Film review Manjhi the mountain man

Edited by Sidra Riaz

Film review Manjhi the mountain Man
By: Ibrahim Buriro


Sometimes we watch a movie and want that it’s not end quickly. Because it gives us inspiration, lesson, entertainment. Manjhi the mountain man is one of the film which has touch of love, inspiration, patience and hard work. Believing that impossible is not a big deal if you really want to do something. This film is consider a one if the best film of the year 2015.

This is a biographical film based on a man’s life who struggle not only for his love but also for the people of his village. Film protagonist Dashrath Manjhi who break the mountain with hammer. Fighting with nature, people thought he was somewhat crazy or lunatic, but he did not stop his work. In fact almost all of the great people who made history, took a task that seemed impossible at the start but history is witness that they have ended up in great result. But what made Dashrath Manjhi to fight nature was his wife’s unconditional love, whose death from that mountain leaved him collapsed. And lots of people died while crossing that mountain. He set out to carve the mountain to make the path easily connected to other area in minutes, which normally took hours to reach.

Manjhi lives in a small village of India. His community is marginalized because of lower caste and their people often work as bonded labour. In his village basic facilities like school, Roads, Hospitals are not available. The film not only shows the unbelievable struggle of a man’s task to break the mountain but also highlight the early condition of India.

This film based on hard work of Manjhi’s life that how he break the mountain without anyone help that’s why Ketan Mehta the director of this film give it a name “Manjhi The Mountain Man”

Actor Nawazuddin Siddique played the role of Manjhi and the actress Radhika Apte played roll of his wife, Faguniya. The story is not totally based on reality some parts of the movie are based on fiction for the attraction of the audience or to make the film more interesting. The main themes of the movie are love, passion and the strength of a Manjhi’s willpower. Dialogue of the film are also attractive and inspiring which make film more inspirational like ‘Jab tak torenge nahe tab tak chorenge nahe’.

 Audience who watch this film said that this film is really heart touching how Manjhi struggle and break the mountain without anymachinery and face the negative comments of the people but he never stop his work this film is an inspiration or lesson for those who have no faith on hard work.

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Film review

Manjhi the mountain man

 By Ibrahim Buriro

Sometimes we watch a movie and hope it not ends quickly. Because it gives us inspiration, we badly needed. Manjhi the mountain man,  which has touch of love, of inspiration, patience and hard work. Beliveing in impossible is not a big deal but doing it is. As expected the Manjhi man conquered the hearts film pundits  and audiences. After its release, it has earned the place among one of the best film directed in this year in Bollywood.

The film set in early 1950’s in India’s small village, films protagonist Dastarth Manjhi who set to break the mighty mountain all alone with just hammer and a chisel after labouring away for 22 years. There are rare movies like Manjhi the mountain man, a biopic on a person who do impossible. Fighting with nature, people thought he was somewhat crazy or lunatic, in fact almost all of the great people who made history, took a task that seemed impossible at the start but history is witness that they have ended up in great result.  But what made Das tarth Manjhi to fight nature was his wife’s unconditional love, whose death from that mountain leaved him collapsed. And lots of people died crossing that mountain. He set out to carve the mountain to make the path easily connected to other area in minutes, which normally took hours to reach.

 He lives in countryside a poverty stricken little village in Indian province Bihar. His community is marginalized because of lower caste and their people often work as bonded labour. At the age of five or so he escapes bonded labour at the hands of village Zamindar. People live in raw nature with no road, hospital or school what so ever, swept in poverty and untouchable cast condemn to live in inhuman condition. The film not only shows the unbelievable struggle of a man’s task to break the mountain but condition of India’s early days. Nawaz u din Siddiqui whose work has received critical acclaim for his acting in “Ganges of Wasypur’’ and recently blockbuster Bajrangi Bhaijan. He has made place for himself among Bollywood’s one of the best actors, he is really a magician, he fits where his director’s wants him to be. Recently performance as Chand Nawab is not faded from hearts of those who watched Bajrangi Bhaijan blockbuster comes yet again with powerful performance. Radhika Apte a young talented actress plays the role of his wife, Faguniya.  Ketan Mehta generally is known for his work for art movies such as Mangal Pandey 2005, Mirch Masala 1987, and Sardaar 1993 etc. Depicting socio-economic conditions of the people and present in the cinematic art, he is perfect at that. 

Not the complete story based on reality, some part of the plot fictionalised to attract audiences, for example when he travels fifteen hundred miles to meet Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The main themes of the movie are love, passion and the strength of a Manjhi’s willpower.  It’s a life changing movie Dialogues such as "Bhagwan ke bharose mat baitho, ka pata u humre bharose baitha ho!"  Such dialogues make film more inspirational, if I chose to recommend film of the 2015. In the words of Dastarth Manjhi, it’s really a, Shaandar, Zabrdast, Zindabad movie, a must watch it contain lifelong lesson and inspiration. 

REVIEW: 12 Steps to a Compassionate life

BOOK REVIEW: 12 STEPS TO A COMPASSIONATE LIFE BY KAREN ARMSTRONG.

                                         A GUIDE TO COMPASSIONATE WORLD

                                          IBRAHIM BURIRO

Karen strong considered, without a slightest of doubt, one of the original thinkers on religion, in our day. Author of about two dozen books, mostly on religion. Her worldwide acclaimed books, one of them is, history of god, sold in million copies and is translated in more than 20 languages. In this latest book of hers “twelve steps to a compassionate life”. she goes though different religions and cultures, brings out the idea of how can we live peacefully, without pitying on each other. She often cites golden rule in this book “do unto others as you would have unto you, or, more simply, treat other people as you want to be treated”.

She illustrate with stories that all religions emphasize on compassion. With the help of these stories which are wonderfully written and makes book more readable, she tries to show how religion can play important role in making world more compassionate. She goes from sages to philosophers, and dig out ideas we desperately need in this violence ridden world. This books is part of project which she launched, wish for better world and step towards it. With the help of TED acronym for technology, entertainment and design, a private non-profit organization best known for ideas worth spreading, who gives award to those who made difference and think can made more contribution to it. She has made a charter for compassionate world which include twelve steps to make our lives peaceful and sympathetic with each other without any greed or reward in return. Twelve steps are mixture of almost all cultures, she has sort out ideas from each religion, and almost all of the religions one or another way encourage compassion. She cites different sages from all major religions who urges their followers toward compassion and reach out to others. Why religions? Because she believes most of the problems directly or indirectly people point towards religions. We rely on each other in globally connected world, what happens in East has profound effect on West or vice versa.

Our knowledge about others is limited she cites. And this this is one of the biggest problems of this era, as world is going to be inter-dependent, multi-cultural and we have to respect other peoples way of living. We hardly listen to others, because our egoistic and narrow view of the world limited only to ourselves she tries to show how this can be accomplished.   Karen exhort all of us to make space for others, not only in our speech, but, in our minds as well. She leans on disparate faiths and belief systems, and brings out wisdom which encourage compassion.  One of the things she cites is Dialogue, it’s a very important way of understanding limits of our knowledge about values we hold, Socrates questioned others value not to prove them wrong or humiliate them, but show them that, how their knowledge is limited.

 She writes at the end of the book that “to attempt to become compassionate being is lifelong project, it’s not achieved in a day- or, even in twelve steps. It’s a struggle that will last until our dying hour- nearly every day we will fail, we cannot and should not give up”.  Like a good book it leave it upon ourselves to decide what is better for us.  To make our world more Compassionate we need to start from our own, as when we talk about cleaning our house one starts with his own room. It’s a fascinate read, contains much wisdom about how to live with others. 
Second Semester August 2015 
This practical work was carried out under supervision of Sir Sohail Sangi

Un-edited- Regal book bazaar By Ibrahim Buriro

Un-edited - It is long. Make it 600 words. Photo will be needed.Note marks made in this colour.

Feature

                             Regal book bazaar

                            By Ibrahim Buriro

There is lot of people going through piles of books, indulged in picking and leaving them back, some are looking at table of the contents thoroughly. Others moving slowly through street eying to find there a book of their choice. Looking at the price everyone tries to fetch as much as possibly he can afford. This is none other than Regal book Bazaar, which take place on Sundays. Regal chowk is at Saddar town Karachi.  Most of the vendors spread sheets on the ground and place books on them. Busy in dealing with customers, because its morning and most of the people come early as possible to grab their favourite ones, I any how managed to ask from one of the vendors from how long this Book Bazaar taking place. “It’s older than you son”. Just replying this he gets back to his business.

   It’s don’t take place exactly on Regal chowk but two lanes ahead from it. Inside the street you will find both sides of street full of books, mostly spread on sheets, and footpath. Street in not cleaned as monsoon showered this week every often. There are piles of books ranging from Urdu to English mostly and some Sindhi as well. In this Street, originally these are electronic shops but on Sunday all shops are closed, so these book sellers find good opportunity to bring their stalk. “We usually buy these books on rupees per kilo” said Arshad who have quite impressive number of books in his stalk, from Sidney Sheldon’s novels to Philip k Haiti’s history of Arabs. As I was walking ahead a young man probably university student inquire for the price of the history of Arabs from seller. 200 hundred gets reply. And you will be astonished, 700 hundred pages book on two hundred rupees only!

You will feel that there will be no place for cheaper for books than Regal book bazaar. For some, this is a part time job but, most of these vendors living on selling books on footpath to make their ends meet. As you enter into street there is plenty of books, digging through piles of books to find your favourite genre, involve passion at Regal book bazaar, because lane is so long and grabbing for your favourite one will take time and it can be an exhausted process, but surely book lovers won’t mind, as there was lots of people indulged in the process. Although there is lot of books in English but this is best place for Urdu literature, there is collection of novels, from Quratul ain Haider to Ishfaque Ahmed. In humour, from Ibne Insha to Mushtaque Yousifi, and in poetry Ghalib to Habib Jalib, sab milta hai yahan. Going further there is sharbat wala if you want to stop for few minutes and enjoy sharbat to regain your energy, because it’s only a start, there is plenty ahead.

20 mien le 20 mien le lo, this voice will echo in your mind, throughout the street. A 12 year boy having Suzuki full of books will attract you nonetheless, although there you will find hardly a master piece but children’s literature is in abundance. And if you want to buy some books for children with illustration this is the place. And it’s important because science says those who read at young age do better in their life than those who don’t. Attracting children towards reading is the best gift you can give to them at their age.  Most of the books available here are cheap paperback old and new and some pirated. And prices ranging from 20, 30, and 50 mostly. Urdu literature’s master pieces cost not more than 200 hundred. From piles of books I found out my favourite English cricket commentator and former test player Michael Atherton’s biography. And there is sheer joy in finding your favourite things, sometimes price don’t matter. Other genres include philosophy, history, poetry, and cook books, old magazines such as national geographic and Urdu digests.  Farooque a frequent visitor at Regal book bazaar says he came from Sindh University all here to grab his part. “You see I love reading, my favourite writers Dostoevsky’s crime and punishment to Lazely Hazilton’s after the prophet, are easily available and I love being here and books are much cheaper than rest of Karachi and Hyderabad”. Other thing I wanted to add was variety of books available there.

Khushwant Singh once wrote that rather than restaurants and cinema houses, the ultimate litmus of town’s sophistication is the number of books shops it has, and the kind of they stalk. Books like Maut ka Manzar and Qabar Ka Azab are best sellers in Pakistan but scenario at the Regal book bazaar is different, these kind of books are rare here. But Karachi has its own image despite last decade in violence and disturbance, Karachi has managed home to various book publishers and second hand book trade is at its peak.  All of the book lovers are well aware that they are in tiny minority, reading is in serious decline after the computer, mobile’s invention. But internet especially after the 3G people most of time majority of the people spend time surfing Facebook and other social media sites, book reading is not so common. But seeing crowds at the places like Regal book bazaar, Frere hall etc. One feels things are not dark as we might feel. Reading nourishes individual it’s one of the most beautiful and fruitful skills humans achieved after forming civilization. So if you are planning to buy books, Karachi is heaven for book lovers, starting with Regal book bazaar, a great place to get food for mind.

By Ibrahim Buriro Roll No: MC-2k13 , Second semester

August 2015