Looking at NH 10 from a semiotic perspective
Saw 'NH 10' today at Ambience Mall in Gurgaon and had an eerie feeling as many parts of the landscape shown in the film were right outside the mall! Shot mainly in Gurgaon and what seems to be its hinterland, NH 10 is a film that shows you how some of the horrendous things one reads in the newspapers can happen to common people like you and me without any warning. It is hard hitting specially since one could identify so many landmarks and roads in Gurgaon making it so plausible a story.
The film opens innocuously enough with a young, yuppy married couple, Arjun (Neel Bhoopalam, who resembles Randeep Hooda in some shots) and Meera (Anushka Sharma), living and working in the high rises of Gurgaon, debating about having to go to a Mrs Duggal's dinner party. Meera does not want to waste her time at the party and tries to coax her husband with a smattering of Tamil to go back home and make 'mad love'. However, Arjun has his way and they get to the party in a Gurgaon high rise. While there, Meera gets a call to reach her office for some urgent project launch meeting. Arjun, who is having a good time, stays back and lets her drive off late in the night in their white Fortuner SUV. Meera is the typical city slicker who does not think twice about driving off into the night all by herself on the deserted roads. Completely oblivious of the lurking hazards on the roads at that time of the night, she stops to fiddle with her radio while two hoodlums cruising on a motor bike notice her stationary car. They call up their friends, who come up from behind and surprise her. She manages a narrow escape after the ensuing chase. The investigating police inspector suggests that she should apply for a gun for self protection and Arjun complies.
Therein lies the rub! The gun for all practical purposes is viewed as the answer to deal with possible aberrations in their fancy lives of celebrating honeymoons and birthdays by going away on getaways to exotic cottages in far away resorts. Ensconced in the relative security of their urbane and civilised world of suits and ties, guards and guns, they presume that they are generally in control of their lives. What these two savvy corporate executives cannot ever comprehend is that their world of suave manners and notional law and order can vaporise into thin air as soon as they enter the adjoining world without any regulations.
Director Navdeep Singh does not waste any time. Their comfortable bubble bursts and how! Drawn into a sinister roadside brawl, it is Arjun's foolish ego that leads both him and Meera irrevocably into a violent vortex of honour killings and its aftermath of having become witnesses to the crime. Satbir, played convincingly by Darshan Kumar, and his motley group of hoodlums send a chill down one's spine as they look like people who we see normally on the roads, in the dhabas, driving trucks or loitering about. This faceless mass of people who we see everywhere and who do not interest us at all becoming menacing in their demand to be acknowledged by us. Our complacent sense of assumed superiority comes crashing down when this smouldering world that we overlook as a rule rears its ugly head. Suddenly the rural landscape on NH 10 becomes the badlands and we are pulled deep into the dark ages where sisters or daughters who dare to marry outside their castes are not spared and are eliminated in the most brutal of ways.
The violence and brutality that takes over is scary as there is a resonance of the many honour killings reported in the news in what is depicted here. The fact that this world exists almost cheek by jowl next to our false sense of an orderly world where trains go past regularly as symbols of a modern, progressive world. The only fact being that these trains do not stop for anyone and the underbelly of rural society shown here seems to have missed whatever trains that run through. This is brought home to us with telling force when a character declares that beyond the last mall there is no constitution or law that prevails. Like an unravelling nightmare, the film focuses on the scourge of honour killings as it highlights the patriarchal mindset which takes umbrage at a girl who does not lower her eyes in front of men and the police working in tandem with the perpetrators of such crimes.
At the same time, there is another underlying truth that emerges in this fraught social balance. This world of the hinterland does not want to engage with yours and expects you to leave it alone as well. Just as it grudgingly registers your freedom in thought, speech and action but lets it be, it underlines an unsaid but forceful rule that it expects you to do the same. This comes home to us when Arjun and Meera get drawn into the public hammering of Pinky, the village girl and her husband Mukesh at the roadside dhaba. As her brother Satbir thrashes her in full public view and his cronies do the same to Mukesh, they expect bystanders to leave them alone to deliver their own justice system. No one is supposed to help the victims and everyone watches it like a spectator sport. It is when Arjun steps in the second time, trying to stop the thrashing that a violent Satbir slaps him hard across his face, saying that Pinky was his sister and therefore no body else's business.
The story is gripping and so is the rendition. There are no jarring false notes and the unities of time, place and characterisation hold well. Full marks to Anushka for her gutsy debut as a producer and also playing the main protagonist in the narrative with panache. But for some odd moments when her desperation seems diluted ( like when she is offering her designer watch to the Sarpanch's grandson as a bribe) or her delivering justice to Satbir with a steel rod when she is physically spent after hours on the run, the director manages to keep us glued to our seats. Deepti Naval in a short cameo brings authenticity to her role.
I think this is a film that our blasé youngsters studying in urban high schools and colleges should be made to watch. It sure is a wake up call to all city bred people who tend to ignore the subtle signals of an unreceptive or unforgiving social milleu. Both Arjun and Meera painfully find out how the contempt they have for such 'villagers' is nothing in the face of the savagery simmering in such people who have been clearly overlooked by the liberalising forces of education, awareness and even electricity.
Do catch the film, it is a good watch and makes you ponder about the glaring disparities of thoughts and beliefs that exist in our society even today.
Saw 'NH 10' today at Ambience Mall in Gurgaon and had an eerie feeling as many parts of the landscape shown in the film were right outside the mall! Shot mainly in Gurgaon and what seems to be its hinterland, NH 10 is a film that shows you how some of the horrendous things one reads in the newspapers can happen to common people like you and me without any warning. It is hard hitting specially since one could identify so many landmarks and roads in Gurgaon making it so plausible a story.
The film opens innocuously enough with a young, yuppy married couple, Arjun (Neel Bhoopalam, who resembles Randeep Hooda in some shots) and Meera (Anushka Sharma), living and working in the high rises of Gurgaon, debating about having to go to a Mrs Duggal's dinner party. Meera does not want to waste her time at the party and tries to coax her husband with a smattering of Tamil to go back home and make 'mad love'. However, Arjun has his way and they get to the party in a Gurgaon high rise. While there, Meera gets a call to reach her office for some urgent project launch meeting. Arjun, who is having a good time, stays back and lets her drive off late in the night in their white Fortuner SUV. Meera is the typical city slicker who does not think twice about driving off into the night all by herself on the deserted roads. Completely oblivious of the lurking hazards on the roads at that time of the night, she stops to fiddle with her radio while two hoodlums cruising on a motor bike notice her stationary car. They call up their friends, who come up from behind and surprise her. She manages a narrow escape after the ensuing chase. The investigating police inspector suggests that she should apply for a gun for self protection and Arjun complies.
Therein lies the rub! The gun for all practical purposes is viewed as the answer to deal with possible aberrations in their fancy lives of celebrating honeymoons and birthdays by going away on getaways to exotic cottages in far away resorts. Ensconced in the relative security of their urbane and civilised world of suits and ties, guards and guns, they presume that they are generally in control of their lives. What these two savvy corporate executives cannot ever comprehend is that their world of suave manners and notional law and order can vaporise into thin air as soon as they enter the adjoining world without any regulations.
Director Navdeep Singh does not waste any time. Their comfortable bubble bursts and how! Drawn into a sinister roadside brawl, it is Arjun's foolish ego that leads both him and Meera irrevocably into a violent vortex of honour killings and its aftermath of having become witnesses to the crime. Satbir, played convincingly by Darshan Kumar, and his motley group of hoodlums send a chill down one's spine as they look like people who we see normally on the roads, in the dhabas, driving trucks or loitering about. This faceless mass of people who we see everywhere and who do not interest us at all becoming menacing in their demand to be acknowledged by us. Our complacent sense of assumed superiority comes crashing down when this smouldering world that we overlook as a rule rears its ugly head. Suddenly the rural landscape on NH 10 becomes the badlands and we are pulled deep into the dark ages where sisters or daughters who dare to marry outside their castes are not spared and are eliminated in the most brutal of ways.
The violence and brutality that takes over is scary as there is a resonance of the many honour killings reported in the news in what is depicted here. The fact that this world exists almost cheek by jowl next to our false sense of an orderly world where trains go past regularly as symbols of a modern, progressive world. The only fact being that these trains do not stop for anyone and the underbelly of rural society shown here seems to have missed whatever trains that run through. This is brought home to us with telling force when a character declares that beyond the last mall there is no constitution or law that prevails. Like an unravelling nightmare, the film focuses on the scourge of honour killings as it highlights the patriarchal mindset which takes umbrage at a girl who does not lower her eyes in front of men and the police working in tandem with the perpetrators of such crimes.
At the same time, there is another underlying truth that emerges in this fraught social balance. This world of the hinterland does not want to engage with yours and expects you to leave it alone as well. Just as it grudgingly registers your freedom in thought, speech and action but lets it be, it underlines an unsaid but forceful rule that it expects you to do the same. This comes home to us when Arjun and Meera get drawn into the public hammering of Pinky, the village girl and her husband Mukesh at the roadside dhaba. As her brother Satbir thrashes her in full public view and his cronies do the same to Mukesh, they expect bystanders to leave them alone to deliver their own justice system. No one is supposed to help the victims and everyone watches it like a spectator sport. It is when Arjun steps in the second time, trying to stop the thrashing that a violent Satbir slaps him hard across his face, saying that Pinky was his sister and therefore no body else's business.
The story is gripping and so is the rendition. There are no jarring false notes and the unities of time, place and characterisation hold well. Full marks to Anushka for her gutsy debut as a producer and also playing the main protagonist in the narrative with panache. But for some odd moments when her desperation seems diluted ( like when she is offering her designer watch to the Sarpanch's grandson as a bribe) or her delivering justice to Satbir with a steel rod when she is physically spent after hours on the run, the director manages to keep us glued to our seats. Deepti Naval in a short cameo brings authenticity to her role.
I think this is a film that our blasé youngsters studying in urban high schools and colleges should be made to watch. It sure is a wake up call to all city bred people who tend to ignore the subtle signals of an unreceptive or unforgiving social milleu. Both Arjun and Meera painfully find out how the contempt they have for such 'villagers' is nothing in the face of the savagery simmering in such people who have been clearly overlooked by the liberalising forces of education, awareness and even electricity.
Do catch the film, it is a good watch and makes you ponder about the glaring disparities of thoughts and beliefs that exist in our society even today.
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