New Delhi: Taking a break from his busy
schedule, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today watched Aamir
Khan's Bollywood film 'Peepli Live', a scathing satire on
farmers' suicide.
Singh watched the film along with his wife Gursharan
Kaur. Besides Khan, the film' producer and Bollywood star,
Director Anusha Rizvi and a couple of senior cast members were
present at the special screening.
Khan had arranged a similar screening of the film
for BJP leaders including L K Advani.
The film, starring a clutch of theatre actors with a
debutante director in Rizvi, deals with the growing divide
between rural and urban India through the story of Natha, a
landless farmer.
He is talked into committing suicide by his brother
Budhia, who hopes that their family will benefit since
government has relief packages for the families of farmers,
who kill themselves.
Their drunken conversation is heard by a local
journalist, who writes a story in his newspaper. Soon the TRP
hungry news channels lap up the story. Natha's impending death
becomes a national obsession.
Incidentally, the Prime Minister has been instrumental
in ensuring a financial package for farmers in Vidarbha in
Maharashtra which witnessed a spate of suicides.
Such a package was also given to farmers in distress
in some other states.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, August 29, 2010, 23:00