PAF Reviews : 3. Mai Maati

So now the PAF season has crossed the halfway mark. On 26th evening we had the third PAF “Maai Maati” loosely meaning “Meri mitti/dharti”. And out of the 3 Pafs uptill now, I think this one is the most difficult to write about. For the earlier 2 PAFs I had a good enough picture of what I was going to write as soon as the paf ended. There were many obvious likes and dislikes in those two. But for this third paf it is not that simple. I actually thought and replayed the PAF, the story again and again in my mind. It was when I watched the PAF ‘preview’ again, that it hit me. There is one very true statement there by someone “Ye PAF us sadiyon purani PAF recipie ki tarah hai jismain bas kuch naya masala daalne ki koshish ki hai”. This about sums it up. I think this was the reason why the general response to the paf was “bahut accha tha” and not “bahuuuuuutt accha tha”. Those extra ‘u’s matter a lot. They tell you that the first one is appreciation of the effort but the second one is a reaction after enjoying the PAF.

The PAF centered around a very hot current issue “Naxalism”. To be honest I also didn’t know much about what is going on there. I always approached the issue as communist groups refusing to development. Atleast now my unintentional bias has been removed. The PAF from the word go got into this issue, covering a slight history and the actual state in these villages affected by it. However despite the through research and incidences cited during conversations they, atleast for me, could not bring out the pain of the people affected. Here is what I mean:

They very smartly had constructed this character of Rajeev shekhar, the reporter who is kidnapped by the naxalites. The use of this character is that he is like us, “urban” and unaware of the actual situation. The goal should have been for him to slowly discover the problems in the village. However what did happen was all the background info was thrown at the audience one after the other. And the only incidence that did show the injustice being done to them was the shooting of bittu at the station. In short, in my opinion getting into the issue from the word go and ‘telling’ (not showing) all the problems failed to really make the audience wonder. Infact just the video alone brought in more impact about the issue than the whole story of the PAF. Still to avoid the risk of being over critical let’s move on to the elements

The highlight undoubtedly was MUSIC. The vocals, sitar and tabla jugalbandi, folky tunes for the village scenes were also well thought out. Choreo for me was just average, how ever I did enjoy the ‘mahishasur choreo’ quite a lot. I never knew I could be intrigued by this type of dance so much. Prod involving the moving train was a good idea, however a few more people in it apart from the neta they were waiting for would have made it more realistic. Apart from that the village prod also quite beautifully done. Voiceovers for me were inconsistent, (especially female). There were regular mistakes, stammers and more importantly very few had a distinct trait especially in the village, where it was hard to make out who is who. Still a few VO did standout like the police inspector, bittu, champa rani and saved the day for them. Acting was okish. Most of the humor didn’t really work and the only funny scene that stayed with me was the DDLJ impression. Overall execution however could have been much tighter. Though no major putches, the scene cuts and abrupt choreos hindered the flow of the story. The streetplay though by now a bit of a cliché, was very very well executed and did get the audience going. Another scene that stood out for me was the one when Rajeev shekhar, after spending time in the village, starts a virtual show in the village itself. Supported by some really beautiful music this scene for the first time enabled me to feel the characters in the village. That is why I also mentioned earlier that more use of this character in exploring the problems in the village would have been much more effective than just the villagers discussing it like a history lesson.

So concluding I would say, though no major problem with script or the execution or the elements, this was still just another paf, with nothing there we haven’t seen before. Even the train prod ( though the prod junta involved might not know this) has been done before. Infact I was strongly reminded of PAFs like “Saare jahan se accha” and “1984”. Still for a typical PAF they came through, had their set of highlights and most importantly did bring out quite a few things about the issue not known to many.

Overall rating: 7/10