Nostalgia About Kedarnath, And Watching Kedarnath, The Film Set At Kedarnath

Beautiful setting of the film is the chief reason we went to see it, since it has been just over quarter of a century since we went, and it's unlikely we might again, what with health issues even without landslide fears. And in this the film is far from disappointing - superb scenery and much more so than our rose gold nostalgic memories would have made them, made watching it a breathtaking pleasure most of the time. We had no expectations of the film other than this, so the young pair was a pleasant surprise. 

It's only later that it emerges to one just how carefully the film was crafted to stay on the brink where it could, but need not be, interpreted as a message, or a bunch of them, all serving perhaps an underworld diktat, and all equally false.

Reminds one of the time one saw an old classic by a director very revered in highbrow and esoteric connoisseur circles of the intellectual metropolis Boston-Cambridge neighbourhood, at Harvard theatre, and it so happened there were a couple of colleagues there too, so we had coffee at the spot close by after the film. The youngest one of us was quite ardent in his naive bong praise for the film, Autumn Sonata, and the third one said he understood the point of view of each and so was silent. A decade and half later, a similar argument was in Amsterdam at the Riiksmuseum over a painting titled "Arabs" or something including the explicit word but depicting a coal black pair, and I remarked that it was false, while our then host (holder of many passports but not the one he coveted, Dutch) opined - just as the young guy in Boston-Cambridge had about the film - that it was excellent artistically. My complete disagreement in either case, despite the guys assuming compliance from what they obviously assumed was lesser human for obvious reasons, went a long way towards permanent friction.

Why does this film remind one of those completely unrelated topics is obvious to anyone familiar with the deep underlying issues not as hidden here as the guys pretended they were in those two - the underlying issue in each is a fraud perpetrated via an artistic effort to veil the false propaganda. Then, I had called it garbage served covered completely in ketchup, in the first case. But regardless of whether it's ketchup as it could be termed in the second case, or hollandaise in champagne as in case of the first one the film - or in this case a thick cheer with saffron and pistachios served ice cold, the thorn remains unquestionable. And that is the falsehood.

Autumn Sonata was vicious propaganda about evils of women achieving an identity via a superior talent, although nobody ever said a word about need of women earning to support children due to males fleeing from responsibilities thereof - so the issue has never been the actual suffering of the children, which couldn't be worse for a woman with talent and career than for a manual worker exhausted working nine hours a day in high heels serving coffee and burgers. The painting was stereotypical of Europe assuming everyone else is black and they are white, neither of which is true.

This film does not explicitly articulate, but instead skirts the "all but" route, of making the message or propaganda not quite articulated in the dialogue. The message? It could be interpreted as "there is no love jihad, it's about casteism imprisoning youth away from love and girls from right to freedom, minority is noble and majority backward in India,....", - needless to say none of which is not fraud.

Yes, in this particular tale the guy isn't going after the girl deliberately or cheating her of knowledge of his identity or, having married her, then pressuring her to convert; which doesn't prove that that is precisely not happening generally to hundreds, if not thousands, of naive young women who were not brought up to protect themselves against such freedom taken away precisely because they had it, pretty much like the Europe eight decades ago voting a bunch into power that took away votes from everyone and promised it will be for a thousand years!

Yes, in this case the young man is a part of India and not the jihadist mindset that uses rape and physical assault to benumb young girls  into complete submission via total humiliation and calls it grooming - but that is not to say hundreds of young girls haven't suffered it from gangs that inflict it deliberately. 

Yes, in this story the guy saves their lives and risks, even gives up perhaps,  his own, but that is not to say hundreds of others in real life don't gangrape and subsequently sell the young woman, who loses her identity and her family and life and freedom and future, all at once.

This film maker plays it safe by saying nothing explicitly while making the message clear as Himaalayan pristine streams still in hills, by deliberately choosing a highly revered shrine of India (would he dare use a locale or object revered by a powerful institution outside India?), by leaving no doubts just how ignoble the choice of the parents is and how wrong the behaviour of the community (would he dare make that assertion in real life stories about the minorities associated with ex colonial regimes by showing facts of their behaviour on film and calling a spade a spade?), and more.

And so, covered in the beauty of Himaalayan ranges and valleys and treks, and the talented delightful young pair, still, rotten at core this is. If one can avoid that core and merely enjoy the beauty by floating above it all, good luck, but chances are the propaganda is a poisonous jet stream of falsehood and it will get you. 

And the pity of it all is the offering of the young pair of artists at this alter to falsehood in the propaganda to cover up the jihadist warfare so it can carry on with impunity.

The young hero does his job superbly, of depicting every emotion and flicker of the young man who is outgoing in public purpose but reticent in his private feelings. His willingness to stand up for the needs of his valley, his protecting his clients and his hiding his own vulnerabilities and his anguish, are all very endearing.

The young girl, despite the not quite so admirable character she portrays - she is open in being less than respectful of her elders in a way that leaves one between askance and aghast, and doesn't fight when needed despite the liberties she risks taking when not necessary to risk her everything - is still nevertheless made very endearing by the young debutante from the lineage of half a dozen or so well known lines of lineage.

And the unforgettable part is the tragedy that struck the region, with - the numbers given in film at end - 4,300 lives lost, 50,000 rescued by military and 70,000 missing. We could barely recognise the newly reconstructed trek, so changed is the valley.

But here too the director gave in to the underworld demands, or was it the mafia opposition? He never mentioned the rescue work carried out by various private institutions, because they are associated with the majority of India.

If India isn't whipped continuously as per Macaulay policy of humiliation and lies against it, how will they accept their subjugation meekly? They might rise up and expect a citizenship equal to those tribesmen of non Indian origin who were granted nawabhoods for defeating Indian forces so the colonial regimes could establish a hold, and no longer be ignorant about Nawab being not princes but merely tax collectors!

Funny, the appeasers attempt to trick majority with a silent implication that the unquenched love of the young was what brought on the wrath of heavens pouring down and caused the landslides that were responsible for so much devastation - but they failed to take into account the sureshot weapon they provided the trench against them that are their more than equals, since the film will be interpreted by them as heaven's wrath brought down due to sacred spaces defiled by footfall of the unholy!

And while the appeasers go parading calling themselves secular, it's the trye secular India that's losing the middle ground, since there is nothing more secular than India with her ancient culture, and aligning with India in any way is now branded by the invader appeasers as regressive! 



Responding to a comment below another yt video on the topic, by Kanchan Thakur:-

"😡😡

एक लड़की केदारनाथ दर्शन करने जाती है,

वहां मुस्लिम कुली से उसको प्यार हो जाता है,

लड़की का बाप कहता है 'ये रिश्ता हुआ तो प्रलय आ जायेगा' ।

लड़की कहती है

'फिर तो मैं प्रार्थना करती हूं कि प्रलय आये' ।

बादल फट जाता है,

पूरा केदारनाथ डूब जाता है और वो मुस्लिम कुली दूसरे किसी मदद करने की बजाय सिर्फ हीरोइन को बचाता है

और

लड़की के बाप को दिव्य ज्ञान प्राप्त होता है

कि प्रेम में जाती धर्म नहीं होता और हमारा देश गंगा जमुनी तहजीब वाला देश है (जैसे दिल्ली के अंकित सक्सेना को ज्ञान प्राप्त हुआ था) ।

वो अपनी लड़की का निकाह उस कुली से करवा देता है ।

ये कहानी है फ़िल्म केदारनाथ की । 😡

फ़िल्म से एक सीख और मिलती है कि

हिन्दुओ ने अपनी लड़की का निकाह मुसलमानो से नहीं कराया तो प्रलय आएगा ।

बॉलीवुड वाले भांड क्या गुल खिला सकते हैं, समझ से बाहर है. 

केदारनाथ त्रासदी में करीब एक लाख लोग मारे गए,

कइयों के तो शव भी नहीं मिले आज तक,

पूरा देश खून के आंसू रोया था, जैसे अपना कोई सगा वाला मरा हो ।

इतनी भयानक घटना पर फ़िल्म भी बनाई

तो उसमें भी लव जिहाद का जहर घोल दिया ।

केदारनाथ पर फ़िल्म ही बनानी थी तो सेना ने अपनी जान पर खेलकर कैसे लोगों की जान बचाई ये बताते ।

सेना का पराक्रम बताने की बजाय एक मुस्लिम कुली को महान बता दिया।

ये वो फिल्मकार है

जो पैसों की खातिर अपनी बहन बीवी बेटी भी सुला देंगे किसी के भी साथ।

क्या फिल्म का नाम केदारनाथ रखकर भी ऐसी घटिया फिल्म बनायीं जा सकती है?

😡😡😡"



Kanchan Thakur - just a small correction, the guy is gone in a landslide as the girl and others rescued watch from the helicopter, it's not exactly a wedding but uncertainty at the end, he is one of the 70,000 missing.  If the father has any second thoughts, they aren't about getting her married to the boy he's known, only about reassessment of his wrath against the boy.


Kanchan Thakur  - another small correction, it's not about a girl going to visit, it's a local girl, although the trailer diesnt make it clear; and she doesn't fall in love just casually, she's intrigued at a connection made as a fanatic cricket fan but also she's very angry and desperate to get out of an enforced engagement with someone who changed his mind about marrying her sister after a childhood connection of several years; so the rebellion is really a cry for help from a young girl in circumstances she has little control over. The film would have been lovely if it were not mixed up in a false propaganda and set in the immensely beautiful place, but we saw it only to relive our memories of the travel.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=03-KVRmd3xo


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SypmQenLQgs