Looking at North, by North-East

Of late looking at how content travels online there is a deepening belief among global buyersplayers that the more specific a story the more universal it is likely to be Which is of course in contrast to the earlier idea that for a film to be dubbed mainstream mdash it should be generic enough firstDigging in little deeper on that thought still mdash beyond the specific striking a universal chord there is often a storyfilm that so deeply represents the world it is set in that it develops an umbilicalsticky cord for the people it is set among Mainly when that film appears in the mainstream It feels like ones own movie for those outside and not just for the characters insideTell you a missed opportunity in that regard The Farhan Akhtar starrer Rock On 2 2016 a hardcore commercial movie about rock music set in Shillong Meghalaya mdash where even Bob Dylans birthday is annually celebrated like Bapus Gandhijis But no there was hardly any real rock musicscene let alone Shillong in Rock On 2Had there been guarantee it wouldve attained cult status in the North East region that the Mary Kom biopic 2004 did a better job surveying So what if the Punjabi Priyanka Chopra played the Manipuri boxer in the film Gandhi 1982 is no less a moviebible for Indians though the Brit Ben Kingsley played the fatherAnd no it does not matter one bit that the Bengali Sayani Gupta and shes brilliant plays a Nepali in the film titled Axone which is mysteriously pronounced Akhuni mdash assuming the Sumi Nagaland dialect where the words form isnt phoneticThe film primarily in Hindi dropped on the globalmainstream streaming giant Netflix Its set among people youd call from the North East mdash signifying the seven sister states that are quite different from one another but clubbed into the same in the rest of IndiaWhat was the last great film we saw from the North East Bhaskar Hazarikas Aamis in Assamese What was that about Food So is this But there is no connection You only have to see Aamis to know why that can never beAxone is Im guessing a thick gravypaste made from fermenting soybeans Its a pork delicacy served on big occasions But apparently it smells vile How vile We could have known if the film was in 4D with the aroma wafting into the nose from the screen No that leap in technology isnt lightyears away mdash its here Cant wait to check out AR Rahmans VR Virtual Reality movie Le Musk 2015That said you can tell the smell of akhuni is pungent enough for the young characters in Axone living in hostellike digs in a congested Delhi colony having to figure out a place to cook it all through an impossibly long afternoon They cant do it in their own homes The neighbours will simply not allow that to happenWe are mdash to such a huge extent mdash what we eat arent we Thats just Culture 101 Saw this surrealistic documentary Sapna Bhavnanis Sindhustan Its on the history of Sindh yes but its told with the presence of the Sindhi curry being cooked in the kitchen in the present LovelyFlipside History of food mdash because it is such an instant marker for a community and therefore prejudices mdash is also the history of war And the victors and the vanquished thereof Think harder about it Youll realise its not something we acknowledge enough And its not changed at allGet on the vegetarian Marine Drive if you like Or just watch the butterchicken loving North Indians in Axone The same people are collectively called Curry as a cuss word across Australia for instance Inevitably this foodbias is an entry point for much bigger bigotries and thats what we see play out between neighbours and the NorthEastern folk in AxoneA film like this dropping in the time of COVID19 mdash when Indians with East Asian features were targeted by illiterate roundeyed brown people with racial slurs supposedly directed at the Chinese mdash is a lot like Spike Lee the baap of Black Lives Matter BLM coming out with his latest Da 5 Bloods right at the peak of BLM on my watchlistBut then Axone is not entirely an angry film The writerdirector Nicholas Kharkongor full disclosure friend is firstly an Alevel empath He looks at the idea of biases at large And he also looks at film as a fun medium foremost mdash with a touch of humour and quirky characters putting together such a fine bunch of Bollywood and NorthEast actorsOf the latter I know only one in the mainstream mdash the Assamese Adil Hussain He randomly sits around here as a Haryanvi Chaudhary smoking hookah on the street That fellow in the film generally gazes at guys from the North EastAs does all of Delhi by the way mdash at a huge population in the national capital that is altogether otherised Like elsewhere in India For the first time ever to the best of my knowledge that gaze is reversed Axone is an umbilicalsticky cord filmMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individuals and dont represent those of the paperCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and a complete guide from food to things to do and events across Mumbai Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest news