Voyage to the Moon

Watch the early trick cinema of Milies "The Voyage to the Moon"

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Bhopal verdict and media activism

June 7, 2010 will go down in history as one of the saddest days ever. For, it was on that day that the famous (or infamous) judgement of a Bhopal sessions court came out, after as many as 26 years. In fact, that decision was so disappointing that media all over India came out in the open to raise crucial issues relating to the tragic 1984 Bhopal gas leak and developments thereafter. Perhaps, never before in the history

of India have the media institutions were so united, taking a clear stand against the judgement. Even as one is happy at such developments, one, nevertheless, is dismayed by such boisterous media activism.

There may be many facets to these developments. It is a known factor that if media suffer from dearth of ‘big’ news, anything big has to be made bigger. Something similar is the case with the media activism following Bh

opal verdict. Secondly, media in the recent past have come under severe attack for being highly elitist and not giving adequate concentration for the common man. It looks as though media, especially the electronic media, want to redeem themselves of such a ‘misconception’.

Whatever be the case, media are doing a commendable job in discussing and debating the Bhopal verdict. In fact, they seem to overdo it. In the bargain, the distinction between news and editorial comments seems to blur. Each TV anchor seems to have his/her strong opinion about the issue which he/she utters with a certain amount of sentimentalism.

Despite all such drama by media, it is because of media that even the Government seems to have woken up to the tragic reality. Recently the government announced a relief package of 180 crores, besides assuring that steps would be taken to bring Anderson back to India. Would that be enough? Government needs to do more. Union Carbide and its parent company Dow Jones must be made to pay compensation for all the victims, including those suffering to this day. Also, it is the responsibility of those companies to clean up the defunct Union Carbide factory. Steps must be taken to pressurise through international agencies to make sure that they own up the responsibility, at least now after 26 years.It is in this context that one must relook at the traditional functions given to the mass media, namely, informing, educating and entertaining

As regards bringing about social change, many scholars think that mass media must not be burdened with such responsibility; social change does take place through awareness created among masses. Mass media have been traditionally accused of agenda setting. However, the recent media activism and the agenda setting by the media seem to have worked very well. Generating public opinion is an important role that mass media must play. And mass media, especially the electronic media, played that role to best results, even though they gave too much of the same thing over and over again.

The role to the mass media is only to bring about awareness and perhaps play a bit of persuasion role. It is the Government which must take notice of the issues and concerns raised by the media and act immediately. In this case, the concerns have been well articulated. It is time the Government acted with a certain amount of urgency.

Who is greater? Author or the script writer?

‘3 idiots’ film has broken all box office records as regards collections and profits. Part of the reason, one might say, is the kind of negative (or positive?) publicity it got due to certain mis-understanding between Chetan Bhagat, the author of ‘Five Point Someone’ which, it is claimed, has been adapted for the ‘3 idiots’ script, and the film’s makers. There is no mention of Chetan Bhagat’s name at the beginning of the film. Only a small name tag appears during the credits at the end of the film.

Has it all been done for greater publicity, one cannot be sure. However, both the parties have a point to make. If the story has been taken from Mr Bhagat’s book, due credit with royalty has to be given to him, which the director, Rajkumar Hirani and the Producer, Vidhu Vinod Chopra say, has been given. But Mr Bhagat does not quite agree. According to him, the

film is 70 per cent faithful to his book and as much credit has not been given to him. In fact, he says he has been overlooked deliberately.

Amir Khan and the ‘3-idiots’makers have a different point to make. According to them, even though the film has been based on the story of Mr Bhagat’s book, the script writer Mr Abhijit Joshi spent over three years to adapt it to a film narrative and hence it is apt that Mr Joshi gets his due. Whether the fact that Abhijit spent three years to make a script justifies the gross neglect of Mr Bhgat, the author, is further debatable.

Amir Khan and his team at ‘3 idiots’ have a point to make. Film is indeed a different medium altogether. It is a visual medium and the style of a novel can never suit the film medium. What novel says in a page, the film may have to show in just about 20 seconds. That is indeed a challenge. Further, film does not give much of a scope for imaginati

on like the novel, as the audience sees everything unfolding in front of them. They may interpret the symbols, but even that may not give much scope for imagination. In such a situation, it is indeed a hard task for the script writer to adapt a story to a visual medium and make the audience involve into it so much that they relate their own life experiences with the film narrative. Indeed, ‘3 idots’ achieves this to a very great extent, simply because the script writer has been very imaginative in his treatment of the story.

All the same, can the original author be neglected? Is it not true that but for the idea, the script writer can do nothing? For every art, idea is the basic building block and in the case of 3 idiots, the idea has come from Mr Bhagat. By acknowledging the idea borrowed from someone can never take credit away from you, even as you have created a wonderful script. So one finds it very odd, why one must shy away from accepting the fact that one is only the creator of ‘methodology’ and not ‘idea’?

Both have a point; but the ‘3 idiots’ think tank would have not lost much (except of course a few more bucks they made due to the undue publicity) by adding that one extra name at the beginning of the film.