Shoe-r veer

Mufeed Mahdi Rizvi the writer feels the (in)famous shoe-throwers took a stand for something

Shoe-r veer

Mufeed Mahdi Rizvi the writer feels the (in)famous shoe-throwers took a stand for something

Majid Majidi's Children of Heaven

Shoe-sha: Iranian flick Children of Heaven tells the story of a brother and sister who have only one pair of good shoes between them. Since their school timings differ, they swap their shoes every day

Children of Heaven tells the story of a brother and sister who have only one pair of good shoes between them. Since their school timings differ, they are able to swap their shoes whenever they go to school.

The climax involves a marathon race. Instead of the first prize, the boy aims for the second prize for one simple reasonu00a0the second prize is a pair of shoes. It reminded me of the cycle race in that iconic youth film, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander.

I am not going to spell out the climax for you guys; go and watch the film instead. Majidi has framed the film beautifully. No wonder, the film was an instant hit. Children of Heaven was greatly appreciated and even made Majidi decent money.

Years later, Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi rewrote the script during a George W Bush press conference in Baghdad. An angry Zaidi hurled the shoe at the then US president and sent the prices of the coveted footwear into crores. And earned himself a three-year jail sentence, now commuted to one.

In February this year, a student at UK's Cambridge University took the hint from Zaidi and aimed his shoe
at Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

And yesterday, Jarnail Singh tried his shot at Home Minister P Chidambaram. The Jarnail-ist from Dainik Jagran later regretted the way he protested against Congress leader Jagdish Tytler being given a clean chit for his role in the 1984 Sikh riots, but he was firm on his protest.

What started with Zaidi will never end. In years to come, Majidi's shoe-script will be rewritten time and again. Perhaps, future press conferences in our country will no longer be grand and will be held on shoe-string budgets instead.

These shoe-throwers took a stand for something. Their actions may have been wrong, but their feelings need to be understood.

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