Swati Ghosh

Who does the forests belong to ? What about the rivers , the waterfalls, the waste land, the fertile land , the land in between…. O and the seas and the oceans and the space ? Well I don’t have too much time to think about it … I am busy battling Bangalore traffic and busy blaming the Government for not giving value to the taxes I pay diligently! And there are times when the questions above are discussed with my students in class when studying resource management, climate change , etc etc and we get in to our petrol guzzling cars and go for a long drive and oooo and ahh over the beauty of nature . Forgive my morning rantings…. But I just watched the movie Kantara….and am just forced again to think about basic rights of people …. Right to live , right to belief , right to property….. basically right to freedom …. And that is always compromised….. by our greed , by our apathy , by our love for privilege and power and most importantly by our ego ! Kantara is one such movie that showcases the helplessness of common people,( officially they are called citizens with rights) . They are the ones caught at the crossfire between the power hungry group - this can be you , me , the king , queen , the government, the landlords, the local goonda, the list goes on ….. At the end of it we do leave to the Gods , the Supreme power , to solve it all…. Rantings aside , the movie is awesome! It does brings back memories of my visit to ancestral villages and rites and rituals there, most of which are sadly dying….. which leaves us with the question….. are only the people in the villages and rural areas assigned the duty to carry on with our tradition…. While we city dwellers wreck havoc in the pretext of being busy? Hmmmmm….food for thought , and if it takes a movie to make think about it ….bring it on !