Growing up in Delhi one always felt something extremely reassuring, secure and comforting about the Sikh and Punjabi elders around, much more than the seniors of any other community. They seemed to ooze an infectious optimism and positivity. An affectionate word, a warm hug from them and even in your worst moments of crisis you’d feel that everything will eventually turn out alright; that you will move on to better things, battered a bit perhaps but all the more strong for it.
No wonder a scene in'Udta Punjab' broke my heart and betrayed these long-held beliefs in a mere instant. A patriarch gently addresses the Bihari migrant girl Pinky( Alia Bhatt, utterly real, raw and vulnerable) as “puttar”( child) and asks her why she stole heroin worth a crore if she had to eventually throw it away. The soft, soothing enquiry sets the most disturbing tenor for the viciousness and brutality that come to be heaped on her by his family of drug dealers, with his tacit nod of approval, of course.'Udta Punjab' is all about swallowing such bitter pills.
