I came across THE MAN by Irving Wallace and Ajeya by Babu KrishnaMurthy.

Ajeya is the biography of Chandra Shekar Azad famously known as Azad in the Indian freedom movement. He was classified as a revolutionary with ideology following that of Hindustan Republican Association(HRA). He was born in a small village in Madya Pradesh. At a very young age, he was held by police for supporting Gandhi's non co operation movement. He managed to escape from them quite soon. He named himself as Azad from then on symbolically saying nobody can captivate him.

He ran away from home and came to know Ram Prasad Bismil - founder of Hindustan Republican Association. Azad accumulated funds to the association through robberies of rich Indian supporters of British. During this time he took part in Kakori train robbery that attempted to destroy viceroy's train. He was mostly moving around in disguise due to this.

During a peaceful protest against Simon commission, Lala Lajpat Rai - punkab kesari was hit brutally by James A Scott - a police. Rai subsequently died which led to the revolutionaries like Bhagat and Raj Guru avenge Scott. On a eventful day, they including Azad planned to kill Scott but mistakenly shot John P Saunders.

After this, Azad, Bhaghat and RajGuru were most wanted by the police and they made a wide spread look out for the trio. Azad based himself in Jhansi for a long time in the disguise of a sage and tought the local children. He became the favorite of the locals. He also managed HRA activities from the same place.

He now had alliances with a bigger group of people and he also extended the HRA membership. Though funding was a big challenge he could carry revolutionary activities against the British. He managed to make bombs and test them. Once during the test in a far off forest, he lost his best associate Bhagawati Charan Vohra.

He planned to escape Bhagat Singh and RajGuru from jail when they were arrested in explosion in assembly case. But it was a failed attempt.

He died by shooting himself in Alfred park when the police were to captivate him owing to the promise that he will not let anyone to capture him.

Azad was the heart and soul of HRA aka HSRA. He inspired the Indian youth to take part in revolutionary freedom fight. Now he is looked upon as a great leader amassing thousands of young Indians towards freedom struggle.

About the book - You feel like Azad is a friend of yours and you cry when he dies. You cry when his friends die too. The narration is a perfect tale that takes you through the journey of a onlooker at the freedom movement. You start living in those days and find people and everything else relating to freedom and revolution. The book inspired me to visit the places Azad has stepped on. It inspired me to read more of these heroes. It definitely enriched my life.