What I Do and Don’t Like About the Hindi Movie OMG Oh My God

 

What I Do and Don’t Like About the Hindi Movie OMG Oh My God

I do not like the ending, the few last frames. It is so slimy, mucus like. While the movie raises the sharp philosophical question, “Does God exist?” the final answer leaves you fully dissatisfied. There was no answer; just as well, given the religious ecosphere that encompasses everyone except the write of the original, a Gujarati play.

“Fully dissatisfied, did I say?” That is, one can never be anymore dissatisfied. Where did the movie go terribly wrong? Only at the end.

The hero, played superbly by Paresh Rawal, starts out an atheist. He is, after all, a shrewd business man, perhaps more than he is an atheist. Does he come around to get his long lost ethical mooring back? Or, did he remain an ethical outcast? The movie is silent on that. I liked it. To be frank, I would have liked the businessman to go back to his old ways, the power of profits having the definitive sway! The truth.

There are scenes I would have liked when my age was in single digits or possibly even in the low double digits (pre-teen), now that their age cohorts are masters of trick shot videography. So, I was left to wonder why these shots were included. It would have been a decision based on RoI, a wrong one. The movie ostensibly had a strong message and these intruded into the story line to leave a visible scar. I would have been much happier without it.

“Total waste!” This one phrase is to be weighed in gold! Universal condemnation of religion. Wait for it, in a court scene. The event condemned is a twist (well within story-tellers’ right to imagine) on what we saw about three decades ago. My colleagues in my office went out during lunch time (and were delayed in returning), each pouring at least one fifth of a litre of milk on an idol of the elephant-God, Lord Ganesha, all based on a rumour that He is drinking milk and it spread like wildfire).  I wonder what I would have done had I been watching in a movie hall; perhaps brought down the ceiling! It is that good.

The chief of the religious cabal, played superbly by the veteran and celebrated stage and cinema actor Mithun Chakraborty in an impactful role, asks his congregation as to what God has not given them. Has He not given earth, water, air and all else that made their life so easy and comfortable (the dialogue writer missed mentioning air conditioning!). I did not feel comfortable as his questions went unanswered (of course, these were rhetorical, not to be answered), though the actor made that scene, indeed the role come alive. What kind of an effect could it have on impressionable minds (there are more adults than teens, pre-teens and younger ones put together in this category)? Further descent into Hell!

The TV interview scene is one I would like to store indelibly in my mind. The interviewer is asked by the interviewee−yes, upside down!−what did she do when she wanted to have a chocolate? Did she pray with prayer beads, kneel down and beseech her father, what, indeed, did she do? The interviewer answered that she just asked and her father got her what she wanted (was a lucky girl whose father did not worry how her teeth might stain and probably she would suffer later!). Then, the coup de grs by the interviewee: why wouldn’t you do that to God, after all he is a father figure.

At the end of the interview, the teenage daughter pleaded allegiance to her father when she acknowledged that who the audience sitting in a college cafeteria are appreciating was her father. Perhaps that was the instance she burst out of her cocoon, as I would have liked. This was a teaching-cum-learning moment, the managementese intruding into this write-up!

Three major religions were appeased by seating their religious heads in the courtroom. There is also a trickier aspect to it, the way I see it. Each religion was taken to task on its own terms. This way the three religious arrows that could have come in the way of the atheist were blunted even before they were lifted out of their quivers! Insult everyone and you insult none. A nice trick!

I could possibly pick-off a few more frames but that would test my patience as I get down to reading what I had written. So, I stop.

Raghuram Ekambaram