Light at the end of tunnel is a train!

To think of it a place where so much was going wrong in George Orwellrsquos ominous 1984 has to be North India isnrsquot it A burning Punjab Operation Blue Star PM Indira Gandhirsquos assassination followed by antiSikh riots and Bhopal Gas Tragedy to wrap that year with 15000plus dead bodiesNetflix series The Railway Men RM merges the last two manmade tragedies over a single sequence where murderous goons are going after a Sikh woman Mandira Bedi and boy inside Gorakhpur Express trainWhich in turn is headed towards Bhopal on the same night of Dec 2 1984 when fatal methyl isocyanate ldquoliquid dynamiterdquo or ldquotabaahi with a drop of waterrdquo leaked from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Madhya Pradeshrsquos capitalI donrsquot know if that synchronous bit is ldquoinspired by true eventsrdquo or indeed a true event Either way solid debutant director Shiv Rawailrsquos RM is advertised as ldquothe untold story of Bhopal 1984rdquoMuch like the last film I watched on an OTT Pippa on Amazon Prime Video likewise ldquothe untold story of a warherordquomdashwhile based on the protagonistrsquos memoir itselfUnless such assertions relate to how the story hasnrsquot been told on filmseries And that ideally should be true for all content no Why will you tell a story again anywayScribes have reported extensively on Bhopal Gas Tragedy including top photojournalists Some of whose works have been cleverly showcased over a scene in RMIn popular nonfiction therersquos always Dominique Lapierre Javier Mororsquos Five Past Midnight in Bhopal 2001 Reportedly Oliver Stone was once meant to film this bookHerersquos the difference between RM and couple of films on the same subject The last one I caught Ravi Kumarrsquos Bhopal A Prayer for Rain 2014mdashit seemed like Martin Sheen Mischa Barton Kal Penn got conned into a laudably intentioned shoddiness somehowThe first was Mahesh Mathairsquos Bhopal Express 1999 debut as lead actor for Kay Kay Menon who also headlines RM Both those films inherently felt as if educating the western world about Bhopal Gas Tragedy per seThe miniseries RM with convincing characterscameos production design and performances tells a story So tight that you sense a slap on your face every few frickinrsquo minutes But you follow an inspiring plot Whether that story is ldquountoldrdquo or not then is beside the pointOver four snappy episodes the show goes inside the Union Carbide plant sure but more so focusses on Bhopal Junction railway stationmdashopening up the narrative to a wider politics of negligence complicity statist and corporate redtape In that vein it reminded me a lirsquol of the HBO masterpiece Chernobyl 2019It doesnrsquot surprise me that RM is the OTT debut for Bombayrsquos biggest studio Yash Raj Films with Aditya amp Uday Chopra as executive producersmdashotherwise associated with Bollywoodrsquos bigscale actionersromances The storytelling doesnrsquot change right As in the point being to hold the audiencersquos attention foremost obviouslyYash Raj attempted an lsquoHBO momentrsquo for Indian television back in 2010 with out of the idiot box shows chiefly the Pankaj Tripathi starrer Powder Sadly TV audiences as they say werenrsquot ready The dream died at five shows for SonyOTT a few years later allowed for a darker deeper engagement worldclass content even relooking at famous events with a fresher lens RM on Bhopal Gas Tragedy is hence only in line with deepdive Netflix series on Nirbhaya rape Delhi Crime or Uphaar Cinema tragedy Trial by FireOne of the things you notice about RM is the widest cast of male Muslim characters who arenrsquot goons dons or terrorists Unlike say the ghastly Mumbai Meri Jaan on Prime Video where Kay Kay Menon among other actors was the only good thing about itIsnrsquot that true for Menon in general Itrsquos more heartening then to observe Babil Khan as the young Bhopali in RM You can tell for the first time perhapsmdashhersquos uniquely blessed with his father Irrfanrsquos genes Which isnrsquot to compare Nobody shouldNeither should one take anything away from actors Divyenndu playing a robber and Sunny Hinduja journalist Once they survive the tragedy the former tells the latter that Bhopal didnrsquot suit him much Itrsquos a great city your timing was screwall the journalist tells him TrueBhopal remains possibly the loveliest Indian state capital still Only the scars of 1984 havenrsquot been erased yet As The Guardian report datelined June 14 2023 weighs in way strongermdashthe American Union Carbide plant remains as is where it was continuing to fatally contaminate the ground beneath itTwo lakh people were first affected The effects havenrsquot ceased All details shrouded in secrecy The tragedy got no closure Literally all culprits got awayRM begins with stating the irony of how Mahatma Gandhi once said ldquoAn eye for an eye makes the world blindrdquo but his own assassin was hanged to death Never mind that the quote is from the film Gandhi 1982 rather than Mahatma Gandhi himselfRM shouldrsquove ended with unabashedly demanding accountability even if latemdashon a legit global show going to 200 countries through an American platform Itrsquos been almost 40 years for Bhopalrsquos victims This has to be the conversationstarter Thatrsquos the point isnrsquot itMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper