Takeaways from the Shivaji Movie

We saw this Hindi movie on the Maratha king, Shivaji named Raja Shivaji at the theatre. To be honest, my knowledge of Shivaji is entirely based on Amar Chitra Katha’s (ACK’s), I don’t remember anything from my (school) history books.

 

The move is very so-so, but several things made the experience interesting.

 

Since the central character is a beloved figure in Maharashtra, the movie starts with the customary disclaimer on being part fictionalization, edited for entertainment, not meant to hurt religious or regional sentiments etc. The usual stuff. What was different was that the disclaimer was a whole page long! So what, you say, who reads them. Aha, this one was read out for all to hear! At breakneck speed. With words nobody uses in day-to-day life. It was taking forever to complete. We were beginning to dread that they’d follow this with a translated English reading, but thankfully that didn’t happen.

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I struggled with the first 45 minutes of the movie. Why? Because I expected the movie to involve Aurungzeb and encounters with the Mughals (all those ACK’s from childhood). Whereas the real context/backdrop to Shivaji was very different. The Mughal empire was largely in the north. From the Deccan south-wards, they had vassal states. Which then had vassal states of their own. Alliances and loyalties shifted often at those lower levels. The Marathas were at the lower rungs, so they were too minor and inconsequential for the Mughal emperor to care about personally. No wonder I struggled to understand this part.

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The pacing of the movie was very uneven, many scenes that made you itch for the Fast Forward button on the remote. Action sequences were often abrupt without adequate buildup. Slow motion scenes of gory violence could have been edited a lot better. Plus, too much emphasis on Shivaji and his brother wanting Swarajya. Though to be fair, the movie makes Swarajya sound like a localized version, limited to Marathas, not a pan-India movement (that would have to wait until the Congress and Gandhi). Despite all these flaws, somehow the movie never became unbearable to watch.

 

In fact, the last 30 minutes was good, building up suspense on how the clearly inferior forces of Shivaji would take on the vastly superior forces of the commander of Bijapur (Afzal Khan). The answer was more brain (and cunning) than brawn, with some obligatory violence thrown in (Hindi movie, remember).

 

Overall, most of the audience must have felt the same way I did. Because when Salman Khan shows up in the last 5 minutes (out of nowhere) in an unexpected role of a personal bodyguard of Shivaji, the audience was thrilled (the girls next to me were ready to whistle and hoot!). Riteish Deshmukh as Shivaji is OK. To me, the star of the movie was Vidya Balan as the powerful behind-the-scenes begum in Bijapur. Sanjay Dutt as the commander, Afzal Khan, is also very good.

 

Strangely, the movie ends with the killing of Afzal Khan. Aurungzeb doesn’t even show up (or get a mention) in the movie! Were all my ACK’s wrong? Or am I mis-remembering things from my childhood?

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Or was this a case of history getting re-written over time?

 

On that topic, my 14 yo daughter pointed out that since her history books had barely mentioned Shivaji, she wasn’t comparing the movie with any of the “known” facts. For her, it was just like watching any other fiction movie. Ignorance can have its advantages…

 

Since we were on the topic of history books, she pointed out that the ICSE books were unbiased. But the CBSE books are biased, she said. How so, we asked. Well, she said, ICSE books didn’t pass judgment on events but the CBSE ones do (via phrases like “cruel and vicious”).

 

Once the books are written that way, it is inevitable that some teachers pile onto such phrases and descriptions. Esp. if the topic is Muslims and the teacher’s own ancestors suffered, say, during Partition. I’d never thought of that consequence of the tone of history books until now. Of course, India is neither the first nor the last place where history is rewritten and thus changes the way people view the world. As Shashi Tharoor, the British education system doesn’t teach them their colonial history. And Israelis believe any and all of their present-day actions are justified because of the Holocaust done to their ancestors…

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