The Cell Phone Trap

I watched Omkara this weekend and it is a very good movie. Although I will not attempt a review since there are some very good reviews around, there is something that struck me.

The movie is set in rural heartland of UP, a lawless, poor and underdeveloped territory where the bahubalis (the muscle men) rule the roost through guns. The director has given immense attention to detail to make sure that the viewer gets a feel of such a society. One such detail is in the depiction of cell phones. There are at least three scenes where the cell phone is an important part of the scheme of things. One is in the opening sequence, where Langda Tyagi (Saif) makes sure that everyone in the baraat deposits their cell phones. The prelude to the climax hinges totally on a cell phone conversation and there is the funny scene where Saif asks the other end to “SM kar dena”, instead of saying SMS.

Why this thread-baring? If you look at the setting of the society that has been set up, there is almost no sign of development. The village is set up in the true feudal fashion, a large house for the head (Devgan) which is placed at an elevation, a few pucca houses for the chieftains ( Saif and others) and the rest are huts for the surfs, so to say. There are no roads, the water comes from handpumps or wells and womenfolk cook in the open on wood fired chulhas (even in Devgan’s house). But the cell phone is there, like an ubiquitous ornament. It has penetrated deep into the lifestyle.

My experience tells me that the society that Vishal Bharadwaj has portrayed, as least in the macro sense, is very close to reality. My nanihal, the village where my maternal grandparents still live, is in hinterlands of Bihar. It is sixteen kilometers from a district town, seven of which are pure mud roads and they become unnavigable during rains; the rest are peppered with potholes. The village is tightly sectioned, with purely demarcated regions for various castes. Although it was electrified some thirty years ago, power is there for not more than a few hours a day; sometimes it is gone for days on end. Most families, even in the so called upper classes, still cook on wood chulhas. I could go on about the miseries of this place. The situation in the village has not changed for the twenty years that I have observed it. Except for one thing. There are cell phones abound. The halwai has it, and so does the mason and the mali, even though they refuse to sit anywhere but on the ground. After looking around, it is difficult to argue that cell phone penetration has made much difference to the life of people.

The penetration of cell phones in the Indian society is touted so often as development, progress and even empowerment. The growth in cell phone penetration, impressive that it is, has not been able to improve the life of those who need most help. I am guessing that none of those who would read this will ever have the fortune/misfortune (depending on how you see it) to visit such a backward village and see its real problems. Maybe an adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy will give them a peek into the tragedies that is unfolding every day in huge parts of India.