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when Swara sang Faiz Ahmad Faiz's revolutionary song on freedom, now the anthem of Naxals, popularized by the Naxals’ cultural front in urban India, Kabir Kala Manch, and its arms: Bol, ke lab azaad hai tere, Bol, zabaan ab tak teri hai, Tera sutwan jism hai tera, Bol, ke jaan ab tak teri hai. Speak, for your lips are free, Speak, for your tongue is still yours. Your upright body is still yours, Speak, for your life is still yours.
‘Rohit Sharma, a few more of our friends and I run a small band called Swang,’ Swara informs me. I figure out that this band mostly performs anti-establishment and pro-Naxal songs.
Swara's mother heads the film department at JNU. She has grown up in JNU, listening to a certain narrative.
In marriage, the biggest blunder we make is that we forget the core values of a person for which we marry him/her.
Bollywood has singularly contributed to the collective dumbing down, in collusion with the music companies.
These companies are more thieves than music promoters, who have killed our rich music and replaced it with machine-made melodies. Over a period of time, resigned to the marketing bombarding, we have learnt to put up with inferior quality of cinema, music, and literature.
Ravinder Randhawa. He is Swara’s live-in partner.
Kabir Kala Manch’s functions. Swara was singing some
‘Look, I am not sure if you would like to work in this film as it’s opposite of the ideology you follow,’ I warn them. ‘This is our professional work and that is our personal belief and we won’t mix those two,’ Ravinder and Rohit both speak almost together. This is how we legalize hypocrisy. We write against the exploitation of women
and at the same time we accept it in our workplace. The irony of Leftist intellectuals lies in its supporters like Ravinder. Here I am making a film to expose and crush Ravinder’s personal beliefs with a powerful medium like a film and he is willing to contribute to my cause on the pretext of professional ethics. Most
can’t trust people who don’t smile from their hearts. A smile is the most natural human trait. When someone doesn’t smile, he is behaving in an unnatural manner and one should be cautious
Leftists don’t smile much, as if it’s an ideological code.
Leftists don’t smile. They have only one expression on their frowning faces – anger.
Together, as a group, they give a sense of an army marching forward, in order to stop the ‘motor of the world’. They give an illusion of a mass movement for the empowerment of the weak but in reality, it is a mass movement against development.
if you look at the statistics of last fifty years, you will find clear indicators showing that poverty, hunger, famines, violence, discrimination have all gone down dramatically. Average lifespan has increased, man is more productive, people spend more on humanity. But these people paint a scenario where you feel helpless and in rage want to destroy the system. Exactly like media, which creates an illusion of mass outrage out of some stray individual, agenda-driven opinions.
Ideological beliefs are stronger than religious beliefs.
One big problem with India is that people do not care about the law. They don’t follow rules because nobody gets caught. And in that rare chance, if they do get caught, everyone knows they can get off easily either by bribing or using a jugaad.
Integrity isn’t just honesty. Integrity is being honest even when nobody is watching.
we need citizens to follow rules. Because when you break rules, you make the system ineffective, inefficient, and unproductive.
When I get down at ISB, I want to tip the driver but he refuses. ‘Against the rules, saar.’ ‘I insist… for your kids,’ I try to persuade him, lure him. He takes out a small piggy bank of CRY, an NGO working for homeless children, and asks me to put the tip in it. I put the money in his piggy bank and leave thinking that this world has been running because of some very good people.
The meeting has lasted only twenty-odd minutes but in these twenty minutes my faith in ‘good people’ has got reaffirmed.
Kahan to tay tha chiranga har ek ghar ke liye Kahan mayassar nahin chirag is sheher ke liye. Where the light was promised for each home, now not even a lamp is available for the entire city. It
