Independent Goa Observer

Making of a revolutionary

I have had not much time to watch films. Which contrary to what Manohar Parrikar and Sanjit Rodrigues might think is what a film festival is about. I do not claim to be an authority on films. But compared to the chief minister and the information secretary and the CEO of the Entertainment Society Goa (ESG), I qualify to be an expert. I qualify to be an expert because in my younger days I have been privileged to witness some of the best films made. In film festivals and outside film festivals. In fact one of the best places to

watch really outstanding films is the Film Institute in Pune. The film institute has one of the best archives in the country if not the nation and those who want to watch good cinema can go to the film institute and get to watch the films of their choice for a nominal fee.

On Friday I got to see a film. I made time specially to see ‘The Motorcycle Diaries.’ Not I must confess because it had the reputation of being a fantastic film. But because it was about Che Guevera. For those of us who lived in Bombay in the late sixties and seventies Che Guevera was an icon. He was one of the exceedingly rare species. The pure revolutionary. A revolutionary who was totally committed to liberating in the fullest sense of the word the oppressed. Today’s generation probably does not know that it was Che Guevera who was the architect of the Cuban revolution. But not for Che the trapping of power. He happily yielded the leadership of Cuba to Fidel Castro and set off to continue his mission of fighting feudal, dictatorial regimes in the rest of South America. Those whom the god’s love die young. I remember how shattered I was when Che Guevera was assassinated in his thirties allegedly by the CIA. Che Guevera had a world vision. He was the rare intellectual who followed his convictions to its ultimate logical corollary. Never mind prize was depravation. Incredible hardship and finally martyrdom. In martyrdom Che became an inspiration for generations of revolutionaries.

The film The motorcycle diaries dramatizes in a very gentle humane almost lighthearted and in an extremely sensitive manner the transformation of a 24-year-old medical student into the greatest revolutionary if not at all times at least of the 20^th century. Young Che along with rather irreverential fun loving friend undertake an adventure. Riding across south America on an antique bike. The friend who is thirty street wise savvy and has no compunctions about lying and manipulating to make their passage smoother. Young Che of course is honest to the point of being brutal. And would not compromise even if ti meant hurting someone who had gone out of his way to give the two young adventurers hospitality. During the course of the journey the young Che who till then has lived a protective life discovers poverty. He discovers that poverty is a product of oppression. He discovers how feudal landlords and corrupt regimes use armed force to trample upon the rights of ordinary citizens. Che slowly undergoes a transformation. A transformation from a young man who like all other young men cannot look beyond mundane middleclass aspiration like a good job and a home and marriage to childhood sweethearts to someone who deeply felt the indignity and injustice his fellow humans were subjected to and became determined to commit his life to the cause of liberating the oppressed.

I am familiar with films on Che. I have read almost every book on Che Guevera. A lot of the books and films on Che that I devoured with insatiable passion and appetite in my Marxist days were all demagogic. They all were in a manner of speaking propaganda. None of them provided the kind of insight into the man that The motorcycle Diaries provided. There was no speechifying in the film. There was no sloganeering. There were no revolutionary rhetoric. It was a tender film. A film which touched not the mind but the heart. A film which moved me to tears. I believe that Manohar Parrikar and all those who are involved with the organization of IFFI in a jiffy would take out to see the film. And perhaps it will make them realise that what is important is putting bread in the mouths of people. Wiping the tears of the children of the dammed. Like the hapless helpless migrant workers who put up monuments to Manohar Parrikar’s ego.

MOG ASSUM

RAJAN NARAYAN

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