Shivesh Chaudhary

Bawaal is a really good movie. Critics who claim that Bawaal is insensitive or it trivializes holocaust remind me of crammers in school who are good at parroting any poem in their text but have never felt the warmth of any of those poems. In yet another attempt to flaunt their fashionable garb of liberalism, their preferred stance is the easy way out, keeping quiet on a world event in fear of becoming the hated cultural appropriators. In doing so they not only hinder free thinking, art, discussion etc. but also, ironically, mirror Ajju Bhaiya's narcissism of protecting self image at all costs. No one who hasn't lived through world war 2 or holocaust can truly understand what people of the times experienced. We all absorb the world and historical events differently based on our education, experiences and that event's societal relevance for us. Similarly, the characters in Bawal, who juggle between the war within their lives and the historical war in museums, pick the life lessons that are most relevant to them while still being deferent to the culture's suffering. In that sense the characters remain true to their self, mirroring Ajay not Ajju. I encourage people to watch, think and decide for themselves, be like Ajay not Ajju.