For the uninitiated, it is a movie about how an obsessed certain world attacks another. The obsessed world has ‘advanced scientific’ ideas, and has an inkling about how a certain element found on that distant other planet will bolster the efforts to further enhance Science. The graphics etc part of the movie are far too better and wider talked about than here.

Apart from that, though, what’s gripping is the way the vacillations of the protagonist’s mind are portrayed. I had summarily rejected the idea of watching such a movie which apparently broke all business records on the box office, thinking it must be just another hi-fi graphics science fiction.

Not only that it is exactly that, it is also a movie with a very strong message; for a change. During the opening part of the flick, we are shown how the Earthlings are trying to capture certain area on this planet Pandora. It’s an attempt to obtain this element, lying buried under what is learnt to be the ‘hometree’ of an entire clan on Pandora. The operation is in an advanced stage, wherein all paths are taken to negotiate and convince the clan to move away from the precious site. It is here, that we think the Earthlings are diplomats, and are trying to take things at ease, meaning no harm to the indigenous. To such an extent, that it is convincing enough to portray the natives (Na’avi) as stupidly sticking to their illogical, unscientific roots and so forth.

Quite predictably, they refuse, which in turn gets converted to what is termed as ‘terror’ by the leaders of the Eartlingds-led mission. Now, isn’t that deja vu? Haven’t we come across very similar situations at home and abroad? Tremendous force is deployed to uproot the natives, to whisk them away, if not to distroy them. What happens next must be seen only in the movie, for it is purely beyond words.

It is the vacillations that need deliberation. The hero is shown to shuttle between two lives, one with immense physical capabilities and one without. That is just the initial part, until when he has to weigh between the distroying ‘scientific’ force and the deep rooted faith, which seems to have some scientific connection that is inexplicable to the science he knows. More than the graphics and the special effects, the movie deep down, is about his choices.

The attackers can very well be matched with we-all-know-what (or whom, for these days ideas are forces and nations and peoples themselves), and the attacked too. Somehow, this looks very much connected to the thoughts.

Finally, everyone who can afford watching this movie in a hall (who in turn needs to know) must watch it. Also if there has to be a best movie Oscar to a sensible movie, it has to be to Avatar, for it is a fantabulously made one with a very, very strong message.

Much has been said, and is still being said, about how India has ‘risen’ since its independence in 1947. When we look back, we see an era prior to the LPG (liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation), when being financially rich was perceived as a distant, if not unnecessary, dream. This was when the newspapers wrote pure local languages; the people spent much time with their family members; and the children read books in their mother tongues, apart from playing out in the field until dusk time. The father went to work in the morning, when the kids got ready for their school. The mother cooked breakfast, had lunch boxes ready for everyone, and accomplished her missions, mostly as a housewife, or a small time professional.

Then came a time, when there was the so-called Rising, especially of the middle classes of the Indian society. The classes that were presumably lower-middle, who had ‘just enough’, started taking ‘advantage’ of the edge they got by virtue of their education and their country’s global position. ‘Outsourcing’, ‘BPO’, ‘back-office’ and so on became the key words, in the midst of large, white-goods-laden dreams shown to the masses of the country. In pursuit of those (and not certainly happiness as such, for none ever complained about not being happy earlier!), the fuel came from widespread campaigns, just the way a carrot is hung in front of a donkey to keep it going.

Who is the master, where he wants to lead the donkey etc. are points of much research, very interesting nevertheless. But what do we, the people, have since? Incredibly incredibly tough neck-to-neck fight for everything, right from education to as simple as a place to sit in a local bus; increased mental and physical stress at the cost of decreased family time together; much pervasive use-and-throw culture instead of the conserve-to-reuse one; and the list could practically go on and on. Even as we look at all this, it is brazenly being termed as ‘development’.

Here is the question then: what exactly is development, and do we, the Indians, really have it happening?