One of the bravest movies of “redefining bollywood” era, Black Friday, is a one more must watch documentary-styled drama after Kabul Express. One should watch it for the event it reflects, which reminds us of the grim days Mother India saw, difficult to imagine in the now fast moving Post-Godhra India. The intentions of its makers to display the truth bypasses media coverage of such events. The movie is an educational tool for the 1993 Bombay blasts as they come alive for our generation, which was then too young to understand the events of those time and relate it to the current context, but who saw it all repeat in Gujarat riots, 9/11, and the series of bomb blasts in Mumbai and elsewhere. (The world never seems to learn from its past mistakes.)

Based on a book by the same name, which documents the investigation and proceeding in tremendous detail and authored by an Indian Muslim Hussain Zaidi, the movie helps bollywood enter a new stream, which uses multiple strong actors (kay kay menon, aditya srivastava, pavan malhotra of nukkad fame) rather than stars, which was the case with Kabul Express.

From any normal viewer’s eye, every actor has performed great. Cinematography has been fabulous with great background music from Indian Ocean. An interesting addition in the movie were real life footages of important political personalities of that time giving out statements on national TV. The footage of demolition of Babri-Masjid was embedded in a striking manner in the movie. Though the movie is about catching and punishing the “Muslim Terrorists”, many parts of the movie sufficiently show the “Hindu Fundamentalists” as the cause of the problems. Surprising, how the Sangh Parivar tolerated this, but banned Parzania in Gujarat (there’s no official ban though!!)

The movie sounds realistic, except for one discussion scene between the cop(kay kay menon) and terrorist(aditya srivastava), where the jihad is once again justified by the terrorist, and the good Indain cop claims Allah to be on the side of good, even though he was not a muslim. Police is not a super-hero as it gets tired while chasing the bad guys, it uses abusive methods to interrogate, work in 24×7 schedules after the blasts and show a tendency to be complacent. All this reflect the reality.

The element of drama or humour is scarce in the movie, foul words used whereever necessary, and blood-litted bodies describe the moments of pain. The scenes of blast have been made in an exemplary method, using sounds that tremble your senses and visuals that melt your heart.

Bravo!! Censor Board, for letting this movie go through. Though released two years after its completion, the movie has already won prizes at International Film Festivals abroad in the mean time and is already receiving a lot of critical acclaim in India. Watch it to save India from this madness once again. Fundamentalists and Terrorists are a curse for every religion and this movie reminds us that we still have work to do even if we have 10% GDP growth.

This time, though, India is taking over Britain. Be it softpower of Shilpa Shetty or Chicken Curry or Corporate wins like Tata over Tetley and Corus. The two countries share a love-story that contains both affection and enmity on a variety of issues.

The already well-established South Asian Diaspora led by Gujaratis and Punjabis is a highly visibil force in UK. BBC is flanked by a good number of journalists and anchors of Indian Origin. Indias reach many part of Americas and Europe via London. There is just so much activity between the two countries, that it compels me to say that Britain’s Soft Colonisation by India might lead to a day, when Britain becomes the crown in India’s Global Soft Crown.

One can only therefore, conclude that the Raj seems to be Re-established and that too the other way round.