Varun P- Movie Name: Kadvi Hawa
- Director: Nila Madhab Panda
- Run Time: 1h 40m
- Year of Release: 2017
- Our Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐(4 stars)
A teacher in a class questions his students, “How many seasons are there in a year?”
All students expect one “fourrrrrr”.
One student answered, “There are only two seasons, sir, Summer and Winter,” and “Rains hardly come in our part of the world.”
An innocent and at the same time poignant scene in the film that explicitly describes the context on which the Kadvi Hawa movie is based: Climate Change and its consequences.
The Hindi movie Kadvi Hawa is a poignant tale about the impact of fluctuating weather patterns triggered by climate catastrophes on people at the bottom of the economic pyramid.
A large part of the Indian population depends heavily on farming to make ends meet. Unfortunately, agriculture relies primarily on rainfall and monsoons, making it vulnerable to climate change.
Kadvi Hawa, set in the dusty landscape of the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, a northern state of India, subtly emphasises this pertinent issue of our times without being preachy and loud.
The story revolves around a blind father, played by Sanjay Mishra, who is concerned about a bank loan his son has taken. Due to the lack of rainfall and agricultural income, he is worried about how his son can repay the bank loan.
The fear is compounded by the fact that there is distress among other farmers in the village, some of whom have committed suicide, primarily due to bank pressure.
The bank in the movie is represented by a loan recovery officer, Ganu Babu, played by Ranvir Shorey. Ganu Babu hails from Odisha and has been living alone as the bank pays a higher commission to recover the loan in this region.
In the initial scenes, Ranvir Shorey is categorised as a villain in the story, even as villagers call him the “God of Death”, highlighting his role in causing loan defaulters to commit suicide.
As the story unfolds, it shows how the perpetrator is a victim himself: a victim of not bureaucracy but of climate change.
The audience feels helpless in search of a party to sympathise with by holding a gun to the head of the villain, which underscores the misery of climate change: it affects everyone, but some are affected more than others. It is tough to single out.
In the second half of the film, Sanjay Mishra hatches a plan with Ranvir Shorey’s character to pass along secret information about people who can make repayments.
Through some twists and turns in the story and intense acting by these two central characters, Kadvi Hawa keeps the audience’s attention till the end.
The movie also features a song, ‘Main Banjar, Main Banjar,’ that addresses climate-induced dryness.
Directed by Nila Madhab Panda, Kadvi Hawa (Bitter Air) is a captivating tale about an issue rarely discussed in Hindi cinema. Just as with climate change, the looming fear of it pervades the movie without explicit apocalyptic disasters, yet it horrifies the audience to the core.
You can watch the movie Kadvi Hawa on Zee5; here is the trailer:
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