Today's Villians
Couple of weeks back I was seeing the movie 'Mr. India'. It was a great favourtite of mine and I thought it would be a good idea for me to watch it with my son, Vidit. One thing that stuck me was the villians of the 80's were the merchants and the smugglers. Almost all the movies I can recall in the 80s were about the angry young man trying to fight for his survival and fight the villian. However today in the last few movies, the villians have now moved to strong men who are now mafia, builders and politicians. With opening of the economy, merchants are no longer the villians. Almost all the items that used to be smuggled in the 80s (gold, video games, movies, and yes even coke cans) are now freely available in any market. Almost all the black-market that existed due to the government custom duties have now been removed. However the government now has license over the big tickets such as land, mines, telecoms, food, education etc and this is where the patronage and t...