Quick Thoughts-

  • Vajpayee has passed away and my thoughts on him is that he is the “loveable loser.” A bit like Advani & Rahul Gandhi; these philosophical Brahmins are really no match for the Modi phenomenon. Vajpayee is a remnant of a simpler gentler India; Modi is Hindustan’s future. As we much as we are mourning a Nehruvian relic. Modi’s India is rapidly wisening up to her world role.
  • As an aside I’m just increasingly shocked by how breathtaking the pace of change in India is. In the Pakistani higher circles there was always this assumption that the liberal elite of Pakistan (the 1,000 families) were the most Westernised (but Urduphile) segment of South Asia. That is rapidly beginning to change and huge swathes of the Indian upper classes are becoming “tanned white people.” Their accents, family structures, cultures are just Westernising and a good example is the Priyanka Chopra-Nick Jonas engagement. They probably represent this segment while Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma are the more desi side (the Khan-Kapoor family are somewhere in the middle, Kareena has just gone off on another jaunt with her besties).
  • I’m just a Damad to Indian culture but I hope India doesn’t lose her soul in this rapid transformation (she has the highest growth rate in the world at 7.2% edging out Bangladesh at 7%).
  • I am very passionate about Imran’s Khan need to redistrict Pakistan. We need a Pakistan of the Provinces. We have strong ethno-linguistic regions like the Punjab, Pashtunistan but we also have very strong provincial identities (Karachi must be set free from Sindh to become another Dubai) and Bahawalpur-Multan (one of the great tragedies of Independence is what happened to the Principalities of the Sub-continent and their ignominious fate by Indo-Pak).
  • Sharing some trailers:

Nawazuddin Siddiqui is one of India’s best actors (it’s usually the case in Bollywood where the traditional Bollywood looks & acting ability are inversely correlated; Radhika Apte, Kangana Ranaut, Irfan Khan – Tabbu is probably an exception) and is such a strong reason as to why Sacred Games was the blockbuster as it was.

I have a mixed feelings on Shahid Kapoor as an actor but I guess this movie will be alot like Akshay Kumar’s film, Toilet. Bollywood’s increasingly important tradition of social film-making (Padman, Aamir Khan’s films) is welcome. I guess it’s also a way for aging actors to regain moral legitimacy and cultural relevance..

I’m a fan of Varun Dhawan, he seems to have completely eclipsed Sid Malhotra. However I see his acting style to be somewhat typecast as the spoilt Punjabi kid with comic overtones; he belongs in a joint family. Again I welcome any film that has a made in India message.

Finally if there are any Indian readers who are looking for good Pakistan dramas, I would recommend Suno  Chanda. It’s a light-hearted fare about the Pakistani family and the attendant complications. Much as India is transforming; Pakistan takes pains to preserve the idealised Hindu-Arab cultural mix that is our wonderful Mughal-Muslim Republic.

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D
D
5 years ago

https://www.bloombergquint.com/opinion/2018/08/12/pakistans-imran-khan-leads-1-0-as-modi-re-nationalises-companies

If Pakistan pulls this off there will be a lot of envy across the border…

bharat
bharat
5 years ago
Reply to  D

Envy already exists with regards to china and rest of the world, none of that inpspired any good. In India, you are competing the lowest rhetoric of lunatic left. Pakistan can easily get this done, they dont have left at all. “suit boot ki sarkar”.

bharat
bharat
5 years ago

“Lovable loser” , perfect phrase. Yes, he lost 3 times, once in 13 days, once in 13 months and once again after one term.

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  bharat

I do not know if Zack understood the implication of Vajpayee as a “nehruvian relic” but it is very appropriate. In his very first political act as a neophyte RS member in 1962, his response to CN Annadurai’s speech on state rights And self determination was literally a defense of Congress’s union-centric approach. Fast forward 29 years and his spirited speech against 1991 reforms is almost dead-on nehruvian, and I saw this as as a mirror image of CPM response. He was a relic of 1950s adulthood, and I am not sure that Modi as an aggressive update is inappropriate. Possibly modi is more intelligent and more a product of his time.

wolf222
wolf222
5 years ago
Reply to  bharat

He is the first right wing prime minister which itself was a great acheivement.

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago

Vajpayee has passed away and my thoughts on him is that he is the “loveable loser.”

I wouldn’t’ call him that. He was the first non congress PM to complete a term in India. Which also made the BJP the de facto no 2 party in India out of many opposition parties, which it wasn’t till that time. To make a Pakistan analogy this feat was similar to PPP completion of a democratic term 2008-2013 where the establishment (in India’s case Congress :P) was busy trying to pull its Govt down.

Also looking at the individuals who went on to become non Congress PM in India, he could have become PM long before 1996 had he not been from the BJP. He sort of paid the price of being from BJP in that respect. Almost every tom dick harry (N-Indian Hindi speaking) leader from his era (Nehru/Indira’s era) became PM / had a shot of being PM before his chance came along.

P.S I also liked Pakistan’s “Waar”. Just waiting for if there would be part 2 where our boy Kulbhushan would be shown working for Punjabi Taliban 😛

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago

The best article on Vajpayee i found, which also ties into his good loser as well as Modi’s approach

https://www.newslaundry.com/2018/08/20/bjp-politics-atal-bihari-vajpayee-amit-shah-modi

“The simplistic analysis in the immediate aftermath of 2004 was that an ungrateful nation had dumped a good man. Other more complex theories rest on this very basic bedrock that “nice guys” somehow finish last.

The hard edge to the BJP of today and its take-no-prisoners brand of politics—often charitably described as ruthless, single-minded focus, and an election machine geared to win—is the fear of niceness of the Vajpayee variety. Geniality unaccompanied by killer instinct may win you friends, but not elections.”

“What, after all, could any PM do better than a man who made India an overt nuclear power, built thousands of miles of highways, won a war, and delivered eight per cent growth?”

wolf222
wolf222
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

bjp lost 2004 because of local reasons.

Brown Pundits