"The" Black Friday

BLACK FRIDAY @ WIDE ANGLE

This was first movie at wide angle, Ahmedabad. As usual I rarely change my theatres, in Delhi it was satyam, Ankleshwar it’s been rang, Baroda its inox and Ahmedabad its fun republic. All things apart, I actually was very willing to get a look at wide angle, so I was there on Saturday night to get ticket advance booked for Sunday show of traffic signal…I love madhur bhandarkar…and my eyes went on the poster of black Friday. Wow!!1 two years of wait….and now its finally on screen. I took tickets for 2230 show and went in full of eatables (I was damn hungry), a coke, samosa, chocolate an popcorn……

Movie started of with the first blast at Dalal Street mumbai..threatening. the whole show was full of flash backs and also some real clippings. It was like witnessing the threatening 1993 mumbai blasts once again. The real clippings of babri masjid demolition, the aftermath of the 11 blasts and the 12th blast which could not happen. It was fine direction for a documentary (or a film). Actors were simply superb. K.K Menon was the inspector in charge for the case. Tiger Memon was nicely put up on the screen and the most attracting actor in the whole movie was Daud Abraham……awesome….simply awesome…he was shockingly resembling daud…atleast for those people who have never seen him in person….don’t know how many have seen him in front…but what I know from the news and other books, its like daud is very calm on face…you will never know what is going behind his sunglasses. The movie did not convey any lesson or any message, but the reality. That’s the movie about.

But yes it induced me to think once again about the blasts. Was it just a hindu-muslim fight? Or it was all political? The people who were responsible for the blasts, they think that whatever they have done was in favour of their “kaum” as they have faced brutal crimes at the time of riots and masjid demolition. But was it all right to blast off mumbai for the revenge? Well as the saying goes “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” !
Not only our country, but the whole world was shocked by this brutal act. It was so very devastating. It spoiled the life of thousands and thousands of Indians. It destroyed the national properties. It was a sheer game of brain to plan out the blasts…the mastermind is still absconding. Memon family has been sentenced to death. 43 accused in all have got the death sentence. 100 out of 122 people who have been arrested, have been proved guilty. Daud is obviously out of reach. Can it be said that the government has lost the opportunity to arrest daud atleast once when he was ready to surrender (he called up ram jeth malani, and said he was ready to surrender as he did not want his name to be associated with the blasts but only in case he is granted bail as soon as possible and that he may remain house arrested but not in jail.) but will the arrests of the 100 people, and their sentences (that too after 14 years) help the cause of eradicating such brilliant minded crimes? Tiger memon is still not in reach of the police, he was the master mind!!!!

Will all this ever end? Mumbai again suffered the same brutality in 2006 with three blasts in the back bone of the city. Parliament was attacked. Konkan railways were burnt. Jammu Kashmir is still in threat. These are separate cases…but can we really, on every ground…distinguish them?
Such acts of terrorism from any strata of the society will create hue and cry in the country. Not only in India, no country has been spared of this. Be it US, UK, France….any country. Can we really find a root for this? I don’t think we can. Every act has a reason behind it, and every reason has another reason behind it. It is all backed on our history. History, the past, for how long? Nobody can even guess.