A LETTERED SOUL: REFLECTIONS ON LITERATURE, CINEMA AND CULTURE .

THE 2018 TABLEAU PART 1

**this post originally appeared on my blog AN AWADH BOY'S PANORAMA : TRACING WORDS ON THESE FILIGREED, DISCERNING FINGERTIPS.

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2018 was the year when cultural phenomenon Netflix spread its wings in its biggest overseas market by releasing original Indian content, select offerings grasping internal cum universal ethos of a multicultural society that didn’t have to dare to be different as they changed the course of filmmaking patterns, actually drawing on the strengths of both cinema and television to immerse us in the durability of a homogeneous medium.

The following, hence, are the four major works that were released and they imitated ground realities in engrossing multiplicities, casting some of the finest minds and performers. Comprising of limited series, films and an ongoing, critically acclaimed series, the works defined versatility by the minute in each case .

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SELECTION DAY

Born in a cricket crazy nation and to a father who runs one of the most recognized cricket academies here (albeit I have never played the ubiquitous sport and have zilch technical knowledge), I knew my attention will automatically veer towards this six part, half hour series on Netflix. The thing with cricket or any popular culture specimen is that an universal attuning to its presence far outlasts your limited knowledge of its ins and outs.

So while I served the purpose of making my father watch it via the flexible streaming format, I settled down to its brisk paced journey with equal enthusiasm. With an half an hour format, six episodes went by in a breeze and the build up was necessary for upcoming seasons, given it’s based on Aravind Adiga’s novel. It’s akin to the head rush and emotional toll of a game of cricket, with those on the field and following the action outside turfs.
After all, it has one of the most potent premises in the dual / joint tale of two brothers who chase their individual dreams while being ruled by the diktats of a helicopter parent. I mean, who doesn’t want to follow two siblings as they battle the crests and troughs of an uber competitive, unpredictable terrain?

Rajesh Tailang is excellent as the kind of disciplinarian, one dimensional bully that fathers more often are than we would like to admit. So intent is he on making stars out of his rigorously trained boys that he admits at one point that he even selected their mother based on her sporting genes. But that’s no ruse to hide the ballast of their own unfulfilled dreams that they heap on their ‘child prodigies’ Here the village to city beat is a smokescreen for all we know and parse about sudden transformations.
It lets us in on the class structures within the universal metropolis of Mumbai, from the rich businessman (Karan Oberoi) displaying a flair for spineless business practices and only English language endemic in the upper echelons in India to the principal of a St. Xavier like school( the prized Ratna Pathak Shah) who still promotes equal opportunity even if her funds are drying up. Legacy of integrity is what she stands for while the cricket coach ( Mahesh Manjrekar) has the predictable beat of familial burdens and some past slight to go concurrently with his reputation as an expert in the gentleman’s game. The idea of burgeoning sexuality has been teased too in the script. The boys’ father’s toxic masochism has also been left in the residue for what’s to come in the next season.

SELECTION DAY has a novelistic breakdown, down to the use of magic realism as when the younger brother converses with the God figure. For the duration of the show in its back to back run, it interested me and handled a kaleidoscope of emotions without being overt. A coming of age tale with class and gender politics thrown in, it looks at the game through the prism of youth and some fine, realistic performances.