Cinema is
not merely a pictorial, mobile narration of a theme, but also a medium through
what a society expresses itself about the changing time that it goes through.
The film “Bombay Talkies” is one such initiative where four film makers (Karan
Johar, Deewakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar and Anurag Kashyap) commemorating 100
years of Indian cinema try to tell a story of various strata of Indian
society and its never ending relationship with Bollywood films. The movie is a
compilation of four short films coming from four different social class of the
country. Each short film focuses on the ultimate quest of the characters of
discovering their own identity and desire to live life on one’s own term and
fighting with the world that they find themselves in.
The first
short film, directed by Johar, shows the life of a young homosexual man, played
by Saqib Saleem, being disowned by his parents, is hunting for love and
recognition in the outside world where he comes in contact with a fellow senior
colleague, played by Rani Mukherjee, in a media company and later her
husband, Randeep Huda. The story ends when she gets to know about the hidden
sexual orientation of her husband, and she decides to get out of that relationship.
The director tried to shed light on a fact that how modern, educated, upper
middle class men, women are trying to live life on their own term. The film
indicates that that urban class is moving towards individualistic style of
living on the detriment of traditional, social norms of respecting relationship
emanating from marriage and family.
The
second short film, directed by Deevakar Banerjee, is a story of a chawl man,
played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui. As
Banerjee tells a story of a father who
wants to tell a new story to his daughter every evening; and the second passion
that he carries in his mind is to be recognized as an actor. This story ends at
a point where after playing a very small role in a film, he hurries to his
place to tell the story about that role to his daughter. This story
underlines a fact that in India the desire of being an actor in Bollywood gets
nurtured in every mind, be it a man living in a chawl or in a chateau.
The third
story, directed by Zoya Akhtar is a tale of a young boy who dreams to become a
dancer like Katrina Kaif and to become famous. But he was constantly
discouraged by his father who wants him to choose a mainstream boyish carrier
which can make him feel proud of his son. Despite all that discouragement, the
little boy keeps nurturing his desire with the help of his sister. And finally,
he got his moment when he manages to partially fulfills his dream by giving a
dance performance in front of his neighbors and friends.
The last
story, directed by Anurag Kashyap, is about a young man from a small town of
Uttar-Pradesh who, according to the wish of his sick father, travels to Mumbai
to meet the iconic star, Amitabh Bachhan, and to offer him a half piece of
“murabba” (Indian sweet jam pickle ). The father believed that by tasting that
remaining half piece of sweet pickle, he would get well soon, and would even
live longer. The entire narration revolves around the struggle that the son
goes through in order to meet the actor, and finally he meets his target.
Out of
the four directors, Johar turned out to be a confused one who is not able to
tell his story clearly probably the kind of films that he makes largely deal
with high society family drama where dance, songs and beautiful faces and high
sounding background music fill the gap of any directorial fault. He has
given a grey shed to both of his male protagonists who are delinquent in their
behavior, whereas the female protagonist, played by Rani Mukharjee, is shown as
a woman who wants more love out of her relationship . The want of that love
made her a woman who extracts pleasure by seeking attention from every male
colleague who works in her office. Johar could have told the story without
using any star in the film. Deevakar Banerjee has narrated the pain of a failed
dreamer and struggling father in a rather convincing way. Zoya Akhtar has
succeeded in showing the child emotion driven by ambition, but she needs to
delve deeper into the behavioral style of a lower middle class family which as
it appears in the film seems to be missing in her craft. Whereas the last story
told by Kashyap goes well with Indian mind as we live in a society where a
super star is regarded as nothing but a God. He knows how to make a character
look like someone coming from Uttar-Pradesh, Bihar, but the way those
characters are made to react to any situation appears to be unrealistic on
screen.
Except
the first one, all the three stories show the influence that Bollywood has on
the Indian minds, and how it offers a mean to dream to every aspiring singer,
dancer and actor irrespective of their social class and geographical placement.
In that sense Bollywood is a mirror of Indian society where one can see all the
colours in its full diversity. But we must realize that most of films that come
out of the industry hardly show the dream of an ordinary Indian, it portrays
the character of either a high class society or of an underprivileged one who
struggles with daily injustice committed on him by the system. In showing that
high upper and deep lower, the people remaining on the middle level do not get
any voice. That unheard voice of the huge middle-class India hardly find any
place in the mainstream cinema of Bollywood. Considering that fact “Mumbai
Talkies” is a welcome start from a group of known filmmakers who want to tell
story in a new way with seemingly realistic middle class characters
without taking any help of dance and songs.
