The movie is well directed and beautifully brings out the talent of Amitabh Bachchan, Vidya Balan and Arundhati Naag. As everybody is probably aware of it, the story captures the life of Auro (Amitabh) who is suffering from Progeria (a rare medical condition that accelerates the ageing process). The movie also highlights the pursuits of a young honest politician, Amol (played by Abhishek), who is also the father of Auro, struggling with ruthless media while charting welfare programmes for the society.  The two stories run parallel and merge at some points. Now, it was somewhat weird to see the story of a young politician, highly motivated to work for the society being clubbed with Auro’s school days, his pranks, his being shy of girls and obviously his obsession for bums! But then one realizes the need to club the two stories as else probably it would not have gone for 2.5 hours! And probably because the scriptwriter wanted to bring out the passion of Amol towards politics and also have a social message. Infact, I quite liked the dig on media that was portrayed in the movie. Without any doubt, a major section of media has tainted its power to influence our society and this was decently brought out in the movie.

However, the beauty of the movie lays in Auro, a magical kid. Amitabh’s acting leaves you mesmerized. And Vidya Balan’s grace complements and strengthens the character of Auro. Often, one feels that the movie should have been ‘maa’ given how as a single mother she takes care of Auro. Auro’s dialogues not only tickle your bone but also make you appreciate his spirit. The role played by Auro’s friends’ is also incredible. I did not like the acting of Abhishek Bachchan and I believe that the movie could have been stronger if a. Abhishek acted better and b. he had better dialogues. Somehow the contrast between Auro’s character and Abhishek’s depiction of a young, motivated politician becomes much wider given Abhishek’s poor acting and stereotyped dialogues assigned to him.

Despite some weak points of the movie and frail portrayal of Amol’s political venture, the movie stands out purely because of Auro. A must watch!

Following are the ‘vachaans’ a bride is supposed to make on her marriage (in the brackets, ‘modern interpretation’ of the vachaans):

1. Never go out home alone (you must not forget to take wallet, mobile phone)
2. Whatever the husband says, you must obey (train your husband so well that he never says/demand anything that you object!)
3. If you see an unknown man coming to your direction, you shall either change your way or move ahead after the man has left (now, that is basic traffic sense!)
4. You should not visit your father’s house till you are ‘invited’ by them.

These are the vows Shiva had asked Parvati when they were getting married. Similarly, Parvati had asked for 7 vows from Shiva. I found these marriage vows somewhat obsolete and biased (against both the bride and the groom). I could not understand how a couple start their lives by taking vows which both of them know will not be followed for even a day. People say that they do it as part of formality and they do not put any significance to these rituals. If this is so, what is the essence of performing them?

The Hindu carried an interesting article on how misplaced concerns of the international donor agencies with regard to health problems in Africa had created loss of understanding of the real health problems in Africa. Billions have been allocated to address AIDS in Africa. However, very little fund has been reserved for diseases like Diarrhoea. According to a report in today’s newspapers, diarrhea kills more children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined (U.N. Chidren’s Fund and WHO).

What explains so much emphasis on AIDS? Is it coming at the cost of ignoring other easy-to-cure diseases? I believe it does. Such behaviour of donor agencies reveals poor understanding of the issues concerning Africa. Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO acknowledges that ‘inexpensive and effective treatments for diarrhoea exist, but in developing countries only 39% of children receive the recommended treatment’. There is a vaccine for the virus responsible for Diarrhoea and it has been largely found safe but it is still largely unavailable in most developing countries.

While Pepfar (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) had an annual funding of $283.6 million for 2008, a local general medical clinic has an annual budget of mere $3500. It has been alleged that funding in Africa has been concentrated on only three diseases: HIV AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Other tropical diseases which have cost effective treatment and do not require any high end research have been largely ignored.

Such behaviour of donor agencies and policy makers is similar to the reception of swine flu in India whereby everybody has rushed to mitigate and prevent the disease (along with the hype created by media) while other ‘regular’ diseases continue to be ignored.

Amartya Sen in a speech pointed out:

“the bulk of the social agitation is dominated by new problems that generate immediate and vocal discontent than concentrating on the terrible general inheritance of  acute deprivation, deficient schooling, and lack of medical attention for the poor and extraordinary undernourishment”.

I do not wish to underestimate the cruelty of a disease like AIDS. However, I believe that other health related problems which may not be any dynamic field of research for medical sciences as of now require to be taken up by both the researchers as well as policy makers.

Following links throw light on the issue discussed:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8275713.stm

http://ntd-africa.net/

Hi everybody! I hope you are glad getting on to my website. And I hope I will be regular on it. It will take time for me to come up with something and pen it down so it may be that I post an entry with some months break or may be post multiple entries in a day! It will be great if you could put down your comments reflecting what you feel about some of the wanderings of my mind I talk about. Thanks for logging on to my website!! Bon chance!!