Rocket Singh - Salesman of the Year

Director: Shimit Amin (of Chak De India! fame) has come up with a understated, lowkey masterpiece "Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year".

A must watch for thoughtful insightful viewers.

In terms of the common underlying message two old classics come to mind:
"Do Aankhen Barah Haat"
and "Les Miserables".

Among the basic human drives are the need for acknowledgement, trust, acceptance and belief in us by others.
This is what drives most of us to compromise with the real us and adapt, twist and mould ourselves as we feel the world wants us.

Until we meet a man who sees right past the crud encrusting our exterior and sees the real person behind.

Like a mirror the film sheds light on dark recesses in the lives of "hardened dalaals (pimps)".
Despicable and distasteful until we glimpse the path that led them there.
Lighting up choking corners of shame, frustration, anger, misery, envy and claustrophobia.
All due to selling out of basic human integrity.

The salesmen who first need to sell their integrity, hopes, dreams and souls before they can sell anything else...
but then what they get in return in hind-sight is not really worth the price paid.
The inability to look oneself and others in the eye and say what is - without fear, without expectation, without anger.

A feeling of compromise and selling ones cleanliness and swachhata/svechha.
In exchange for crumbs of power and money and fear based wants.

It has something to say on how valuable yet taken for granted (even held in contempt) are things like simplicity, truth, honesty, innocence and incredulity.

"Jab main naya ayaa tha naa... tere jaisa thaa..... phir dhire dhire seekh gaya...".
The story of loss of innocence, trust, belief and faith.
An awe of cleverness, short-cuts, artifice, sophistication, hardness, power-politics.
All hiding the fear of failing... and falling in other peoples' eyes.

Rising in others eyes but falling in one's own gaze.

How the hero battles this situation and comes out of it... is the story.