Dekh Tamasha Dekh

Cast: Satish Kaushik (Mutha Seth), Ganesh Yadav (Sawant), Tanvi Azmi (Fatima), Hridaynath Rane (Laxman), Vinay Jain (Vishwasrao), Sharad Ponkshe (Bandekar), Satish Alekar (Prof. Shastri), Apoorva Arora (Shabbo), Alok Rajwade (Prashant), Sudhir Pandey (Maulana), Santosh Juvekar (Badshah), Jayant Wadkar (Sattar),DHiresh Joshi (Kulkarni), Nikhil Ratnaparkhi (Deshpande), Angad Mhaskar (Rafiq Sheikh), Kishore Pradhan (Magistrate), Kishore Choughule (Constable Naik), Abhay Mahajan (Anwar), Spruha Joshi (Rafiq’s wife), Satish Tare (Hameed), Shashank Shende (Lawyer), Sunil Godbole (Lawyer), Rajesh Bhosle (Pandu), Chinmay Pataskar (Kulkarni’s Assistant), Datta Sonawane (Garage Owner), Ganesh Revdekar (Constable)    

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Direction: Feroz Abbas Khan

Production: Sunil A Lulla, Feroz Abbas Khan

Studio: Eros International, Bombay Local Pictures

Distribution: Eros International

Writer / Screenplay: Shafaat Khan

Cinematographer: Hemant Chaturvedi

Editor: Sreekar Prasad

Release Date: 18^th April, 2014

Language: Hindi

Duration: 1 hour 49 minutes

The Plot:

Dekh Tamasha Dekh is a political and social satire from director Feroz Abbas Khan (a great work by him in the past “Gandhi, My Father”). It begins when a poor man got crushed to death under the weight of a politician’s huge hoarding. Both Hindu and Muslim community claim his body since he was a converted Muslim. The town is torn apart by the dispute over this dead man’s religious identity whether he is Kishan or Hameed.

Both fundamentalist Hindu and Muslim leaders fight it out in court so as to be able to prove the religious identity of the dead man and henceforth to claim his body as well. Even the dead body is dug out to check whether Hameed’s circumcision was done, an identity criteria.

What ensues is a series of incidents which would force one to be glued to the seat and think. The best part of the movie is that it is not opinionated or biased. It just gives us food for thought.

This film has dealt with the socio-political dynamics of the communal disharmony. It leaves one to wonder what exactly instigates the disharmony: The political leaders, the ordinary people, a particular community, clash in belief system, rituals, media assumptions …etc. The film takes a dig at the religious fundamentalism, governance systems, media highlighting the less prominent but sellable news etc.

What happens at the end? Who wins the legal battle – Muslims or Hindus? Does riot happen? What happens to the leaders ? What is the definition of being conservative and progressive ? What all happens under the cover of religion in our country ? Watch the movie…

Official Trailer:

  

Director and Story Writer:

Feroz Abbas Khan is successful in giving a satirical feel to the movie, though maintaining the depth of the concept. Shaffat Khan, the writer, deserves to be appreciated for his work. He does not try to answer but facilitates us to think and use our own discretionary ability. He does not conclude or opinionate things.

Cast and their Performance:

Satish Kaushik as Mutha Seth has given a great performance. Tanvi Azmi (Fatima, wife of the deceased) has emoted wonderfully. She has given so much depth to Fatima with her expressions. Ganesh Yadav as Sawant is also very good. Vinay Jain as new police officer in town is also good. Rest of the cast has also justified their characters.

Moments to watch out for:

• Last few frames, of-course (not revealing the same)
• Mutha Seth (Satish Kaushik) summons the newspaper editor and treats him like a pet dog
• Fatima (Tanvi Azmi) grieve for her dead husband while women of the neighborhood join in to while away their time while waiting for the taps to supply water
• Court-scene
• Conversation between Fatima and her daughter Shabbo (Apoorva Arora) towards the end of the movie

Thumbs up:      

Watch this movie if you love offbeat movies, theater.

Thumbs down:

May not be a commercially successful movie.

One-Liner:

‘Dekh Tamasha Dekh’… A good Socio-Political Satire… 

Rating: 3 / 5 (Good)