Peepli Live

A far cry away from the silken touch of designer clothes, swanky foreign locales and modern-day, tangled urban relationships, comes "Peepli-Live" as a hard-hitting, satirical movie on the situation of the forgotten, dusty, worn-out -the other side of India.

Attributing to the fact that India is mainly an agrarian economy, it is shocking that how the rural India takes a backseat and the cities hog the limelight, funds and development. Peepli-Live mercilessly strips the garb of sham and hypocrisy wore proudly by the Media and Politicians. Targeting the serious issue of Farmer Suicides, it hits bull's eye with its own brand of dark humour and strong, unpolished dialogues.

Natha is a small-time farmer in the small, sleepy village of Peepli, who is struggling to save his land from getting auctioned because of his inability to repay a loan. Natha's brother, Buddhia, overhears the local politicians discussing a yojna which offers Rs.1 Lakh compensation for farmers who commit suicides due to the piling debts and poverty.

As.Natha and Budhia gravely discuss that whose death will be more sensible and beneficial, they end up deciding that Natha will do the honors by dying and getting the compensation of Rs.1 Lakh for the family. This news creates a furore in Peepli which eventually reaches out to a local Hindi newspaper called "Jan Morcha" that has a leading, promising, young journo called 'Rakesh'.

This juicy bit of news is picked up by Nandita, the elite journalist of a leading English news channel who considers it just the right stuff which will boost the TRP's of her show. As she reaches Peepli to catch all the action live, this interesting piece of news blows to giant proportions as all the media channels reach this small village to compete with each other to give their viewers a live, elaborate coverage of the farmer who has promised to commit suicide...

In this movie, the media has been ripped apart due to their thirst for "Breaking News", increasing TRP ratings, insensitive intrusion, rough handling of the "scoop" and exaggerating the news to any limit possible. The oh-so-obvious war between the English and Hindi news channels has been portrayed well as they both squabble over who will first feature the latest bit of news on the primetime hour..

What starts as a serious, heart-warming decision of committing suicide by a poor farmer for money soon turns into a big circus involving money, prestige, local & central govt politics all rolled into a melodrama being featured on National television.

Watch the drama unfolds as the local politicians-cum-goons threaten Natha to die for turning around the face of elections, the CM requesting Natha not to die and the agricultural dept of central govt coming up with fake schemes for the welfare of farmers to revive their negative image and stop Natha from committing suicide....

Amidst this mad drama, at a point Peepli-Live shows the agony of farmers through Rakesh's (Jan Morcha's Journo) eyes when he sees a poor farmer dead due to hunger & poverty and he fails to identify with the intensive focus on Natha's misfortune.

The climax answers the question that why do farmers leave their profession to work in the big cities...Overall, Peepli-Live is a mixed bag of emotions with its share of funny moments, spoofs, desi humour & dialogues and a memorable take on Indian politics and media.