Guest Post by RITA KOTHARI

Not long ago, a Gujarati film, Kevi Rite Jaish (“How will I go?”  dir. Abhishek Jain, 2012) provided to its viewers a rare fare. It was, unlike Gujarati films of the past, based on the life of urban Ahmedabad  and told the story of a young man whose dilemma was similar to that of scores of aspiring youth in Gujarat. Harish Patel, the protagonist, is obsessed with the idea of migrating to the United States and becoming, like many members of his community of Patels, a ‘motel-king.’ Harish Patel’s room is decorated with Statue of Liberty and Obama – deities that he needs to propitiate. However, his inability to answer satisfactorily the questions  asked by the visa officer at the US embassy leads to his failing to get a visa. The film builds up in comical vein the “trauma” of this event,  which prevented Harish Patel from  fulfilling his dreams in the promised land.  Several abortive attempts, including one involving fake sponsorship papers, bring to the viewer the satirical picture of a community that in the film at least, cannot see beyond motels and United States. The title poses  a real and rhetorical question for Harish Patel, who finally realizes that there are opportunities in his motherland  and this self-realization, certainly not a profound one, is suggested by signifiers of home-made food made by his mother.  A thoroughly ordinary film that this was, its success lay in striking a chord among young viewers who may also have been the chief patrons of such an economic venture.

To my knowledge, there was no counterview to the film contesting the stereotype of the Patel community, for this is indeed the dominant image of an urban Patel in popular imagination—affluent, enterprising and obsessed with the United States. Continue reading The Patel agitation and the ‘paradox’ of demanding OBC status: Rita Kothari →