At last, we get the real Karan Johar. Constrained only by
time and not by seven figure ROI concerns, Johar finds his voice. Sure, there
are flaws. Take the openly gay Avinash (Saquib Salim). He is refreshingly
different in some respects. He isn’t effeminate. He doesn’t want to be tagged
by his surname. “Avinash what?” , his
boss enquires. “It’s the what that
screws things up”, he responds. And yet, so often does he flash his
sexuality-badge that it overshadows his other selves. In effect, he has simply swapped surnames,
not shunned them. He might as well go by “Avinash Gay”. Also, maverick
irreverence is all very well, but an openly gay man who relentlessly hits upon
his love-interest with scant regard for time and place simply reinforces the
“despo” stereotype. This is a recurring theme in Johar’s minority characters (Kurbaan’s Muslims come to mind); they come
across more as projections on a single, defining axis rather than as multi-dimensional
characters.
That being said, Johar’s film is richly layered elsewhere. The
hollowed out marriage between Gayatri (Rani Mukherjee) and Dev (Randeep Hooda,
outstanding) and Dev’s trapped, tormented sexuality are handled with an adult
sensibility that is rare in Hindi cinema. The looks that Gayatri and Dev give
each other convey a mutual exasperation beyond repair. In interviews, Johar has
often expressed his dissatisfaction with marriage as an institution; he at last
puts his movie where his mouth is.
Cinema isn’t central to Johar’s
plot, the way it is to the other three. And yet, it circles Johar’s film in
interesting ways. Gayatri’s last line, “I hate lies” is loaded with irony given
that she edits a film tabloid. And it is the street urchin’s rendition of a
film song that finally forces Dev to come to terms with himself. Johar finds new meaning in “kisii ke itne paas ho, k Khud se duur ho
gaye”. Above all, he seems to remind
us that we cannot dismiss cinema as lies; its truths can often expose us to the
lies we live.
For a variety of reasons, Dibakar Banerjee’s segment is the
finest of the four. First, by choosing to base his film on a Satyajit Ray short
story, Banerjee reminds us of the huge Bengali influence on Hindi cinema. Second,
the story revolves around an ordinary man’s (literal) brush with stardom. He is
the protagonist, not the star. Purandar (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) doesn’t have much
going for him. He’s looking for a job (but has entrepreneurial ambitions based on
eggs from a pet emu he keeps) and some dignity, eager to shine in the eyes of
his wife and sick daughter. By happy accident, he’s chosen to appear – ever so
fleetingly - in a movie. All he has to do is bump into the hero, exclaim “aye!”
and walk out of the frame. But for Purandar, this is his to be or not to be
moment.
In the pivotal scene
where Purandar rehearses for his big moment, Banerjee pays homage to theatre (Kusumagraj’s
Natasamrat). Facing his Hamlet-like
existential dilemma, Purandar is visited by an apparition (Sadashiv Amrapurkar)
of his father figure (a la Paresh Rawal in Oye,
Lucky!). He must now face his failings and his ambitions (represented by the
emu mulling about). Purandar’s memorable cameo in the movie-within-the-movie is
not only an ode to an everyman’s resilience, it is also a bow to the countless
theatrewallas who have enriched Hindi cinema in ways that stars could not have
done.
Banerjee’s film is the only one that alludes
to the non-Hindi (Bengali and Marathi) cultural influences of Hindi cinema. It plays
out as a classic Chaplinesque tragicomedy: In his eagerness to share his moment of glory with
his daughter, Purandar forgets to collect his fees for the cameo. We know how much he needs the dough; he is too
high to care. Nawazzudin Siddiqui sinks his teeth deep into the part, using
body language and dialogue delivery to perfection. This one makes you smile,
cry, feel and think. What more could you ask for?
Zoya Akhtar’s tale is less ambitious but equally heart-warming.
A brother and sister help each other fulfil their little dreams, outsmarting
their simple-minded father. The little guy (Naman Jain, delight to watch) wants
to grow up to be Sheela (she, of Sheela
kii jawaanii) and dresses himself up in his sister’s clothes and mother’s
makeup, earning a slap from his father. Akhtar’s silent scenes capture the pain
of a childhood dream denied, as when the dance instructor shoos the little hanger-on
away.
Anurag Kashyap’s short has its strong flavors, but is
overcooked in parts. A young man, Vijay (Vineet Kumar Singh) from the dusty
hinterland is seeking an audience with Amitabh Bachchan for his sick father’s
sake. Kashyap’s greatest success lies in mapping out the huge distance between
a star and his worshipper. How inaccessible Amitabh is to a man who has a lot
in common with the star (his looks, his hometown and his most famous screen
name)! Alas, Kashyap overshoots too
often. The opening pee-jokes seem forced, a self-conscious peddling of brand-Kashyap
bawdiness. Still, with notable help from
Vineet Kumar Singh, he makes our heart go out to the “outsiders” eking out a
living in Mumbai.
The coda, “apnaa
Bombay Talkies”, with a battery of stars obliging us with their presence in
a lazily written and composed track is jarringly out of character for a film
that looks at cinema from our
perspective. And the merrily penned title track (Swanand Kirkire, I guess?) “yeh khilaaRi nah buuRhaa huwaa” is anyway a hard act to follow. Blame this one
on the promo designers.
It’s interesting that a common thread running through the
four films is fathers disappointed in their children. Consciously or not, these
four children of Hindi cinema have given us their takes on the generational
shifts that have characterized Hindi cinema – each generation of filmmakers imbibing
and rejecting various traits of the previous one. Vive l'evolution!
