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| A still from digital movie Jai Hind |
Staff correspondent, August 14, 2015, NewsCrunch
OYO Rooms, a budget hotel network got about Rs 650 crore from Softbank last month, the same investors who invested in Rahul Yadav.
OYO Rooms, a budget hotel network got about Rs 650 crore from Softbank last month, the same investors who invested in Rahul Yadav.
What better way to blow it up than by making a hare-brained digital film on Indian Independence.
Oyo Rooms famously has a 21-year-old Ritesh Aggarwal; what better way to showcase it than by making a juvenile digital film.
Out of work actors Manoj Vajpayee and Raveena Tandon feature in Jai Hind the short 6-minute film that pays tribute to Indian freedoms fighters. Fortunate are the freedom fighters to have passed away without seeing the kind of tributes the new generations are heaping upon them.
We say out of work actors with some concern here. It is hard to imagine the iconic Bhiku Mhatre and the heart-throbbish Raveena Tandon coming together for a dud like this.
There have been several tributes to Indian Independence movement, Attenborough's Gandhi for example. If you have seen them, do not watch Jai Hind with the same expectations.
A couple, Manoj Vajpayee and Raveena Tandon, riding on their scooter in a prosperous Mumbai neighbourhood, meet with an accident. Manoj Vajpayee is injured but gets up and sees Raveena Tandon in blood and unconscious. Staggering, he carries her inside the nearest building, which happens to be a fancy restaurant.
The white people and their Indian servants at the establishment are outraged. They beat him up and throw him out along with the still bleeding and still unconscious RT.
That is when, Manoj Vajpayee sees a signboard outside the restaurant: Indians and dogs not allowed. Alas, such were the times when Indian was a colony.
Now switch to the parallel universe. India is independent and the air smells of freedom. The movie moves in reverse in time, sort of setting the clock back. The entire series of events of the evening are undone and the couple are shown riding the scooter.
There is no accident, they safely enter the restaurant, are treated like a king and queen. They both take spoons and put something in each others mouths.
So, what’s with this. Indian Independence movement was a spiritual journey of millions of poor people overthrowing stifling foreign domination. It was not a hare-brained and melodramatic dinner-time episode.
There is no accident, they safely enter the restaurant, are treated like a king and queen. They both take spoons and put something in each others mouths.
So, what’s with this. Indian Independence movement was a spiritual journey of millions of poor people overthrowing stifling foreign domination. It was not a hare-brained and melodramatic dinner-time episode.