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Urbanisation and development takes its toll on a good number of quaint old places and they are never what they used to be. Shimla is one of them and Vivek Mohan, who was born and grew up there, bemoans this aspect in For Whom the Jingle Bells Toll? A 30-minute documentary, it is a trip down the memory lane and also a lesson in ecology. "The place has changed and so has the weather," says the script for starters and we see the filmmaker Vivek Mohan taking us on a tour of that picturesque hill station which in the 1970s became famous for the Indo-Pak Simla (before it became Shimla) Agreement when Benazir Bhutto first came into the political limelight alongside her father Zulfikar. "It is mid-December and no sign of snow," the commentary goes and the lament in the title is for the snow or the White Christmas that used to be. Naturally, the song White Christmas is sung as are other Christmasy carols that hark back to those halcyon days when Mohan was young. Distance always lends enchantment to view and it becomes a personal tribute to Shimla of old. May be the presence of Mohan in almost every scene gets a wee bit annoying but one does get the ambience of the place and the beauty of that hill station, the ice-skating rink, the bazar and other well-known spots. The instructions at the end to stem the devastation make the film rather didactic and interrupt the general mood but Mohan probably feels strongly about it. Its 30-minute duration is just right and ecologically and otherwise it is a neat little film that has gone to many international festivals. — E.E.M. |
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