Parzania

Parzania… the place where the teacher lets u listen to the radio even in class... where the buildings are made of chocolate and halwa… there is no fighting between man and man…. A place where there is bliss…. in other words- Utopia. Does it exist?? The verdict: NO, it does not. It cannot. Who will let it? And who wants it to? Parzan? Our little parsi boy in the flick? Well if he would have survived and grown up… he would prefer the real world too. The real world- with its codes and its code-breakers, with the differences separating me from that poor man, the power games to master over so many others…. Isn’t this world vibrant and wonderful? A hurts B, rises over B in some way or the other and enjoys the process thoroughly and then… he decides to feel sorry for B. A wishes that there were a world where there were no differences, where everyone was happy… but does A really want it? No, just like everyone else he is just musing over the idea and then comes back to the real world. He employs his cunning, crushes a few more people and rises more.

It is just as true as the solar system being heliocentric. Much as we would like to convince ourselves that we lie in the center of the world, we know that we revolve around the sun. Similarly, we all long for Utopia…. wonder why we live in such a cruel world and even try to convince ourselves that we desire a Utopia… but no we would rather enjoy this world with its dark sadism, its stark contrasts, its misery on one hand and its joys on the other (always trying to make that misery to be the fate of all the others- not us) When the good times come, who wants to look at the dreary aspects of real life, who wants to lament over corruption or over the miseries lying in store for those who lie at the not-so-fortunate end of the spectrum. We all would rather move ahead, take advantage of whatever weaknesses we find in the system and rule at the apex of the pyramid.

And yet Parzania shows you all that you don’t want to see, all that you want to erase to obscurity and all that you would never even witness in the worst of your nightmares. You open the morning newspaper and see the cover photo- a disturbing shot which you’d rather not look at… do you ponder over those people- the victims in that ‘disturbing shot’… their lives? No you’d rather open up the Delhi Times and watch all the glitter and sheen of those glamorous celebs. Who wants to look at these downtrodden, poverty-stricken lives… this unpleasant picture of people who lie at that other end of the spectrum? And yet if you have the guts to see beyond the glitter, the desire to see the truth, you can surely go ahead and watch the flick.

You realize the extent to which voyeurism gives people happiness, and that sadism is the very basis of every human beings’ pleasure joy or whatever you might call it. It’s the thrill to stand over the other and look at him and laugh at him, that pumps you ahead, which gives you that adrenaline rush. Did you ever realize that? Perhaps you did… but perhaps you never wanted to face it… or perhaps you never wanted to acknowledge the sadistic and pathetic side to it. Parzania will make you realize that. And you come out of the hall wondering at the plight of those people who were the victims of riots, of monster-like mobs where men play out their darkest desires, laugh at the tortured victims- safely, without being accused of being sub-human, beastly, ghastly voyeuristic and god knows what all! For who remembers the identities of the perpetrators in that throng of beasts… Who cares about morality, humanity, sensitivity… the violence is for the cause of a community, for revenge, for justice… and EVERYTHING is condoned for noble causes such as those.