Singhstation Review Of Yodha The Warrior Punjabi Film From Sikhi Perspective

[SinghStation]

Yoddha is the latest Punjabi movie with a huge star-cast. The Sadda Haq famed Kuljinder Singh Sidhu is back again with one fine Punjabi film.

Yoddha is a fast paced movie packed with action sequences and some very good with huge appeal dialogues. Kuljinder Singh Sidhu is really the man to watch in the movie he packs a punch with every dialogue and Rahul Dev is impeccable in the movie and other just stars have lend a great job with the film. The action director Mahendra Verma have done a great job with film.

The Movie no doubt is a great Pollywood movie but the way its getting popularity as a Sikh Movie, Lets see how far the movie have gone with that.

For some though it MIGHT NOT be a BIG or Small issue, but as a Sikh the movie cant be rated as a family movie. There have been so many scenes shown in this Punjabi movie where the movie characters have been smoking. The movie industry [should] treat smoking like it treats profanity and sex and violence. It was sad to see Dinesh Soodh (even though he is not a Sikh but producing Sikh Movies) smoking in his small Guest appearance role in the movie. There has already been going a lot to even ban smoking in Bollywood movies, so in that instance screening Smoking scenes in a Pollywood movie (with some touch on Sikhi Corner) is really a big question mark on this movie?

Moving further, the movie is basically shown as a revenge movie where an ordinary NRI person Ronnie turns to Ranjodh Singh after meeting with Singhs of Damdami Taksal Jatha. The movie portrays how the character playing Shingara Singh, the chief of Damdami Taksal Jatha in the movie motivates and teaches Ronnie to take Amrit di daat and become Ranjodh Singh. However when Ranjodh Singh alias Ronnie goes back to him saying that “Baba ji mein badla lena chahunda han (Baba ji, I want to take revenge)”, there are no concerns raised by the Shingara Singh and instead encourages him further. The fight of Ranjodh Singh has purely been shown up as a personal revenge rather than a fight against Tyranny.

As par Sikhism, To raise the sword after all peaceful means have been exhausted also speak to the ideal of justice, in which a stepwise process is taken up to attempt to exact justice by all available means possible. Guru Gobind Singh Ji dispatched Bhai Gurbaksh Singh (Banda Singh Bahadur) when he knew that no punishment would ever be meted out to the perpetrators of the war crime against the Chhote Sahibzadae – the crime was the mercilessly torture and killing of children, which is a violation of any religious ethic. So in that context this is a question if such a person can be called “Yoddha” in Sikhi?

The Last fight scene of the movie was the most disturbing. The movie shows that before taking on Rahul Dev, Kuljinder Sidhu removes his Vest and also take off Gatra and keeps it aside after Matha Tek. This was really disturbing as why the Gatra needed to be removed off? For an Amritdhari Sikh, his kakars goes with him till the end of his life.

To summarize, Yoddha is a much better attempt to show turbaned Sikhs on the Big Screen , however the movie and the characters especially Kuljinder Sidhu should not be taken as Sikh Models. They are simply Movie characters and are playing their characters only. They might be doing a great job at screen to better portray as Sikhi characters but Remember

Sikhi is “

khaneo tikhi walo nikki

“.

Source: http://singhstation.net/2014/11/review-yodha-warrior-punjabi-film-sikhi-perspective/