An Open Letter to Prakash Jha

     Dear Jha, I always had a lot of respect for your work because I always considered you to be a daring filmmaker who have the guts to tread untraveled regions. With films such as Mrityudand, Gangajaal and Chakravyuh, you had shown us how a social issue can be addressed staying within the perimeter of Bollywood. Your films always touched a chord because of its raw energy and fresh content which reaffirmed our faith that the days of good cinema are not over yet.

But then something snapped, something intangible. You made Aarakshan, which despite its right intentions ended up being only a half-hearted attempt to speak about the issue of reservation. You ended up making it a bizarre battle between two individual -- one in favour of treating education as a business while the other treating teaching as a noble profession.

With Satyagarh, this time too, you have decided to remind Indians about the Anna Hazare protest, which made headlines a year back and weaved a story keeping this issue at the center of it. But then once again, you didn't put your heart in it. It looked enticing as it had all the ingredients of a delectable dish but ended up becoming something else. After watching the film, I had a number of questions in my mind which I thought if I could ask you someday.

To start with, what was the provocation of having an item number (although the song was good) at the beginning of the film? Why Kareena Kapoor was making faces and smiling (irritatingly) while covering a Dharna? Why there was a rock band performing along with the crowd? Why Amrita Rao was sleeping at the police station? Don't they have any visiting hours?

Moreover, do you really think a chief correspondent of a leading news channel will leave a PM's assignment for a small developing story just because she receives a call from a person whom she met only twice. Okay, even if she does, do you think a senior journalist will be living in their house and that too not for a day but for 30 days? 

One more thing, a journalist and a cameraman are two separate professions, demanding separate expertise, though we have a few people i the industry who do both the job but once you showed Kareena as a senior journalist (whom the politicians and corporates are scared of), how can you hand over the camera at crucial moments of the film at the same time. 

The film does have some very good performances by BigB, Manoj Bajpayee and Ajay Devgan, but Kareena should not have been in this film. I guess, it is high time you stop repeating your actors in your films because it takes away the novelty while watching a film. Sometimes, it is also about the curiosity of watching a new actor perform some shady roles.

Despite Aarakshan and Satyagarh, Mr Jha, you still remain one of my favourite directors because there are very few like you who still try to tell a story and that too a real one. I have not given upon you yet and I hope I don't need to in the days to come.