Many years ago, I whiled away a lazy afternoon surfing MCM, the French music channel. I caught the start of a song I’d never heard the likes of before. A thumping beat, goaded by funked-out bass, ridden by a dirty guitar riff. The video was annoying because the beat was interspersed with dialogue (I didn’t know who Spike Jonze was and didn’t care). I did find myself leaning forward and concentrating hard to isolate the beat from the rest of the distracting nonsense on the screen. I could’ve just given up and changed the channel but the song commanded me to stay. I’ve obliged ever since.

A month later, I walked in the door to find my brother staring transfixed at a synchronized and bizarre dance of swimmers, skeletons and robots. Perfectly coordinated hand movements and steps up and down a circular stage augmented with a constant robotic drone intoning, “around the world a-round the wooorld around the world a-round the woooorld”. And there it was again. A thumping beat goaded on by bass. These guys (who were they?) knew how to make you move.

Both those songs, ‘Da Funk’ and ‘Around The World’, came off their debut album Homework that I promptly purchased and reduced to shreds over the next year (we had cassettes back then). Their beats had power and finesse. Their tunes were repetitive but were loops of melodies you didn’t mind nodding along to till you forgot the rest of your day. There were complex scratches and sounds whose antecedents weren’t obvious and a few tracks featured robotic voices, to become the mainstay of the rest of their career.

Their next album Discovery blew my mind.  It was thoughtful, melodious, innocent and memorable. It had a balance of the edge trademarked in Homework and experimentation with emotion and melody. It contained samples of the songs the duo had grooved to (who were they?) when they were teenagers, discovering emotions borne out of the swirling whirlpool of confusion endemic to that age. It was also the album in which they debuted their robot look – a fascinating, if puzzling manifestation of themselves. Clearly, they weren’t publicity hungry and were content with the image they were creating – eclectic, experimentative, emotional, evocative electro-kings.

Their third album, ‘Human After All‘, was an utter disaster. I was shocked by the rawness of the album and its heavy dependence on electronic aids. The title seemed ironic at the time because the sound was anything but human. It had the occasional bright flashes but you’d have to be delusional to take the time to find positives in that mélange of digital noise. Daft Punk admitted their mistake with the direction in the album, not because the sales figures were low (which doesn’t seem like something they’ve cared about), but because it was an experiment that had gone wrong.

“We really felt that the computers are not really music instruments, and we were not able to express ourselves using a laptop. We tried, but were not successful.”

They were also apologizing for what had happened to electronic dance music since then. Always considered the godfathers of EDM, their experiment gone awry had inspired a culture of overproduced, clinical sounds generated by computers. I had stopped listening to much of EDM produced since 2008. It was ridiculous, repetitive and noisy.

(It occurred to me that “Human After All” was rather apt, in light of their mea culpa.)

They went silent after that, concentrating on solo projects before making a brief return for their first US No 1 effort – the ambitious soundtrack to Tron: Legacy headlined by the brilliant “Derezzed” and “End of Line”. What struck me was their commitment to their idea of music and the guts to experiment.

Then, on March 2, they aired a 15-second teaser on Saturday Night Live, for their new album “Random Access Memories”. It’s a testament to their body of work over twenty years that the teaser went viral. What followed was a masterful marketing effort involving strategic leaks and small samples dutifully picked up by legions of fans and converted into their (at times brilliant) interpretations. On May 13, 2013 they put the entire album available to stream. Free.

That’s right, the entire fucking album was free to stream. You could hear the whole thing and make up your mind if you wanted to preorder the album. I’ve mostly listened to it for the past week, not because I felt obliged to as a die-hard fan, but because after the first couple of days I wanted to go back to two or three standout tracks in the album.

I read a lot about the thought behind it. They said they wanted to go back to a time when music had character. A time when it echoed off the walls of iconic studios and was created by humans with extraordinary ability to connect through their music.

The album makes your jaw drop. If you’re a Daft Punk fan, it’s best not to consider this a continuation of their EDM legacy, but of their legacy of ballsy experimentation. The opening track is fittingly titled “Give Life Back To Music”, a sincere entreaty to move away from canned computer sounds. What strikes you first is the tone of the bass. It’s sonorous, natural, uninhibited. That’s because it comes off a bass guitar. There are no samples in this album and computers have been kept to a bare minimum (mostly their own robotic voices).

The list of collaborators had me thinking they were going to unleash a tribute to disco but the album is so much deeper and emotional. There aren’t too many songs you’ll groove to on the dance floor. It’s an ambitious tribute to their roots and sometimes a confusing and overwrought rendition of sounds. My favorite song “Lose Yourself To Dance” starts with their trademark drum and bass thump, but this time it’s live, played by humans and it’s bloody incredible. I found myself going back to this track again and again. Pharrell Williams croons the title as the robots unobtrusively create an electronic tapestry with an endless loop of “come on”. And that fucking bass all the time digging into your pleasure centers.

Then there are thoughtful ballads reminiscent of “Something About Us” from Discovery. Except, this time they’re exploring a more poignant part of their personalities. It’s not about young love; it’s about unrequited love. It’s about heartbreak. And the juxtaposition of melodic robotic voices using the sad, thoughtful melodies as a crutch evokes a sense of wonder, not dissonance. They want to make you cry and the first time you listen to the album you’re angry with them. How can they try manipulating emotions? We were expecting straight-laced dance ditties so can we get to them please? Then you hear it again and surrender.

If they decide to tour live for this album (and I sincerely hope they do), “Contact” is going to be a showpiece. Orchestral, apocalyptic sounds reminiscent of a spacecraft’s re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere, it’s a stunning conclusion to the album.

The album isn’t even out yet and they’ve given legions of fans like me a chance to make up our minds about it. Here’s what I recommend: buy the whole album and listen to it in the order they intended. Don’t buy singles – they’re just isolated puffery that cannot do justice to the vision.

I celebrate the eclectic, reticent and mysterious robots. I celebrate the return of the pioneers. I celebrate them giving life back to music.

Evil is constant. It just is. It manifests itself in new ways, taking different shapes depending on the time it’s born in. But the men and women who protect us come from the same pool of society that is capable of such evil. There’s probably a law of conservation that also applies to good and evil. That there will always be someone willing to counter harm. Whether they have an opportunity to do so depends entirely on their life’s circumstances and chances that provide them the means to do so. But what compels these men and women to put themselves in harm’s way? I’m not sure. I once wrote about how a cop following the letter of law was better than the law he was upholding. Two events in the last two days have made me more uncertain of that stance. The Boston Police put on the show of a lifetime as they chased two terror suspects through their city with resolve, ingenuity and sheer bloody-mindedness. When they shot the first suspect, he had bombs strapped to himself. I followed the chase most of the night, aided by the endless stream of information pouring in through social media. They caught his brother 24 hours later after a door-to-door search eventually yielded his location (the back of a boat). They went after him knowing fully that he too, could be strapped with explosives like his brother. There was no point sending machines to do a man’s job. So basically, someone decided they had to get closer to the suspect, risk their life and apprehend him.

“The crime that you see now, it’s hard to even take it’s measure.

It’s not that I’m afraid of it. I always knew you’d have to be willing to die to even do this job.” says Sheriff Bell. And so he does, driven by the hope of salvation.

“A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He’d have to say, ‘OK, I’ll be part of this world.”

Many officers of the Boston Police Department and FBI said that sentence to themselves in different ways that night.

Seven thousand miles away, in Delhi, an excerpt from a newspaper report:

“A five-year-old girl was raped, battered, had a plastic bottle and candles shoved into her vagina and was left to die in a locked room in east Delhi by her 25-year-old neighbour before she was discovered two days later, lying in a pool of her own blood.”

After Dec 16 2012, I thought the preceding lines would qualify as one of the worst manifestations of a person’s ability to harm another. I was wrong. The clincher is in the next sentence in the report:

“When her father went to the police for help, they gave him Rs. 2,000 to hush up the matter.”

These are the people who have chosen to protect Indians from harm. Drawn as they are from the society they seek to protect, their attitude is a stinging indictment of our own failings. That’s what the newspapers say. They tell us about the need to move beyond India’s patriarchal culture, to educate policemen about sensitivity. I’m sure this is a step in the right direction but I wonder, are these people even aware of the moral duties they’ve signed up for? Is being a policeman just a job for them?

It wasn’t for Tukaram Omble. Assistant Sub-Inspector Omble threw himself on Ajmal Kasab’s AK-47 with the barrel pointing towards him. “A spray of bullets entered his stomach and intestine. Omble collapsed, but held on to the gun till he breathed his last, stopping Amir from shooting anyone else.”

Where are our Tukaram Ombles?

I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that evil will exist, but it need not prevail. There isn’t a divine entity who will suddenly step in and clean up our mess. The ability to rectify and do good resides in us. I have great respect for the police in general, but the Indian police evokes contempt and disgust in me. Perhaps it’s a few bad apples, perhaps it’s a culture that rots them. I’m astounded at the stark differences in response of the Boston and Delhi police to horrifying incidents. There might’ve been bigots, slackers, racists among that team of Boston PD officers trawling their city for the Tsarnaevs, but we’ll never know because the chatter on the police radio represented a unit working with the single-minded objective to weed out the killers who had caused their citizens harm.

In one of the most poignant scenes in No Country For Old Men, Sheriff Bell returns to the scene of a crime on a hunch that the killer is still present. As he drives up to the scene of the crime, a motel room, he sees the punched out lock and knows he’s right. Sheriff Bell pauses and contemplates the possibility that he might die in a few moments in a hail of gunfire. Then he gets out of his cruiser, removes his revolver, takes a deep breath and opens the door. The shot cuts to the entrance to the door where Sheriff Bell stands as the wash from his cruiser’s headlights illuminates him, casting his shadow on the blood-stained carpet of the motel room. You can’t see his face but the silhouette in the door isn’t that of a hesitant, fearful, timid man tentatively approaching his death, which he had contemplated not moments ago. It’s a confident figure standing with courage and authority.

Yes ma’am (and sir), this world is now officially unjust to men. Good, honest men merely looking to engage in their harmless backroom chatter and hidden stares. What’s so wrong about that?

Can’t even enjoy a game of cricket anymore without someone screaming about the “male gaze” and sexualization of sport. With respect, this doesn’t just happen in the IPL. All major sporting events in the US include their fair share of leggy, busty, beautiful women indulging in physical or verbal calisthenics in front of the camera. Of course, some of them actually know about the sport, which is a bonus! But why judge the women who are there to provide a pleasing foil to the terse and mostly ridiculous commentary from the windbags masquerading as “experts”? Would I rather hear two more minutes of inanities from Sidhu instead of an unrelated but very pleasing blither from the sexy Rochelle Rao? If you have a problem with it, I suggest you change the channel. This was a free country the last time I checked. (BTW, I just stared at that dining chair for a good two minutes. Am I objectifying it or demeaning its role in any way? No, I’m admiring it. Period.)

Boss, it’s become fucking impossible for men to even venture out anymore. Everywhere we go we’re met with suspicious looks. Girls won’t even give us a chance. They immediately call the police to have us beaten up or summon those male relatives who haven’t been beaten up yet by other policemen for straying close to girls. It’s a jungle out there. All these incidents of “sexual violence” against women have been trumped up by a biased media looking to make an issue out of trivialities. Granted, there was a very bad rape in Delhi but now it appears that anyone with a penis is a rapist! What kind of a country do we live in?! We’re making the Taliban look like Club Med operators.

Let’s leave the struggles of the common man aside for a moment. Even the frikkin PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES, the most POWERFUL MAN in the WORLD, can’t share a compliment without being assaulted by the shrill cries of “SEXIST”!!! Pray, do tell, what’s so sexist about a harmless and FACTUALLY CORRECT (verified after a quick tour of Google image search) statement about the physical beauty of Ms Kamala Harris? Umm, yes so she’s an attorney general and is another example of women breaking the glass ceiling yada yada but are we to believe she doesn’t use a mirror? Does she not feel flattered when someone compliments her beauty? Some know-it-alls tell me that a person’s identity is the sum total of many different aspects of his or her life. That their role at work is an integral part of this identity. I’ve been told that objectifying such an important aspect of one’s identity with physical attributes invariably demeans and trivializes those
achievements (I meant becoming attorney general, not being hot). Some folks have even shared research with me which proves that referring to a woman’s physical attributes is almost always construed negatively with respect to her professional role. Wow. Mountain out of a molehill much? Look at Jon Hamm, who’s the relentless target of people curious about where his rather sizeable hamm is languishing at any given moment. Does he let it affect him? NO!
(Uhh what? He has a problem with it? Sshh! Get lost, I’m in the middle of something!)

Perhaps President Obama should stick to complimenting inanimate drones on their wing sizes and missile capacity.

I can’t enjoy sport, I can’t ogle women in public office but I can read blogs without such interference. Thank god for stuff like the “10 hottest bloggers” restoring sanity to a crazed world. Because it’s super important for me to know that the person scribbling those profundities is also easy on the eyes. Gives it that extra oomph and persuasiveness, wot? The internet remains the last bastion of hope in this affair.

These little oases notwithstanding, it’s been a frustrating experience. For a while, I even tried subscribing to the growing point of view that women have it bad. That ordinary men like me should step up, make ourselves and others aware of the subtle sexism that persists (sometimes unwittingly) in our daily actions and BE THE CHANGE. But then I’ve been told I’m not a woman who faces this everyday so perhaps it’s best not to shout impassioned inanities from an armchair.

That’s the final nail in the coffin. You won’t let us be near you. You won’t let us be with you. What the fuck do you want us to do? Shrivel up and end our lives? NO! Today, we must pledge to take our manhood back in the name of all that’s normal, acceptable within a patriarchal society and held sacred by mildly sexist religious texts. Today, we pledge to be men once again, proud of our natural (but suitably constrained depending on social situation) urges and physical strength bestowed upon us that’s regrettably useless when birthing a child.

What the world needs more of is Menism. Who’s with me?

Uhh…..Hello?

We use words like motherfucker and bhenchod to convey our frustration and displeasure. Today, these are used as a generic reflex, but just like a persistent rumor they started with truth at their core – that invoking the women in our lives is bound to hurt more than anything else. That’s because we value them more than anything else. The women in our lives, that is. A sentiment so inherently possessive it automatically excludes every other woman. But it’s not as if they’re pariahs in our eyes either. We shower a lot of attention, mostly unwanted. On street corners, in buses, outside your homes, even inside your homes. We seek you out like feral beasts, senses on high alert for a whiff of your perfume, the faintest sound of your laughter, a glimpse of your body – covered in rags or riches – we don’t discriminate.

We make virtually every street unwalkable with a constant shower of attention, like a hailstorm of knife-shaped icicles. Ubiquitous, unforgiving. Who says you’re not important to us?

We don’t just seek companionship from you, we have loutish friends for that. We don’t just seek attention from you, we have facebook for that. We don’t just seek love from you, we have indulgent mothers for that. We want everything that is you. Literally everything. We want to own you, possess you. Who says you’re not important?

(We worship the feminine everyday, celebrate goddesses and pray to them for wisdom and wealth. Perhaps we should’ve created a goddess of irony.)

And yet, there are the meek among us, who are sleepless at the mere glimpse of you casually tying your hair or carelessly flicking it over your shoulder. Those of us who turn to stone as you approach within a mile. Tongue-tied, heart racing as you pass by, paralyzed with wonder as you speak, marveling at the way your mouth moves, wondering if there’s a nice word for us in there somewhere. To acknowledge with a sense of finality that there’s nothing else in the world that moves like you do. There are those among us who will take the time to woo you, because it’s important to us that you say yes. Because we don’t like to feel like thieves. There are those among us speechless at your ability to rend your bodies to create life and then go about your own as if nothing happened. Except, we know what you sacrificed so we could run around the world proudly proclaiming our right to bestow a surname on one more human being. There are also those among us who don’t think any less of a woman who has chosen to nurture her aspirations instead of a human being.

We celebrate you everyday, for better or worse. (I admit, mostly worse.)

I want to tell you what I really, really want this Women’s Day. An equilibrium. I want to be able to tell you that you look good without being judged for my motives. I want to be able to call you a shitty, rotten person because you’re a shitty, rotten person, not because you’re a woman. I don’t want to grudge your professional success because you’re a woman, but acknowledge it because you’re good at what you do. I want your company because I’m worthy of it, not because I’m entitled to it. I want to make you feel secure about sharing the same space as me. I don’t want you to sit in your own train compartment or do business with a bank only meant for you. Or live a day meant only for you.

Someday, this will be just another day.

Happy Valentine’s.

Shah Rukh Khan is first and foremost an entertainer. Even when he is pushed into uncomfortable situations, his first instinct is to showboat and display his characteristic brash nonchalance. So it was a pleasant surprise to read his piece in Outlook magazine that addressed questions around his religious identity and what it meant to be a Khan – not the powerful name associated with the hit-makers of Indian cinema, but the religious connotations of being a Khan. He is proud of his Islamic heritage. He explains how his father instilled in him the core tenets of his religion – “respect women and children and to uphold the dignity of every human being.” He also noted how he’s an easy target for politicians who use him as a symbol of everything that’s purportedly wrong with India’s Muslims. The backlash to the article was notable in its speed and ridiculousness. In a breathless, myopic article, Venky Vembu excoriated SRK and questioned his motives. If one looks beyond the alleged publicity Shah Rukh’s piece sought, there’s a deeper issue he’s dealing with; that of defining national identity through religion. What’s sad about the Shah Rukh affair is that he even felt the need to defend himself.

To paraphrase Mr Vembu’s misdirected critique, why would a superstar who has cultivated the adulation of a vast swathe of India cutting across caste and religion then jeopardise that relationship by implying victimisation as the member of a minority?

I live in the United States and often get asked how Indians deal with their cultural and religious diversity. These days, I’m not sure how to answer that question. A quick glance at the news indicates a plethora of outrage because of troublemakers claiming to represent the best interests of their ‘communities’, that almost always happen to be defined along religious, regional or ethnic lines.

Consider for example, the recent controversy surrounding Kamal Haasan’s Vishwaroopam. A ridiculous chain of events led to a delay in its release in Tamil Nadu. First, the Hindu Makkal Katchi demanded the title be changed from Sanskrit to Tamil, and then a Muslim group demanded a ban on the movie claiming its depiction of Muslims ‘will’ hurt their sentiments — without seeing the movie, they merely speculated, based on its plot. After the government halted its release, Haasan eventually agreed to make cuts to the movie and even moved the Madras High Court, which has finally authorised its release. Although the core issue in this case was the suppression of Kamal’s right of expression, it was also disturbing how effectively he could be muzzled by attaching the issue to the sensibilities of a religion or community. Similarly, Mani Ratnam’s Kadal has run into trouble with Christian groups claiming the content of the movie is anti-Christian.

A marketer’s task is to divide people along socio-economic and cultural lines, target the most lucrative segment, bombard it consistently with symbols representing the product, make it relevant to their interests and win them over. This is exactly what ‘leaders’ like Raj Thackeray do. His harangue against “North Indians” and ‘Biharis’ serves to reinforce the misconception that the indigenous Maharashtrian’s identity and livelihood are at risk. This message is reinforced with bombastic imagery conjuring up the past glory of Maratha rulers. The Shiv Sena and its breakaway factions have been utilising this regionalism plank for over a decade, but thankfully in the last twenty years have come to power only once in Maharashtra.

The last time we allowed our insecurities about identity to get the better of us, the British landed a parting shot with the insidious two-nation theory. Their reinforcement of communal stereotypes resulted in the bloody consequences of the Partition and the creation of Pakistan. Despite the constant endeavor of its most sensible citizens to strive for true democracy and equality, today Pakistan reels under the influence of fundamentalist elements. It’s a society torn between citizens aspiring to a life of peace and opportunity, and a fundamentalist-military complex intent on establishing the most rigid tenets of Islam. Minorities are victimised with charges of blasphemy; free speech is suppressed so that the fundamentalist narrative isn’t disturbed.

There are lessons to learn from Pakistan. When Indian authorities pander to the whims of regions and religions, they render grave disservice to India’s identity. We are a nation that boasts of an active and aware civil society, increasing urbanisation, vibrant businesses and greater economic opportunity. This is despite the fact that we are projected to remain a country with low mobility, driven by rigid rural divisions along caste, and poor infrastructure development. In addition, we are battling ingrained misogyny, sexism, skewed gender ratios, corruption, nepotism and sexual violence against women. Do we really need to trivialise this struggle by providing primacy to the feelings and sentiments of a twisted few intent on exploiting the situation for personal gain?

Our nation’s symbols serve to remind us of our shared heritage. Shared — not individually partitioned and rabidly defended heritage. We derive our identity from this pride in our diversity. Let us not throw away this advantage by validating the crazed rants of the lunatic fringe.

“Isn’t this a nice date?”

A faint vestige of a smile appeared on the woman’s cracked, gnarled face, but she continued staring at the table and said nothing. He tried again. “That car there’s so shiny. It’s like I can’t even see what’s there. Really shiny.”

Silence.

“Quite shiny”

She finally responded. “What of it?”

“Nothing, I was just showing you. They used to be less shiny, that’s all. Want me to help you with your medicines? We’d rather get it done now before our shakes get here.”

His wife nodded slowly. The man reached for the pillbox and placed a couple of tablets on the table. He took out his quota and placed it next to hers. His wife looked at the tablets and said nothing. If I’d captured that scene right there as a picture, I’d have used it as the perfect example of old age. The slow deterioration leading up to a life sustained with medicine. Helplessness. Discomfort. Pain.

The man looked at his wife’s dejected face, reached for one of the tablets and held it in the air for a split second as he mulled thoughtfully. Then he placed it a few centimeters away from its original position and turned to her

“Your move.”

This time she smiled a wide smile. He laughed too.

I don’t know exactly what they had or shared with each other, but at that moment I wanted it. I yearned for it like a petty thief. Because it was so easy to forget that such moments were to be worked for. The work is hard, the path is steep and there are moments when you feel you’re going to roll back down the hill or just fall off. There’s nothing else to do but keep looking ahead, hold her hand and walk on. You could share paradise today but it doesn’t last if you don’t work at it.

They sat there contentedly drinking their shakes, sitting close to each other. I wanted to take a picture but I let them be.

It’s our move.

It’s an ironic world that views movies as release and engorges its senses with reality television. Yet, when a movie like Zero Dark Thirty holds up a mirror, we’re so appalled we turn away and throw stones at it. It sounds silly to defend a movie but I’m fascinated by allegations that ZDT endorses torture. The controversy surrounding the movie has only gained momentum as awards season dawns on hollywood and some of the opinions about it grow more ridiculous. It’s also ironic that the people who cheered Bin Laden’s death are suddenly repulsed by a chronicle of events that got them there in the first place. The rush to pass judgment on the moral character of what is basically a faithful re-telling that takes no sides, escapes my understanding. I watched the movie yesterday and I must confess I did so as a complete fan. I view Bin Laden’s killing as my generation’s superhuman fable. A gutsy mission that exemplified a nation’s resolve and years of struggle. Not only does the movie do justice to that heroism, it also poses many uncomfortable questions about the process that got us there.

The movie opens with a water-boarding scene taking place at a purported CIA black site. Maya, the dogged protagonist chasing OBL, asks to be present during the interrogation. As the ghastly act unfolds, she cringes, but forces herself to watch. Later she justifies it as a sin permissible in the quest of greater good – that of protecting her country from terrorist threats. In another scene the suspect being tortured has spent many hours in darkness, with heavy metal blaring it him. He is dazed, has soiled himself and the indignities continue. He’s paraded with a dog collar and has to endure the humiliation of being stripped naked in front of Maya. I squirmed uncomfortably, wishing for that scene to pass quickly. It didn’t. The suspect is questioned about the date of a terror attack and blurts “Sunday”. He refuses to say more and is then shoved into a small box. As the door comes down and the interrogator yells at him to tell him the exact day of the attack, he replies “Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday…” before passing into incomprehensible and pained noises. The attack happens anyway and innocents are gunned down by AK-toting terrorists. There is defeat and frustration among the torturers. Then, Maya suggests they lie to the suspect about the attack and trick him into thinking his information helped prevent the attack. The subterfuge works and the suspect is more cooperative once he realizes his obstinacy has been meaningless.

Much of the leads in the movie are obtained through such subterfuge which involved treating the suspects as humans, not animals. Was there no information obtained through torture? Of course not. In the years of travesties like Gitmo it’s hard to believe such methods didn’t yield a legitimate clue or two. Despite these “leads”, it still took ten painstaking years to find OBL. The movie charts this path of frustration not just through the emotions of Maya but also by meticulously describing the bureaucratic setup facilitating the detention and torture of detainees – vast installations of black sites with prisoners holed up like animals. Dan, the chief interrogator is asked by Maya to assist him in another suspect’s torture. He refuses, saying that he’s heading back to Washington to wear a suit and tie and be normal. “I’ve seen too many naked men” he remarks satirically. There are cues throughout this movie that make it amply clear the perpetrators of torture were themselves conflicted by its effects, not just on suspects but also on themselves. In another scene, the CIA chief played by Mark Strong complains to a member of the President’s staff that the restrictions on detainee interrogation put in place by Obama are hampering efforts to locate OBL. This New Yorker article uses that scene to prove the movie endorses torture but cleverly leaves out the next sentence in the dialogue. The advisor replies “You’ll find a way”. And they do. With scenes reminiscent of sleuth movies and clue-collecting and by not waterboarding prisoners or perpetrating indignities on them. A clandestine group locates Bin Laden’s courier through months of tracking his cellphone, not by kidnapping and torturing random suspects in Peshawar or Karachi. It’s real detective work and none of the moral ambiguity.

As the thrilling thirty-odd minute assault scene concludes, Maya identifies her nemesis lying dead on a stretcher at Jalalabad air force base. There’s an indescribable emptiness in that scene. Later, as she’s boarding a plane to go back home, the pilot asks her where she wants to go. Maya cries. It’s probably at that moment she realizes there’s ambiguity even in her goal. Did she destroy so many lives through torture so she may protect Americans or because she wanted revenge? Was it all worth it? There’s a price to be paid for every success but at some point we need to ask ourselves if it’s too high. It’s the same theme Kathryn Bigelow explored in The Hurt Locker.

You cannot defend an ideal of justice and liberty by denying it to people who threaten it. Zero Dark Thirty is a movie with the courage to celebrate the fall of a country’s enemy and question the validity of the process that got them there. For this reason it’s a movie worth watching.