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Through The Looking Glass: ‘Look For The Small Print’

By Jessy Abraham

12 June, 2012
Countercurrents.org

‘Look for the Small Print’, the debut short film by Jobin K Andrews takes down the viewer to the untold side of urban development in India. The film depicts the impact of globalisation on the personal lives of a cross section of population in metropolitan India. The main theme of the film is developed through the perspective of a young technocrat and his wife. Simultaneously, narratives of various layers of labour force are interwoven into the main theme. A multidimensional analysis of contrasting realities of urban development, including psychological, societal and environmental degradation is powerfully conveyed within this short film.

Akash’s young family with a little daughter is representative of thousands of upcoming young technocrats working for multinational companies in India for developed countries. The metropolis in which they are living is fast embracing global culture including its fast food culture. Ironically, the metropolis’ basic social problems of water scarcity and environmental degradation remain unresolved. The film tells how these issues are affecting the personal lives of both upcoming middle class and the lower stratum of the metropolis. Akash who is a city resident for generations fights to fit in the rats’ race by turning into a selfish workaholic, neglecting his young family. Megha, his wife who comes from a small village, has a deep social conscience and tries to redefine her husband’s conceptualisation of success. But he demands her to be part of the fast moving city and its competitive life style. This culminates in more work pressure and marital discord. They have to watch helplessly their young daughter who is consistently neglected due to parent’s work culture, slipping away into fast food culture to find happiness, causing much tension for the family on top of the job related stress. This should be read together with new phenomenon of many IT professionals taking their lives in the last few years.

The servant-cum-baby sitter of Akash’s family has to wait until the exhausted parents reach home late at night. In this way she too is suffering and exploited. The pizza delivery guy, whom Akash comes across, is a symbol of risk taker in the globalised city. There is a subtle indication that the so called ‘development’ trickles down and only a meagre portion of it reaches people like him. The film also shows how Akash turns too inconsiderate of the risk-factors of other people’s work and reacts with violence. He snaps when he realises his helplessness to balance family needs and work pressure. This may be an early sign of the slowly evolving counterculture created by capitalist globalization among the young professionals.

One strong theme of the film is the unsustainable urban development and ineffective planning overlooking the basic needs. The infrastructure of the city cannot bear the high rising buildings, apartments, heavy traffic and the huge population. The future consequences are not evaluated while focusing on the city development at the expense of greenery. The living style of the city residents is merging into a corporate global culture; ironically even when the basic water distribution system of the city is in collapse. This basic problem is taken so lightly by authorities.

Another theme of the film is the economics of success. The film indicates that the money spent by upcoming middle class is mainly profiting other multinationals only. While the city is fast developing into a metropolis with high expectations of more job opportunities, it actually brings more uncertainty to the blue collar workers. The poorest of the poor are pushed to the outskirts of the city further and further, and they are struggling to meet basic necessities of life such as food and shelter more than before. For the thousands of economically disadvantaged people who are pushed to the fringes of the society to make way for the fast development of the metropolis, the advantages of the development remain inaccessible. This film tells us this problem is not confined to any particular group. This leaves the viewer a critical question whether the economic growth flows down from the top to the bottom, indirectly benefiting those who do not directly benefit from the policy changes?

How do we define success? What is development? What is the cost of development? Who actually benefits from the present perception of development? This film leaves some powerful concerns for the viewer to ponder on. The film is set in Bangalore, the IT hub of India which is labelled as the glittering example of India’s development into the 21st century. However, the theme is adaptable to any metropolis where the so called ‘rising middle class’ of India is thriving. The director was successful in visualizing the untold side of city development and, how significantly globalization manipulates the personal and social life of every inhabitant of the metropolitan India within a 20 minute film. The actors did justice to the main roles. It is a hard task to combine such strong themes into a short film and therefore some scenes appears to be too brief to convey the message. The creators of this film deserve a special commendation for reading the small print on the success story of development. The film received wider acclamation on its screening by Peoples’ Solidarity Concerns at Bangalore and SIGNS festival at Palaghat. It is scheduled for screening at United Theological College (UTC) Bangalore in relation to Women’s Day celebrations and also at ISFFI 2012 at Chennai in March 2012.

Mrs. Jessy Abraham
Faculty of Education
University of Western Sydney
NSW
Australia
[email protected]




 


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