Rhyme-N-Reels

Raas-Leela

The colours and vibrance have inspired me to return to my blog, after a long time. It is clichéd, but time constraint these days hardly force me to a theatre, and I am left with no time to pen down whatever thoughts cross my mind. In that way I should be thankful to Sanjay Leela Bhansali, whose contemporary take on Romeo and Juliet, woven within a  lavish canvas made me write after a sabbatical.

I remember someday in November 2010, when Guzaarish released, and I had rushed to watch it on the first day itself. I wanted to write on the film, but I came up with a very ordinary verse as a tribute to the poetry on screen by the director. And as I think of writing my views on his latest offering titled Goliyon Ka Raasleela Ram-Leela, I think I should revert to that genre of a verse expressing my opinions.

Trash is my verse, not so the film,
A flight of fantasy to an unknown realm,
Praises and blame, Bhansali considers not,
For souls and bodies together are wrought
in a play of passion, lovely and bright,
Bhansali returns to prove his might!

“What's in a name? …a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet;”

In Bhansali’s Goliyon Ka Raasleela, our Montague and Capulet find retreat.

Gulab ko pulao bulate to kha jate kya?

Our Bard finds an equivalent in Ram-Leela.

From a grayish palette to a canvas so bright,

Bhansali’s time finally seems right

for a release that’s long awaited post his last,

He excels in story-telling, in his choice of cast.

Gender discourse, instincts and lust,

This retelling of Ishaqzaade, however, is a must.

Passion breathing forth from the beginning of the story

The gunshots, the conflict, the blood and gory,

Passion blooming in the remote village of the West,

In the lip-locks galore, the performers at their best!

Amidst two sects involved in war,

Come two souls to take you far

from the clichéd directors who shy away from sin,

Bhansali here is the genie, he himself is Aladin.

Soaked in red, blue, green, and in yellow,

Coloured is the vision, the content not mellow.

A veteran in Supriya, a ‘killer’ in her look,

She smites, she surprises and excels in her attitude.

Devaiah, Richa, Abhimanyu amaze,

Piercing is Sharad and Barkha’s gaze.

Dare we not praise the majestic queen, a talent so bright?

Undisputed lady with her moves and emotions delight,

Chiseled and versatile Ranveer complements Deepika’s part,

From balcony to bed, till passion rips them apart,

Dejected and doomed, in the hands of fate,

In death they unite, ends their search for a soul-mate.

The story, the plot, and the issues not so novel,

It’s the vision and the valor where the director excels.

He scores the music, harmonious and loud,

Aditi Paul and Shreya’s renditions make us so proud,

So does Aditya, the Narayan son,

The credit song, must say, is a full-on

foot-tapping choice, Osman Mir, ah! What a wondrous voice!

Choreographed by many, and executed by two,

The best in recent times, you agree? For I do!

What falters is a second-half not so tight,

Breath-taking moments rendered light,

Less convincing, action and counter-action follow,

Twists and turns, the editing, a bit hollow!
To add to the hues, is PC's aankh maaro toh pyaar,
She buttons, and sets fire in her new avatar!

Whatever are the views, whatever people say,

At least for once, make your way

To celebrate colours, to indulge in romance,

Give yourself a chance to sing and dance.

Let November be a rhapsody of passion and lust,

Let not this panorama dwindle away in dust,

Let Shakespeare be re-lived amidst the power play,

Let Bhansali bring the tinsel town under his sway.

For me, am truthful to the world of trash,

To the world of songs, party and bash,

To those disturbed at my allegiance to Bollywood,

I apologize, if I appear a little rude

to the grey cells here and there with polished aesthetic view,

And in case you like my verse, is a smile and “Thank You!”

Dil Wala Filim!

Bombay Dreams

“I want to become a pilot” confesses the kid, while his sister looks at him in wonder, fathoming the extent of a lie that he needs to take refuge in, to escape the wrath of an angry father! Ironically, he wants to be “Sheila”, and dance to glory, defying his male-status and plainly refusing to indulge in football, or sports. Zoya Akhtar’s story is the germ of defiance that the anthology celebrates. Here, perhaps is the celebration of deviants, the other side of manliness in the figures of fathers, sons, husbands and singles, that the four short films try to establish within 128 minutes. Again, the anthology is a fight for the directors who leave behind their comfortable zones, and reinforces faith in good cinema, in good Hindi cinema, almost ominously!

The magic begins with Karan Johar. The man behind big budgets, designer clothes and bigger names, with no less than 210-minute directorial ventures, churns his grey cells to carve out a brilliant self, so unknown to the world of cine-goers who still dance to Mahi ve or Radha teri chunri! A revelation in himself, he begins his story with a jolt: a son in his most furious self dashes against his father claiming his homosexuality; mind it, not a “chhakka” but a homosexual. Angst of the characters, the fury within the masked selves of normalcy and the lives living a “lie” (yes, jhoot bolna boori baat hain!) are the hallmarks of Johar here. Complimenting the eloquent silence of Avinash (an adorable and prudent Saqib Saleem) and a layered Randeep Hooda on the railway footbridge is the child singing  Lag jaa gale (Who Kaun Thi?) and one wonders, yes lagja gale…shaayad is janam mein mulakat ho na ho. Ah! Courage my friend, have the courage to steal the moment and live it earnestly! What an idea sir ji, what ethereal moment of proposal! 

There’s violence between the two men. Violence that our society still engages in, as the eternal debate of “come in”/ “come out” continues regarding sexuality. And then there is the woman in her “Dirty Picture” attire who wears “mangal sutra” on her neck and nurtures “kama sutra” in her eyes! Rani Mukherjee is a show-stealer here caught between “happy and gay”, in a conflict between a successful husband and a bisexual-liar, caught between trajectories of truth and lies. The age adding to her beauty and performance, she stands for liberation, freedom from bondage, leaving the men residing in their world of sublime silence and sexuality. Johar, thank you; if there’s a Chitrangada: The Crowning Wish, there will always be your story in our hearts. Surely, Ajeeb daastan hain yeh, kahan shuru kahan khatam. And just for the confrontation scene between the husband and the wife which is aided by the song mubarakein tumhe ki tum, kiseke noor ho gaye, kisike itne paas ho, ke sabse door ho gaye, Johar blissfully becomes the noor for his audience.

As the first film meanders in our thoughts, there is a ten-second fade out (that happens after each story though) leaving the audience in ecstasy. What follows is the brilliant Dibakar Banerjee’s tribute to Ray (Potol Babu: Film Star) and his acute Bangaliana. Incorporating minimalistic use of characters, the story focuses on Nawazuddin Siddique’s one-minute claim to be an actor sharing space with Ranbir Kapoor. The man who mops floors after getting up from bed and feeding Anjali, the emu bird, shares the floor with the star for a moment. Yet, he forgoes his payment only to mime the reminiscences of the day to a bed-ridden daughter who has earlier refused to hear the same old stories of Hrithik Roshan and Om Shanti Om. As she stares at her father’s mime act, we wonder what a piece of work is our director! Tagore plays behind through the tunes of Tobu Mone Rekho, Siddique’s meeting with the dead father (Sadashiv Amrapurkar) and his wife’s words of encouragement that no one can turn him down, work for the story. Joycean in his epiphanic revelations, Ray stamps in the narrative and Tagore in the background are accentuated with the artistic flamboyance of Siddique, Banerjee’s story is an intensely woven narrative within the refreshing format of the anthology.

The failed entrepreneur rises from his ashes to emerge as a doting father. The world surely is in its own place, the film fades out with a shot of the father narrating his day’s events and a neighbour woman in the same chawl in her room, with no stories to tell today. Everyone will come up with a story and a revelation soon, awaiting a moment of realization.

Post-intermission begins Zoya Akhtar’s mastery. Reminding strongly of Sudipto Chattopadhyay’s Paankh, Akhtar’s story treats child psycho-sexuality like never before. For a boy, a father will always want him to be a football or a cricket player. And imagine him robed in his sister’s clothes, wearing his mother’s lipstick and exhibiting his dancing skills to her while in the background Raat hain, jam hain aur hain nasha plays. Yes, Akhtar’s film is a naasha of a sort; a desire to choose, and sometimes keeping the desire behind the veils, nurturing the dreams deep inside, while putting a mask to please the people around, playing football perhaps. There’s intoxication as the little boy (marvelous Naman Jain) watches the girls train themselves at dance, there’s magic when he finds his guardian-angel Katrina Kaif voicing a diktat to keep his dreams going, there’s fun when his sister wants to be a ‘passenger’ instead of being an air-hostess to see the world, and there’s truth when he wants to be a pilot, flying through the turbulent clouds of societal norms, into a world of dance and music! The magical moment is when he asks why, what’s wrong in being a girl? The sheer innocence and the realm of depth that this boy portrays is a moment of finesse. Akhtar surely knows Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, and the last frame where this boy dances to Sheila Ki Jawani, we pray that he lives to fulfill a dream. Half the life, we fulfill the dreams of our parents, we just pray that he does not fall a victim to the wrath of a father who spends two thousand rupees on his football coaching classes, and fails to send her daughter on a history trip, who can afford to nurture a futile dream for his ‘son’, and buys a consolation gift, a Kaif doll to please his daughter! Vicky (Naman Jain) in his glorious performance reminds me of Dedalus: “When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets”, and the story ushers in an epoch of a progressive cinema and a language hitherto uncovered. Tere haath kabhi na aani, is what Vicky’s predicament will be!

Last in the tribute is Anurag Kashyap, and unfortunately, his story remains somewhat half-eaten, just like the Murabba. There’s a sense of drudgery and repetitive moments adding to the vivid waiting of Vijay (Vineet Kumar) outside Big B’s home, but it gets tiresome after a while. But such a tiring wait is life after all! Contrary to the stern father-figure in Akhtar’s narrative, is a humane father here; Sudhir Pandey mimicking Dilip Kumar is an amazing act to watch out for. What this man wants is a bite of the murabba from Amitabh Bachchan, and what follows is his naïve son moving to the city of dreams, leaving no stone unturned to get his father’s wish come true. It does. But is that the end? Well, there’s more to it, and the fun is better revealed at the theatres than this writing here. Kashyap’s is the icing on the cake!

Hero-worship is the driving force to all the cinema lovers. The story builds up this narrative only to realize how facts differ from fiction, how real and reel are the two poles. There’s a sense of mystery, there’s innocence, and then there’s truth. Kashyap’s is a blend of fun and pathos, and becomes a befitting dénouement to the ongoing collage of emotions dedicated to the likes of us who have been brought up on Hindi films, a slice of songs, dances, fights and emotions just like the murabba.

100 years of Indian Cinema. That’s the reason why the four crafted story-tellers weave their dreams together. There is every reason to like the film in its entirety. The crew definitely needs a vote of thanks for creating an almost perfect work of magic. But what is most interesting in the tales is the way the directors have re-defined the question of manliness. It celebrates male-dominated industry but with a pinch of salt! Ironically, it celebrates a group of deviant males, who refuse to submit to society, men who shed their masks of glorified machismo, only to re-emerge as human beings and not just catering to the masses through their “rough-tough Gold Gym” avatars! What sadly remains unexplored, rather unchanged is the portrayal of women. 100 years, and still there are docile, uncomplaining, submissive mothers, a very affectionate and understanding sister, and an unquestioning wife. Besides Johar’s story, no other story captures feminine intricacies. A strategy perhaps, or a liberty on the part of the directors to satirize the patriarchal world, and as for the chick-world, we have to wait for a Gippi perhaps.

Bombay Talkies is the “dhakka” film that so effortlessly creates ripples inside us, it is as sweet as the murabba whose taste lingers long after one has left the theatre, it is that dream that every director wants to transform into reality and every sensible viewer nurtures, and finally it is the passion for cinema, passion as powerful as the lip-lock! 

Thank you Bollywood! There’s no life without Hindi films. Bombay Talkies is a re-affirmation of my dogged devotion. I AM ALIVE!

Picture Courtesy: Wikipedia

A Refreshing Change in Taste!

There’s a spark. A spark at the point of intersection of two streams of urinating men. There’s a gross visual of katakuti khela as these men urinate, vernacular verbal abuses galore and lo, the spark is electrifying enough to exchange their souls!

A still from Hawa Bodol

Prambrata Chattopadhyay’s second directorial venture (after a disastrous Jiyo Kaka) is a harmless comedy of errors. A corporate ‘rascal’ Satrajit (Parambrata) dons jackets and suits, drives an expensive car, nurtures an always ‘angry’ wife Tanuka (Raima Sen) who is stricter than a nurse in a primary school, and fathers a cute kid Tojo (a marvellous Kabir Bhattacharya). An otherwise well-settled epitome of an upper class Bong family, no one knows how he craves for more drinks and freedom until he meets his childhood friend Rajarshi (Rudranil Ghosh). A foil to sophisticated Satrajit, Rajarshi is a Casanova, an upcoming musician, who thrives on drinks, hash and his sharp wit.  And then at a fatal moment when the two return to their golden memories at the saheb para on a deserted road, cursing their own lives and praying if they could exchange the shoes, things get upturned; and the next morning arrives with their wish being granted, and then begins the story of living another man’s life.

Reminding you of the latest advertisement of exchanging phones, Parambrata employs an interesting idea to cater to his audience. What follows is a series of events as they try to cope with their new lives, new people and new avenues. Even the director’s take on old age and parents is also treated effectively as the film proceeds. Flourishing in the entire screenplay is Rudranil’s one-liners, tailor-made for the applauses in the theatre. The film thrives on the interactions between the two wonderful actors, and the supporting cast which include Sudipa Basu, Kamalika and Kaushik Ganguly (after his brilliant elder brother portrayal in Aborto). In the female leads, if they are to be so called, Raima Sen in her limited screen presence is good, and so is Neha Panda.

The film is basically a ‘guy’ film, an aftermath of our Western counterparts like Hangover. An alcoholic man bent on mischief and a henpecked husband exemplify the notions of a buddy film, apart from reasserting gender stereotypes. However, the real assets of the film remain its novelty and the performances. Indradeep Dasgupta’s music is average, although Sahana Bajpayee and Saptarshi Mukherjee’s rendition of Mor bhabonare uplifts the film just before the intermission. Supriyo Dutta’s cinematography and Sujoy Dutta Roy’s editing are worth mentioning too.

The film is not a classic, nor is it meant to be one. Yet it is a journey, an attempt to re-discover the nuances of relationships. Din kshon mapa ache for every man/woman, and however greener the grass appears on the other side, one has to bear the burden of one’s life. Hawa Bodol, almost entirely wrapped in comic essence, tells a story of commoners and the desires they nourish, undergoing a transformation only to realize the contrary. One time watch, but Hawa Bodol definitely calls for a change in the taste of the cine-goers.