Movie review : Hellaro

          Movie Review : Hellaro

Hellaro is a National award winning  Gujrati film. Hellaro means a breath of fresh air or outburst.  It is inspired from true life incident of the village in Kutch a during  1975. It's story of supprest women who break all patriarchal shackles. It's journey of women from suppression to Expression. Women consider as a property of men without them  they have no any identity. They have to suppress their emotions and dreams. They can't even questions against patriarchal regulations. Women are suffering from domestic violence. They are like puppets of men without their permission they can't even move. In this movie highlights subjects like  domestic violence , patriarchal power , women education , women empowerment,  superstition, cast system. It highlights the  contradiction of woman   condition. One side   Indira Gandhi is a  prime minister of India the woman power  ruling on the country on other side women in Indian  villages ruled by  orthodox Indian patriarchal power.

The village hasn't seen rainfall in three years. Men in the village consider it as course on them thus  they worship Goddess by doing Garba( Gujrati folk). Manjari sees that only men are allowing to do Garba , for women it's forbidden. She questions that why in the village women are not allowed to do garba. Majari says that  

“Isn’t it weird that when it does not rain, men dance and we fast and starve?"

  It shows the rigid orthodox of male dominance on women. In this movie highlights condition of women. Kesar is widow in her young age. She  is  living in her room from 1 and half year.  The situation take place in which she has  allowed to go outside in a day only once for getting water. No one allowed to talk with her including women. It shows woman's suffering after death of her husband. The men in the village shows their patriarchal dominance by  beating women , Sexual harassment , controlling  women and expect that  to surrender to patriarchal norms. Hansa suffers from miscarriage of girl child due to beaten by her husband during  pregnancy.  Manjari 's husband told her ,

"I have heard that educated women have grown  wings or horns weather you have grown wings or horns , remove them yourself because if I cut them it will pain you more. " 

Once women going for their daily routine to filling water. They sees a dholi( drummer ) laying on desert. Manjari  saves life of the man by giving him water. She noticed a dhole ( drum) next to him and told him to play it for them. As he start playing  it every women started to play garba in outburst.  Thus women's dream come true to play garba. They are  filled with life and  joy. They  feel alive again. Majari says to dholi , 

“We feel that we are alive only when we clap and dance to the beats of your dhol. I will exchange my whole kingdom – if I have one – for the sake of garba.” added Gayatri

 Thus, this happens everyday. Women are eagerly waiting for going to filling water. Women has mixed emotions one side they feel joy but another side they consider it as sin. But they forget everything while playing garba. But once this secret reviled. All the men trying to control this thing by beating their woman. They trying to suppress  women's voice of freedom . But it's too late ,unafraid of any shackles of male dominance women breakthrough dancing garba.

In the movie highlights harsh treatment given to the law cast people.. The folk dance garba should only played by men specially upper cast men. Low cast people and women are not allowed. Once a dholi ( drummer ) 's daughter insists her father that she wants to play garba. Thus he plays drum for her daughter. They caught up by village people. They burnt the house of dholi in which dholi 's daughter and wife are dead.  

      In this movie highlights importance of education in life. Education is a key of Freedom. Until Majahri 's arrival into village the life of women goes like living corpses. Majhri is only educated woman in the village . She is studied till seven standard. She always raises questions on male dominance. Education lights up the dark corner of mind. It helps to prevent our mind from believing into superstition and blind faith.  It also shows the importance of art in the life. Garba is the form of art and the  way of display the joy , love and compassion. Thus majhri becomes the light  in this darkness of patriarchal dominance. Her education makes her different from the other women who blindly following the male dominance. Because of her the other women get courage to break all the shackles of patriarchal dominance.

Thus, it's story of women suffering in the patriarchal society and fight against the male dominance power to get their freedom. Freedom to live , dream and enjoy the life.


Apart from the story cinematography plays vital role in the film. The  camera becomes medium of conveying message. Each and every frame of movie has  language of conveying message.  It successfully highlights emotions and situation throughout the movie. Music also plays an important role in the movie. The lyrics of the songs give  complement to the narrative. The songs become the best medium to highlight the condition of women. 

Here is the trailer of the movie : 

Book Review : The girl in room 105

    Book Review : The girl in room 105

The girl in room 105 is novel  written by popular Indian writer Chetan Bhagat. He specially known for his English  Indian novels which focus on the problem of young middle class people. Apart from youth this novel focuses on social and political issues of India. It's a story of IIT coaching class tutor. Who goes to wish his ex- girlfriend zara on her birthday and finds her murdered. The rest of the story is about his journey to find the murderer of his ex-girlfriend and give her justice. 

● Narrative style : 

 chetan Bhagat 's novel has different narrative style including  Prologue and Epilogue. But this novel has missing epilogue. It opens  with prologue in which writer is travelling from Hydrabad to Delhi . During his travelling  he meets keshav. After some talk storyteller keshav told his story to writer. This story is different from other stories of writer. It is unlove story.  It  is a murder mystery and suspense thriller story. Writer has used very simple language . Sometimes writer has used some Hindi words to make his story more realistic. In the last part keshav and writer has exchange their number to know what happens at the end. After in the climax  story goes on and ended normally. 

● Education system :

Chetan Bhagat trying to highlight corrupt education system in India through the coaching sector named ' Chandan classes'. It shows that Education become a medium of business. 

' Business drops,your salary drops.'

‘Get out, everyone! This time it is a pay-cut. If the numbers don’t improve next quarter, I will fire people. Every faculty member must get ten new students in every quarter. It’s a must.'

Chandan the owner of chandan classes forcing his employers to find more students for his classes. He threatened his employers that if they could not able to find more students they will be fired. He also started to cut the salary of his employers. Like business , they are marketing themselves to get more students. They don't care about the future of students. The child who doesn't want to go for IIT , instead of explaining the child's  parents they misleading them for the sake of their profit. 

● Problems of Youth :  

The novel focuses on the problems of youth.Keshav works as tutor at 'chandan  classes'.He hates his job. His friend and fellow employee saurabh never wanted to become engineer. He becomes because his parents wanted him to be. He is not passionate about his job. Like this in the chandan classes parents are pushing their children to get into IIT.  Keshav convince  one student to quit IIT coaching class and follow his dream. It also highlights the youth problems like breakup, drinking ,complexity in the relationship, extra martial affairs. Youth like Sikandar joins terrorist group in the lack of proper guidance and love from family.  

● Religion :   

In the novel keshav the protagonist is from orthodox Hindu family. He has a girlfriend Zara. She is from kashmir Muslim family. Both love each other but when keshav told his parents about zara they denied to give permission for marriage because she is Muslim.  His parents emotionally forced him to break all the relation from her. On the other side Zara 's father is ready to  accept their relationship on the one condition that Keshav has to change his religion. Keshav has denied to accept his condition for the sake  of his parents. So the difference between  their religion forced them to broke their relationship. It shows the typical stereotype of Indians. 

 After the murder of Zara Lone his father denied to give permission for postmoterm because of religious beliefs. For Raghu the religion becomes saviour.Nobody has doubt on him that he has murdered Zara. 

"I almost got away with it, though. With so many Muslim suspects around, nobody even considers the Tam Brahm. Prejudices, I tell you, can be used wonderfully sometimes."

● Kashmir issue / political issue : 

  ‘India is not our country. India doesn’t care for us.’

   In this novel highlight the condition and mindset of kashmiri people. They never consider themselves as Indian. They call themselves kashmiri. It's become a political issue. Politician use kashmiri issue as weapon to get power. It also shows their hatred towards army. When the story moves to Kashmir the writer does voice the locals’ opinion. He clearly states that the people of Kashmir are not  happy with the army.  They say we don’t want to be in India,we would love either to go to Pakistan or better we have a separate Kashmir.

‘We are a problem nobody wants to solve. We are only useful as a political tool.’

 Chetan Bhagat has spent some of his childhood days in Kashmir as his father was in the Army. He wants to make people  understand  that not everybody in Kashmir has strong political views. A lot of Kashmiri people are interested in getting jobs and better education and Internet  They have no movie theaters their. It considers the thoughts of normal youth of kashmir. Not every kashmir people are terrorist many of them wish to live normal life. 

     ‘It’s a full state. Millions of people live there.’

' All terrorists.’ 

‘That’s incorrect, sir,’

● Use of social media :

In the novel chetan Bhagat shows the current modern India. People are addicted to social media. It is reflecte through the use of social media like tinder, what's app , instagram , YouTube ,twitter , LinkedIn in  youth. These all become a important key features in solving the murder mystery of Zara.  It also shows that how suicide note become  hi-tech. Sikandar has committed suicide. He has left an envelope in which he has wrote a Web link. It is private YouTube video in which sikandar has recorded his reason of suicide and upload the video and create the link before he shot himself. Chetan Bhagat uses social media for marketing his work. He has made one short book trailer  based on this novel to do publicity of his book.

●  Role of Media and police : 

In the novel explain two major power authorities Media and police. Instead of find the truth media is only interested in  blaming  others. Their debate is known as subzi mandi debate. They have a power to bring truth in front of society but they are only interested in useless talks. Like this police has power. Inspector Rana has arrested watchman Lakshman. Instead of find true  culprit he has arrested poor man for the sake of his promotion. Keshav has find true culprit instead of giving him credit Inspector praise himself in front of media. It shows that these authorities have  power to change the society but rather than do this thing they are only interested to misuse their power by threating innocent people.