Recently finished reading अधर्मयुद्ध (Adharma Yuddha-war of religious fanaticism) by Girish Kuber.
The first book by him that I read was ‘युद्ध जिवांचे’ (Yuddha Jivanche- bio-war, or ‘war of the living’, or ‘war of people’?) It talks about science and technology’s darker side that prevailed in the power-privileged countries like America, Germany, Japan, Russia, etc and how it created an endless network of exploitation that the third world can’t even notice or imagine. Everyone should read it, especially those in science, technology and pharmaceuticals.
Reading it in school is a bad decision for those who already have their own existentialism. Seriously. It makes one wonder, whether we, the Homo sapiens, actually deserve the title of the most evolved species on the planet. Makes one question how humans can be so sickeningly creative in violence, how the largest share of money from every country’s GDP, people’s hard-damn-earned money, ends up in various violence projects, may it be in the name of national security, or exerting dominance, or simply fear-mongering.. Do common citizens consent to all this? Do they even know what goes on in their name?
When we read these details as science enthusiasts, we are humbled by the immensity of responsibility that’s on our shoulders. More than that, we are disgusted by our ancestors in the field. Depressed, even. We start asking, do we really want to end up like this? Any sane being’s answer would be, no. It also initiates another line of thought-importance of humanities. We take great pride in counting every scientific achievement of our respective nations or individuals, a common sentiment everywhere in the world. But we don’t really care to know why the study of humanities is important. In all these years of human history full of violence, we are yet to learn our lesson and create a system to utilise the resources in trying to learn about the diversity in the world and how to deal with it sustainably.
Because the prime emotion behind every project mentioned in the book is hate and greed. Greed, or a general sense of superiority that makes one ignorant of others existence and gives them a ‘license’ to exploit them however they please. ‘Lisence’ with which they escaped any questions on the sweet coincidence of the sudden rise of the company manufacturing Tamiflu from total bankruptcy and the sudden emergence of swine flu all over the third world.
Or a general sense of hate, that helps them legitimise and defend their actions. Hitler’s gas chambers are the least of such horrors, purely motivated by hatred.
Whatever it is, it’s far away from where we all should’ve been. The current situation is worse, these tools have reached in the hands of terrorists even. But looking at the rising communalism and racism in politics (but hey it was always the same!), along with the peaked greed, it’s very hard to differentiate between the right and wrong. We live in a world where the terms ‘killing’, ‘murder’, ‘massacre’, have different meanings for different socioeconomic-political dynamics of the victims and the perpetrators. Which brings us to three of other books by Girish Kuber- एका तेलियाने, हा तेल नावाचा इतिहास आहे & अधर्मयुद्ध.
एका तेलियाने (Eka Teliyane) gives a brilliant historical account of how Ahmed Zaki Yamani almost dictated the oil strategy for international markets during the period of the 60′ to 80s. हा तेल नावाचा इतिहास आहे (Ha tel navacha itihas aahe-This is the history of oil), as the name suggests, it gives an insight into the history and politics of the journey of oil, from nothing to everything. These two books, along with the third (which is not based on oil, but on terrorism and opportunism that revolves around oil) अधर्मयुध्द, create a master package to understand what’s going on in the world and which all factors are responsible for it.
अधर्मयुध्द makes us furious at the west, mainly America and England. It explains how the greedy capitalists chose Islamist terrorism over Russian communism-a heavily messed up decision and how they kept making the same mistake of fueling and utilising terrorism to spite&fight Russia again and again, how insolently they overlooked the bigger horrors that were being set up parallelly, proving their complicity again and again. Now along with them, the whole world is paying for their mistakes, and the powerful, are still busy filling their own pockets.
Thanks to Girish Kuber, who narrates this like an everyday conversation in Marathi and makes the complex history and politics of the world easier to understand for everyone.
PS: The list is incomplete without his another Marathi book on Putin (पुतीन: महासत्तेच्या इतिहासाचे अस्वस्थ वर्तमान- Putin: The turbulent present of the history of the superpower), with an interesting subtitle, but I am yet to get my hands on it. Hope to get it soon..
From the trailer (I haven’t read the novel), the plot looked simple-same old story of a gangster’s rise and fall; a rather monotonous one, dealt quite a lot with in Bollywood. But while/after watching it, one can’t resist to get attached to it and want more of it. Its influence thrives per episode, and in the end of the season we are left with dumbstruck awe. It breaks a lot of stereotypes, which makes it a unique creation.
The so-called antagonist, Ganesh Gaitonde is portayed by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who has not only done an extraordinary job of acting, but also has owned the series in the way he says-”Kabhi kabhi lagta hai apun hi bhagwan hai”!. He tells us (actually, Sartaaj) his story in the entire season. He gives Sartaaj a big mystery to solve, which has a long list of sub questions-what is their connection? What’s going to happen in the next 25 days? Why and how was he betrayed? Was he scared? Where was he in the last 15-20 years? Why his third Baap is so important? and so on.. The episodes solve some of these and add a few new mysteries thereby making the viewers stick to their screens. It becomes interesting and thrilling because of his death in the very first episode. In each of the episodes we get introduced to different mythological terms–after which the episodes are named-from Mahabharat with respect to the characters in this story, which is a good change from the bombardment of foreign mythological series.
His wife Subhadra (Rajshri Deshpande) has a small but major part in his life, her death makes him murder 80 random innocent people, which fuels the riots in 1992 and leads him to suffer in jail. Kantabaai was Ganesh’s strong acquaintance and a sort of guide in Mumbai (portrayed by Shalini Vatsa). All these women rise bright and strong, and even dominate over Gaitonde’s being. Whereas Sartaaj Singh is initially isolated and distorted by his divorce. He eventually evolves as a person bold enough to even risk his job by diving deep into Gaitonde’s case. Saif Ali Khan has done his homework well for this character so it doesn’t, at any point, look forced.
One of the appealing features of this season was supposed to be Anjali Mathur (Radhika Apte)-the RAW agent-who is shown continuously fighting the demons of patriarchy in the line of work and the tragic closure of the case of her missing father. Looking at the strong female characters Radhika has portrayed earlier, we might develop some expectations from Anjali, her being a female RAW agent. She is ‘shown’ to have been complaining that female agents, despite their abilities, are forced to do desk work rather than field work. At the same time, she is portrayed to be quite inadequate for her job-not vigilant enough-making her death look dumb. Whether it is the requirement of the character or not is another matter; but RAW certainly trains the agents well, so it’s not convincing enough. Same with Constable-and a friendly colleague of Sartaaj-Katekar’s (Jitendra Joshi) death, it looks slightly out-of-place (not so smart); but along with his family, he makes a significant presence in the season. 
His journey from the cop who is unenthusiastic about the missing Muslim boy to the cop who tells his wife, ”आज खूप दिवसांनी खऱ्या पोलिसासारखं वागलो (Today, I acted as a true policeman after a long time)” with satisfaction, is overwhelming.
It is quite challenging to construct a fictional character taking part in actual history without molding it and constantly switching from flashbacks to present, but the directors and writers are successful in making it look natural.
Wander with Mudita 