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Romantic Drama

KAIRA

CAST: Aaryan Sigdel, Samragyee RL Shah

DIRECTION: Laxman Rijal

1 stars

‘Kaira’ curiously brings together Aaryan Sigdel, the once popular lead-man of Nepali romantic films, and Samragyee RL Shah, the busiest Nepali actress today, in two and half hours of unbearably bad tourism promotion video of the Philippines that only masquerades as a romantic drama. Director Laxman Rijal pilots a movie that takes off without a destination in mind, meanders without any narrative focus and finally crash lands towards the most unimaginative and tediously formulaic climax: the film tries to win sympathy points by abruptly revealing that one of the characters suffers from an untreatable mental disease.

Sigdel is Jay, a singer and bar-owner in the Philippines. He’s established in sweep­ing shots over rooftops, streets and parks, singing with his band. We soon find that he has cut his ties with Nepal and lives in the Philippines, all because he’s trying to get over a girl. So he parties hard and goes to bed with a different girl every night. Sigdel’s character feels heav­ily inspired by Karan Johar’s ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ where Ranbir Kapoor played a lovelorn musician. In fact there are many elements borrowed from the Bollywood movie, especially the circumstances that separate the leads and the climax that involves the aforementioned disease.

Samragyee RL Shah is the titular Kaira, the girl who broke Jay’s heart in Kath­mandu. One day she shows up in Jay’s bar, apologizes for whatever happened and suggests they start fresh. Jay is hesitant at first but later agrees and they spend the next few days sightseeing the locales of the Philippines, challenging each other to dance in public places and counting stars. Things get drowsy and dull from then on as the screenplay switches back and forth between the present and the events that happened back in Kathmandu.

Given the unremarkably soapy nature of the story, the only way ‘Kaira’ would’ve ever worked is through the easy chemistry between the leads. But Sigdel and Shah offer no spark. What they do is sputter along with their awkward acting. The corny conversation they have makes it hard for us to buy them as made for each other.

In one scene Kaira gazes at the sky and expresses her desire to count the stars. Jay finds this cute and encourages her to start counting. There are instances like this where we feel the middle-aged Sigdel is not romancing the young Shah but babysitting her. She giggles a lot and he looks at her sleepily. They talk to each other about living life to the fullest and following one’s dreams, as if in their free time all they do is read self-help books and memorize lines from ‘1001 Inspirational Quotes’.

The two lovers don’t feel human even for a moment; they are so wooden and mechanically brought together that their romantic crisis is never intriguing.

‘Kaira’ comes across as a long-long movie. There’s so much talking, walking, drinking, puking, crying, singing and danc­ing that you can’t stop fidgeting in your seats or flip out your phone and start scroll­ing Facebook. This film singlehandedly demonstrates what happens if you mistreat the cinematic medium only as a showcase for rich locations and good-looking actors at the expense of a compelling story.

Who should watch it?

I’m lost figuring who the intended audience of this soapy melodrama could be. If you’re an unabashed Aaryan Sigdel fan, I won’t stop you. But ‘Kaira’ has nothing special to offer. It’s a movie made from yesteryears’ cinematic sensibilities and easily forgettable.

In its essence, parliamentary hearing for key appointments is aimed at transparency and open government. But in Nepal successive hearing com­mittees have acted merely as rubber-stamps, defeating their very purpose. Perhaps mind­ful of that, lawmakers from Nepal Communist Party (NCP) were eager to buck the trend by not confirming Deepak Raj Joshi as chief Justice. Certainly that was the popular thing to do given the public opinion, yet in doing so they betrayed the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’. If key appoint­ments can be derailed by mere allegations, floodgates of similar allegations will be opened against all future nominees. The first issue in this saga is the failure of the hearing committees to use its power to investigate.On all allegations, the commit­tee has the power to summon testimony and documents. No doubt, this will delay the confir­mation process but, at the very least, it would do the right thing: prove or disprove the allegations. One of the things that seemed to upset NCP lawmakers was that chief justice nominee Joshi’s refusal to answer questions, and he had even called into ques­tion parliament’s competence. The committee could have com­pelled Joshi to testify, or it could have threatened to start the process of contempt of parlia­ment. (Article 103 (7) of the Con­stitution has clear provision for contempt citation.) Not under­standing the scope of one’s responsibility and power is big problem in Nepal. Of the many lawyer-turned politicians in the parliament no one seemed to be providing right counsel.

While Nepal has made efforts to adopt some of best features of other systems of govern­ment, it is unfortunate that same level of energy wasn’t put in implementing these ideas in our context. The 15-member joint Hearing Committee (12 members from House of Rep­resentatives and three from the National Assembly) clearly had the mandate to investigate mat­ters. Article 17 of Parliamentary Hearing Committee Working Pro­cedure, 2075 clearly says so. To carry out investigation the com­mittee can seek assistance of any government entity.

It can also invite experts to give their opinion on the mat­ters under discussion. There is no legal restriction that bars the committee from going even fur­ther than that. Even NCP leader­ship seemed willing to give the Hearing Committee a long leash; that’s unprecedented in a nascent democracy where party bosses don’t take kindly to subordinates not toeing the line. So this was the perfect opportunity to raise the bar and set a new precedent for ending business as usual.

If the Hearing Committee and other thematic committees are to be effective, the parliament needs to seriously expand its own capac­ity. There should be a separate research department within the secretariat to support the pro­fessional needs of members of parliament and committees.

Flawed vetting

The blame also goes to Judicial Council, Constitutional Council and the government for not insti­tuting a vetting system for key appointments. If someone is so controversial, why nominate him and initiate a process that would embarrass the government and erode public trust in institutions? This clearly calls for a vetting pro­cess for all key appointments. Instead of ministers producing names from back pockets at the last minute, it should be part of advance planning put through a vetting process. With the ruling parties having such strong num­bers in parliament, there is no longer an excuse for not putting a system in place.

Not confirming an appointment without fully investigating the allegations is as dangerous as confirming someone despite the allegations.

They called him mad. They called him a scapegoat. They said it was irrational to go on a hunger strike when there was a people-elected government. He had learnt his lesson; he did not want to be fooled again. He was a pro­tagonist, a nonconformist, and a headstrong doctor to bring reforms in the medical sector—which is why he earned different names and received unlikely comments. Former Prime Minister and chair of the party that led the 10-year-armed struggle, Prachanda, said Dr KC’s work was to just be on hunger strikes. He, who had chosen the armed battle, did not realize that Dr KC was on a mission just like him. But he chose to carry arms and take lives while Dr KC hurt himself to save the lives of others.

He suggested that Dr KC had been used as a scapegoat by Nepali Con­gress, unfortunately forgetting that in the armed struggle he led, thou­sands of people were forced to give up their lives and families, for the cause he thought was right. Did Prachanda or anyone involved in the armed struggle or KP Oli for that matter—who said the protests were done at leisure times—evert go on a hunger strike of this intensity?

Those who said there were legal ways to address the problem forgot that the Second People’s Movement that made Nepal a republic was also against the then constitution. Still people came together, irrespective of their differing political ideologies. Much the same way, people came out on streets to support Dr KC. This comparison was hardly made. It was forgotten that doctors had revolted then as well, although halting medical services isn’t right either. However, supporting Dr KC were not just fellow doctors but people from all walks of life, making it a people’s movement.

Social media was abuzz with hashtags like #IamwithDrKC, #saveDrKC, #BackOffMedicalEdu­cationBill, #saveIOM; about a dozen Facebook pages like Solidarity for Prof Govinda KC (followed by more than 30k people), Save IOM, Save Dr Govinda KC (17k followers); and online petitions. Protests were spontaneous and took place in all major cities. Surely not liking these movements, the government gave directives to use force and medical officers were beaten in Karnali while several others from different fields were injured or arrested in Kath­mandu. These made national and international headlines.

The protesters, just like in 2006, dreamt of a better Nepal—this time through reforms in medical edu­cation and health care that would bring cheap and reliable health­care to all Nepalis. After pressure mounted on the government, it had to address the demands.

Apart from restricting new pri­vate medical colleges in Kathmandu for 10 years, the nine-point agree­ment will allow talented students to become doctors. Mammoth fees still make it a distant dream for them. Those who study with full scholarship will need to serve in rural areas. This could mean that the remotest parts of the country, which often do not have doctors, would get medical facilities. If all the province had at least one good medical college, as has been agreed, there wouldn’t be the need to spend extra money to avail the services in Kathmandu. One man’s peaceful madness could bring better days for the entire nation.

“Sorry I’m late, I couldn’t find your office.” We have all heard this excuse. And how can we argue with this? With no street signs, no house numbers, and many offices not having prom­inent signboards it can be a frus­trating job either finding the place we want to go to or trying to explain to someone how to find our office or home. Having spent 15 minutes last month looking for an office, I was confident this time round that I knew exactly where it was. Only to be taken aback to find out they had moved to a new location. Yes, they sent a map but has anyone else noticed Google seems to have made up the names, and often the location, of streets in Kath­mandu? And damn, these maps make it look easy with their clean, crisp lines indicating roads. What is missing is the street vendors blocking entrances, new construc­tion spilling onto the roads, and dead ends that do not appear on the maps.

This makes it impossible to count… is it the first or second turn off after the mandir? Not to worry, you have the phone number right? You can phone for directions right? Well then it starts to get interesting. First of all you need to explain where you cur­rently are. Errr, what is the name of the mandir? And how do you pronounce it anyway? Then you need to interpret what consti­tutes a ‘small’ road to the person on the other end of the phone. Do they mean this British sized B road, or do they mean that gullie over there?

So you ask the standard question, “left or right”? Now various sites on the internet put the number of the global population who cannot tell left from right at 20 percent. But if I think how many people I ask, how many taxi drivers I tell, on a weekly basis, this figure is surely much higher for Nepal. It seems more like one in two people I ask or tell directions to cannot tell the difference between right and left. And it’s not just a language thing; I can ask in Nepali too, to no avail. Eventually finding the cor­rect road, why do offices not have prominent signboards? Don’t they want business?

When the shoe is on the oth­er foot and people are trying to find my house, I despair. These are computer literate friends, who want me to send a map of my location and a snap shot does not satisfy them. Aside from me being technology challenged, we are then back to relying on those maps which show only certain roads, and tiny shops you never knew existed on your street.

I find it easier just to tell them “follow the river, turn right at the first driveable bridge, walk for 100m.” You would think those are easy directions to fol­low—but no, seemingly not. Quot­ing non-scientific figures again, I can say 90 percent of foreign friends can find me by this meth­od. Only around 5 percent of Nepalis achieve this. When I am told some workman (usually the internet provider) will need to come over, I shudder.

I need to give a day when I know I have a lot of free time to go hunting in the neighborhood for the guy who is well and tru­ly lost. I never order food from Foodmandu. I saw a Foodmandu delivery man waiting for a pick up recently and asked him, hopefully, if they had an app to find locations. No. But the first time I placed an order and the delivery man finds me (right!) he would tell all his fellow delivery men so that in the future they could easily locate me. Big pinch of salt. Better have some tequila with that salt as cer­tainly dinner ain’t arriving any time soon!