There is a monster in all of us. As real as these monsters are, so are ghosts. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win or we let them win. And are the men in the village of Bundelkhand any less monsters; helpless and illiterate people bounded by the ghosts of their atrocious ancestors? They are nothing but mere animals that don’t know sin.
Hukum, Katari, the Thakurs and all the men in the village are living in a bottomless pit filled with greed. It is all a greed for money, greed for power, greed for control and a greed for satisfaction. Unfortunately, greed not only exhausts a person, but also a wasted effort without ever reaching satisfaction.
The lust for power is so strong it fills the very air that they breathe. The lust for hunger is so insatiable that every man sells his daughter to the highest bidder. The anger and bitterness towards a “bedni” is so intoxicating, that the women are violated with surgical precision in the name of customs and traditions. Lust, anger and greed demands, militates and tyrannizes. Just as a leech needs blood for survival, so do the men, as they leech off of their daughters, without a second thought.
How intricately all these elements are woven into the closed minds of the inmates of Bundelkhand? The men and women live these emotions with a passion and absolutely no guilt whatsoever. Into this living hell, comes a stubborn, headstrong and a ripe peach, one with a zeal for life, dreaming of new beginnings and hoping for a new dawn. Suguni, representing the beginning of a new spring of life, symbolizing marriage and longevity, jumps right into a hellhole, shaking the very roots of the customs and traditions that these people worship. Even the whiff of that love in the air may very well be her undoing.
Every episode I see of the show “Phir Subah Hogi”, my only hope is that the younger and immature audience takes a moment to watch this show, so they are aware of the happenings on the other end of the spectrum. It is nice to watch shows which give us twenty two minutes of instant gratification featuring our favorite hot artists, but I wish that we as humans should also be aware of the realities of life. Not all of us are fortunate to have a picture perfect life nor are we all above being the victims of crime in our lives. Any one of us women could easily be in Gulabiya’s or Suguni’s place. Any of one of our uncles could be Katari Mama or Hukum Mama. Any of our fathers could be the helpless man who would go to any lengths to keep the kitchen fire going, and anyone of the men we know in our lives could be a Jwaala Thakur or a Vikram Thakur.
One of my personal favorite quotes, if anyone asks me how I am doing, I always say, “Life is peachy.” Not because I have not been through hardships like countless other people, but because I always believe that things happen for a reason and am grateful for what I have been gifted in life. I make it a point to make sure that my children are aware that life is filled with leeches and peaches. I do not want them to be in a fantasyland of perfect dreams and a perfect life. I sure wish that more and more people can be in tune with what can happen around them. I wish with all my heart that, people would never be under the false impression that bad things do not happen to them or their families.
Acting is no easy task. It takes lot of instinct and insight to make a creation. To be able to perform a conflicting role on screen is what acting is all about. To be able to imagine and play a role to perfection is what I call acting. Nimay Baali as Hukum Mama and Sikander Kharbanda as Katari Mama, are just too perfect for their roles as the bloodsucking leeches. When I read the intense and critical comments on them, I know they have done justice to their roles. There is no bigger compliment to an artist than them generating passionate and emotional reaction from viewers to the various roles they portray.
“Phir Subah Hogi” will continue to be close to my heart for its courage and bravery to bring into light the adverse conditions of this small village. It will always hold a special place in my heart as I go along the tough road with Suguni, with faith and hope that she would succeed in achieving her goal. And I shall hold a special place for “Phir Subah Hogi” as it keeps me grounded giving me an insight of how life may very well turn out to be……unpredictable.
Alima Livsletlivs
Rangmunch.tv
Writers Gully