DOMBIVALI FAST

This blog gets its title from a Marathi movie I happened to see over the weekend... This movie has been remade as "Evano Oruvan" in Tamil... Madhavan has acted in the Tamil version...


Before the title of the blog starts to confuse my (very very few) readers, let me explain it...

The town of Dombivali is a suburb of Mumbai and it takes abt 1.5-2 hrs by train to reach Dombivali from the heart of the Mumbai City...


Hundreds of Thousands of ppl travel daily from Dombivali to Mumbai and they spend abt 3-3.5 hrs every day commuting in the train(to and fro)... These commuters prefer Fast trains (which skip smaller railway stations and stop only on important ones) to the Slow trains (which stop at all the railway stations) to save abt 20-30 minutes every day... No wonder the trains are jam packed and getting a place to stand in this train is difficult... So, getting a place to sit in the train is like a luxury and a window seat is an achievement... The nomenclature followed for such trains is "#DESTINATION#-#SLOW/FAST#"... So a SLOW train to CHURCHGATE would be called a "Churchgate Slow" local and a FAST train to DOMBIVALI would be called "Dombivali Fast" train... (Hence the name of the movie, and my blog)...




Travelling in one such Dombivali Fast local is the protagonist of this movie...


This person is someone who believes very strongly in his principles and is very staunch about not compromising with them, at any cost... At every crossroad of his life, he has to undergo lot of emotional turmoil due to his beliefs but he refuses to bend... He stands firm for his moral values inspite of all the problems he has to face...


Slowly, his whole world turns against him... check out each of the scenarios...

1 -- His wife is not happy because she has to stay in a rented apartment... They have booked an apartment, but cannot move in yet because he is not ready to pay ridiculous amount to the builder for the upgrade options in the booked apartment... his wife questions his sanity for this act...


2 -- His son has failed in 3 subjects... The teacher asks his son to join special tuitions and promises to clear him in those subjects... But, he is not ready to pay for special tuitions as he considers this as a bribe... the son ridicules him for this act...


3 -- His daughter cannot get admitted to a good school because he refuses to pay Rs. 35,000 towards donations to the School Development Fund... the principal of the school calls him insane for this act...


4 -- He works as a loan officer in a bank and his manager is cross with him because he is not ready to pass a huge loan to an applicant who has submitted false documents... The applicant is one of the biggest account holder in that branch and the manager is very well aware that the loan will certainly default... But the applicant has promised handsome "rewards" for everyone who will help him to get the loan cleared and this irks the protagonist to the core... his entire bank staff makes fun of him... The applicant gets his loan and everyone in the bank staff gets a hefty Diwali gift...


5 -- The company which provides water to his apartment complex sends a water tanker everyday and the tanker guy does not release water until someone pays him Rs. 100 (over the stipulated pre-paid water charges)... When he questions the tanker guy, everyone else his in apartment complex asks him to mind his own business because his act is causing unnecessary delays...


Eventually, at every point in his life, he turns out to be a loser... Everyone makes fun of him and no one thinks, even for a moment, that he is doing the right thing... His frustration builds up every passing day, hour and minute...


One day, the volcano errupts (over 2 rupees at a col-drink stall) and he takes on the entire system head-on... Seeing that his sincere pleas are not making any effect, he resorts to violence... Anything and everything that does not meet the true ethical standards he has set for himself is destroyed... Cops, Doctors, Drug peddlers, politicians, the tanker guy -- one and all feel the brunt of his ire...


Soon, the ever-hungry media takes note of his activities and he is termed as a psycho, a maniac and a lunatic by one and by all... Since he has exposed political leaders, the government is at task... Since the government is scared of losing their power, the Police Commissioner is threatened of a transfer out of Mumbai... Since the Commissioner's position is at stake, he asks his cops to "Encounter" the man...


The only person who can understand him is this police inspector who has been assigned to his case... He questions everyone who questions this man... He asks everyone about the protagonist's crime... The cop has the right intention -- to arrest the protagonist, counsel him and release him as a free and an innocent human being...

But, by then, the protagonist has lost faith in everyone and is unable to visualize the good guy in the cop... The cop, even though he approves of the protagonist's actions, is helpless and has to shoot the protagonist... He is shot through the heart in the encounter killing...

The protagonist's last wish -- to have a window seat in his last journey in the Dombivali Fast train -- is fulfilled by the cop...


The movie shook me to the core... What was his fault? Just that he was ethical and was not ready to succumb to the monetary desires of this world? And that he tried swimming against the current? How many times have we compromised and done something that we know is unethical? And, how many times have we forced someone else to do something unethical...

How many times have we travelled in Dombivali Fast?