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| Bombay Dreams |
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
