Movie Review: Aarakshan

Ok, for the record, they took up a serious issue, well actually i think many serious issues, or maybe two serious issues.... so by now I guess you know that by the end of this movie you will be so confused as to what they're talking about that you'll doubt whether your name is really your name. So anyway back to this serious issue(s?) dealing movie, so basically it starts off in this really great college called STM- the full form of which is such a mouthfull that we'll just let that one slide- and then the news breaks that supreme court has just passed a law requiring every government college to have a 27% reservation for the OBCs now, and because of this the evil coaching institute place owner dude played by manoj bajpai goes- muahahahaha *evil laugh* I'm gonna go take over STM cuz of the corrupt morons who are on the trustee board who want a principal who isn't a shehensha and promote my evil coaching corporation! *more evil laugh*. The principal with the strong moral code in question is Amitabh Bachchan ( I mean cummon who else will Bollywood get to play the upright buddha roles?) who somehow loses his house to his friend's nitwit sons who give the house to the evil coaching people and wants to get his house back with the help of Saif Ali Khan who -get this!- plays a dalit! I mean seriously people Saif Ali Khan is the most blue blooded star out there. He's a Tagore on one side (a powerful BRAHMIN family) and the son of a nawab on the other. When will Bollywood get serious??? So then he starts devising how to get back at them and get his house back. I'll let the rest be cuz I think some people out there will actually wanna go and watch this movie and won't appreciate it if i spoil everything for them but you've been warned!

What I took back from this movie:

Ok to be honest if you go and watch it as a comedy flick then go ahead, I was laughing so hard by the end of it- they had Black Cat Commandos come in to break down a cow shed, ssly the US gets their top guns to get Osama and we break down cow sheds!- and you can go watch it for laughs cuz they make a joke out of the whole issue(s?).

Now dealing with the issue of quotas for the Sc/STs and OBCs, I will always support admission on merit. One message that stuck out to me from the movie and this was spoken by the lady who played Mr.Shehensha's wife was- if you really want to help them then build them schools, give them scholarships, prepare them for the competition ahead, don't shield them from it, not at the cost of our own children's futures. I was just entering 12th grade when they passed the 27% reservation for the OBCs bill, and I swear at that moment when the quota was driven up to 50% and over, I felt dread. For a lot of us we felt like we were being rejected by our own country and that sense of panic gave rise to a lot of clashes that happened right outside the gates of my home at India Gate in Delhi. I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to uplift the disadvantaged, I'm saying to do it the right way not by screwing over the rest of us who work our asses off to score seemingly unattainable cut-offs. By doing that the government just widens the gap between 'us' and 'them'.

Has anyone seen the state of public schools in this country? This is where our quota students study, and I've seen them first hand thanks to the social involvement program at my college. There are no proper teachers, no set syllabus, no proper books... everything is in this complete state of disarray, it makes me want to scream knowing that this is what kids who deserve better get at the end of the day. And believe me these kids are not dumb, they're as smart as us if given the right tools. So I'd only like to request our great scam tainted government out there, instead of pushing one Indian against the other and stealing our money behind our backs and siphoning them back to your swiss bank accounts, get some shame and build the children of India the schools they deserve!