Film Review: Bittoo Boss

By Sadho Ram

Starring: Pulkit Samrat & Amita Pathak | Written & Directed by: Supavitra Babul

Music: Raghav Sachar

It seems as if half-baked stories, uninspired attempts, and poor executions have become the trademarks of films that Bollywood dish out every week.

Bittoo Boss is no different. Predictable. Slow. A half-baked story, poorly narrated, bundled with immature acting and some very lame dialogues. There is nothing to take away from Bittoo Boss, except the fact that whatever may have been the intention of Supavitra Babul, it was good, trying to touch the subject of blue films of innocent, unsuspecting couples on their honeymoon is never easy. Such subjects require some very authentic approach and well-crafted execution, which writer/director Supavitra Babul not only just fails to deliver but also fails to invoke any major emotional reaction.

Bittoo Boss, played by newcomer Pulkit Samrat, is a story of Bittoo videographer, who shoots videos at weddings and parties. He is the star of a small town called Anandpur Sahib in Punjab, where without his video service no wedding is possible. This Bittoo is but more than just a videographer, he is a dreamer, who captures dreams through his camera. He believes in spreading smile in everyone's face, which he does through his video service. He dreams of making it big one day. But destiny has something else in store for him. He falls in love with an educated and strong-headed girl, who believes that money is what makes a person respectable in society. Bittoo, being a righteous cameraman, who refuses to shoot sleazy videos of couples, thinks it otherwise. He loves her but cannot accept her version of world, she cares about him but thinks nothing of him. They part ways even before their story began. But Bittoo now hurt in love, wants to make money anyhow and agrees to shoot "honeymoon" videos of couples. He packs his bag and heads to Shimla, "desh ki aadhi aabaadi ka beej toh yahin dalta hai", as proclaimed by the cab driver he meets on his way.

What follows next is two separate short stories of two couples, one college couple and one newly wed. These two short stories are the only attempt worth praising in Bittoo Boss. The actions of these two couples on screen evokes reactions, at times even making the connect which Bittoo Boss and its lead couples as whole fails to make at any point of time. There is no visible chemistry between the lead pairs of Bittoo Boss, nor is there any strong scene between them. In fact, at the end of the film, I realised that the role of Amita Pathak as Mrinalini was not only unnecessary but also forced. Had the film been centred around the vital subject that it slightly tries to touch, it would have been a well attempted effort.

The songs are there, as they are in any other Bollywood bandwagon, serving little purpose but still there just to fill in the blanks. Bittoo Boss has its share of happy, sad and peppy songs, although not a single track manages to stand out. Just chaos.

Last words, Bittoo Boss is a film made with good intention but with very, very bad execution. There is no continuity of shots in it, nor is there any amount of consistency in the story that it tries to tell. It fails in part, it fails in whole, in short, Bittoo Boss is just another fizzled floss.

Skip it. Go watch a video of any family member's or friend's wedding instead.

HOUSEFULL 2: The Dorky Dozen

By Sadho Ram

(Un)direction: Sajid Khan | (Un)screenplay: Tushar Hiranandani, Sajid-Farhad

(Un)music: Sajid-Wajid

Nothing fascinates me in a film (regardless of the genre) more than that rare combination of a well-told story with finely crafted characters. A craft which, although seems to be flourishing and gaining new depths in "underground" cinema, is surely on the verge of extinction, at least in mainstream Bollywood. The Hindi film industry has gone through numerous cinematic transformations in which it has given us movies that are true gems but then it has also given us uncountable numbers of the most ridiculous movies ever made in India. The sad part is that those ridiculous movies are the ones that have become the whole idea and identity of Bollywood. Housefull 2 is one of those ridiculously cheesy films, where you don't know whether you should cringe in embarrassment or laugh at the cheesiest of dialogues that hold the stamina to even make a few rotten corpses roll in their graves.

Sample this: "Sirf bhokhne se kutta kamina nahi ho jata"

BLOOD MONEY: A Gastronomical Fart

By Sadho Ram

Starring: Kunal Khemu, Amrita Puri, Manish Choudhary, Shekher Shukla and Mia Uyeda

Direction: Vishal Mahadkar | Story: Upendra Sidhye

Music: Jeet Ganguly, Pranay, Sangeet & Sidharath Haldipur

I just recently started reviewing movies. And after reviewing some of the finest movies that I've seen in less than a month (Paan Singh Tomar, Kahaani, Machine Gun Preacher,The Visitor), I let go of Agent Vinod, because it was established from its very first trailer that Agent Vinod will become what Players could not - the father of duds for the year 2012. But then Blue told me that if I am going to review movies then I'll have to review all kinds of movies that come out, irrespective of the fact that they are good or bad. Which is right. She is right. So I decided I'll go ahead with my Blue's advice and try to review at least one movie that comes out every week.

Image Courtesy Google 

So came BLOOD MONEY, and also my chance to review it. I decided to watch it first day, first show. You know, like a crazy movie buff! So I did not sleep at night so that I can go in for an early morning show. Left house an hour early and walked for about half an hour because there was a huge traffic jam between Santacruz east and Milan Subway (that's where the Inox is), so I figured if I walk I'll not only save some money but also reach in time.

And anyways, a walk in the morning is always good for health, so I've heard.

I reached Inox before the time of the first show (10 AM), so had to wait outside for about 15 minutes, before the cinema security finally let me in. Rather then taking the elevator,  I climbed 3 stories of stairs to go up to the ticket counter to buy myself a ticket. Before printing the ticket, the girl at the counter, skeptically, asks me -

'Sir, you're the first and the only one to buy a ticket for this movie. Are you okay with that?'

I ask her what do you mean by "Are you okay with that?"

She says - 'No, it's just that nobody else has bought, so we don't know if we'll run the movie.'

'Just give me a ticket and I'll see later what happens.'

And thus I became the first person to buy the first ticket of BLOOD MONEY on the first show of the first day. Voila.

But guess what?

Just not worth it.

The half an hour of walk. The 15 minute of wait outside the theatre in the scorching sun (the temperature in Bombay is raising by the day). The 3 stories of stair climbing. And though very precious but still the least of all, my 100 rupees, which in other circumstances provides for my two meals a day.

If you're still here and reading this, then bear with me some more, because trust me, my suffering is a lot greater for being able to sit through the entire bullcrap and still come out alive than what you might be going through by reading me vomit the diarrhea that I've acquired after being exposed to the shame called BLOOD MONEY.

Here's a little bit of the plot (or should I say absence of a plot). BLOOD MONEY tells the story(?) of a simple but ambitous guy named Kunal Kadam, played by Kunal Khemu, who after winning some MBA scholarship in Bombay (India) is offered a job at a big diamond making firm in Capetown (South Africa). He is newly married to Arzoo, played by Amrita Puri, who last appeared in Aisha. Together they move into a huge house and immediately break into song & dance. After the song & dance, we see Kunal getting carried away in pursuit of his ambitions, while Arzoo, being left alone in the huge house, getting lost into oblivion. The story(?) takes a turn when Kunal discovers the real truth hiden behind the glitter of diamonds at his company, and gets entangled in the vicsious web of a mutiltude of crimes.

The question is, can he come out of it clean and stop himself from losing the only real thing that he ever earned, his love, his wife - Arzoo?

The answer is, go figure! If you have nothing else, and I mean seriously nothing else to do and about 200 bucks to throw away, then please, do not let me or my verbal diarrhea influence you and stop you from giving yourself a bullcrap treat called BLOOD MONEY.

To be precisely honest, BLOOD MONEY is the kind of Bollywoodised version of a fairy tale that falls into the category of cinema where the very lack of any purpose whatsoever of telling a story is actually to just escape it. Rather than sticking to the reality and telling it as it is,  rather than hitting the audiance with something concrete, rather than offering substance of any kind, movies such as BLOOD MONEY are just a mere egotistical fart of an ignorant director who believes that gloss & glitter are enough to fool an audience, who is so used to being taken for granted that nobody seems to care that there are limits to everything. There a limit to us for being taken for granted that we will gladly feast on the gastronomical nonsense directors such as Vishal Mahadkar throws at us once every week.

With bad music, worse background score, more badly written characters, awkward acting, pretentious dialogues and the total absence of a story, BLOOD MONEY is just gloss & glitter, which fizzles from the word go.

Therefore, I refuse to write anything more in or against this utter gibberish.

#Edited by: Rabia Mehta

Machine Gun Preacher: Fighting a Demon Within

By Sadho Ram

“If we allow ourselves to be full of hate, then they’ve won. We must not let them take our hearts.”

We are all fighting a war here. It doesn’t matter of what kind or with whom, but a war nevertheless. While everybody is busy fighting their share of war, there is however a man in this very world of ours who is fighting a war which was never his own and ironically, even after fighting it for over a decade now, it still isn’t his, but he still fights.

There is no better way to put the kind of war he is fighting except how he himself did – another man’s war.

Official poster of the film

In 2011 came a movie called Machine Gun Preacher, an action biopic about Sam Childers played by Gerard Butler, a preacher-defender of African orphans. The film tells the story of Sam Childers, a former gang biker, and his staggeringly selfless efforts to save the children of South Sudan in collaboration with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) against the massacres of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

The film is based on Childers’ memoir Another Man’s War, which it totally appears to be so, only if looked without dwelling deep into it. But there’s more to it than what connects us to it. There’s another story, almost hidden, which runs parallel to the one being told; the one about Kony’s army (RLA) killing and abducting children and forcing them to become part of it. There’s a war of a different kind, a deeply intimate one, which Childers is constantly fighting alongside the war which is not his. A war where although there are no bullets are being fired, where no one’s blood is being shed, where everything appears to be normal to the ignorant eyes, but where a tsunami is on the verge of destroying the very last bone of spirit.

Throughout the movie we see Childers, played exceptionally well by Gerard Butler, fighting with his own demons, conquering them one by one, but there still lives one demon which he is not only failing to fight with but which is also growing stronger and deeper inside him, making him vulnerable to his own faith and slowly turning him into the very thing, the very idea he is fighting.

On the surface Machine Gun Preacher is full of violence where blood is being shed and lives are being lost, where the future of Africa is lost to the barrel of guns and where its present lies scattered around, blasted away in bits and pieces. It’s a violence we are all sort of accustomed to, but Machine Gun Preacher’s real violence lies within its main protagonist Sam Childers, who slowly finds himself stranded with no faith in doing what he is doing, he fights the demon within which threatens to thwart the very good he has done. It was in that moment when the white preacher (as he is fondly addressed by the people of Africa) is paid a visit by the child who had earlier saved him from being blown up. The silence before the kid speaks in that scene allows us to connect with both of them, making us painfully aware of Childers’ state of mind and enabling us to comprehend the words that are to be preached by the child.

Machine Gun Preacher is a film made with complete passion and heart, written by Jason Keller and directed by Marc Forster, it’s a well told story with balance of both, love and war. Being a true account of a real life hero working selflessly, fighting someone else’s war, Machine Gun Preacher must be applauded for its honest effort in trying to address an issue, the tales of which are only disturbing. The entire cast has done a fabulous job; each of the character has its own voice, which reaches to us in an attempt to pull us in.

Watch it for the reasons that there are still heroes out there, outside the fictional realm of comic books and superhero movies, who are trying a make a difference in this indifferent world, who are out there saving the lives of innocents fighting who-knows whose war; heroes who haven’t given up on hope for a brighter dawn and better tomorrow.

And to those who might not see any point in the war that Sam Childers and hundreds like him are fighting, I will leave it on  Childers himself to answer…

“For me to sit here and give all kinds of excuses to make it right. I can’t do it. But what I wanna ask everyone out there, everyone that has a child, everyone that has a brother or a sister, if your child or your family member was abducted today, if a madman came in, a terrorist came in, abducted your family member, or your child, and if I said to you, “I can bring your child home, does it matter how I bring him home?”

The original Sam Childers

Watch it for what it has to offer – reality.

#Edited by Rabia Mehta

When Art becomes Life: The Visitor

By Sadho Ram

Our life is a most vibrant, continually progressing, richly overwhelming canvas in motion; a never-ending work of finest art, which keeps on getting larger and larger until its final movement, where everything stops mattering except the whole sum of life which it leaves behind in the form of that vibrant canvas which it was processing, for others to reflect on it. We may think that we are the one filling in the blank spaces of our life, but the reality is very different. It’s actually our life that is filling us, from inside and out.

Art is one such form of life, where life becomes art and art becomes life. But when art becomes life, you know how good that art is, you realise its absolute beauty and the power it holds in it. For life becoming art is one thing, but imagine the beauty, and no, not just the beauty but the quality of that grace and intellect, coupled with which, that very form of art becoming life. A transformation which can never be forced or faked, for the very reason that life can’t.

The Visitor is one such form of art which becomes life. Immaculate. Unbound. A very fine and vibrant canvas in motion with no shock value or element of surprise in it, but one which warmly opens up to you and sucks you in so comfortably that before you realise you are completely lost in its grace and beauty.

Just for the record, those who are still guessing what it is that I’m talking about, The Visitor is a 2008 American drama film written and directed by Thomas McCarthy.

The Visitor is a story of Walter Vale played  by Richard Jenkins, a widowed, Connecticut college professor of economics, living a solitary life, who fills his days by sometimes taking piano lessons, in memory of his wife, a classical concert pianist, while sporadically writing his new book in an effort to fill his empty, boring life. He is suddenly asked to present a paper at an academic conference at New York University, about which he is not keen at all and so refuses to accept the request, until he is forced to by his department head Charles, played by Michael Cumpsty.

And just like that Walter’s life changes at a blink of an eye. He becomes part of two unmarried couple, Tarek played by Haaz Sleiman, a Palestinian-Syrian djembe player and Zainab played by Danao Jekesai Gurira, a Senegalese designer of ethnic jewellery, who he later discovers are illegal immigrants. Walter’s rather simple but boring life, suddenly changes track and becomes what he had never thought it would become. He is forced to deal with issues of identity, immigration and cross-cultural communication in post-9/11 New York City.

The crux of the story lies in the metaphor where we see him becoming the lone hope for the couple, (while being almost hopeless himself) and the only source of comfort for a mother, Mouna played by Hiam Abbass, (while never being at ease with his own self).

Thomas McCarthy has written a very real and moving tale which he directs with such precision and brilliance that it leaves the viewer wanting for more yet satisfied with nothing to complain about. The last time he did the same was with his equally moving tale of a man seeking solitude in an abandoned train station, called The Station Agent.

The Visitor is so beautiful in its presentation that you just want it to go on, forever. The whole movie is a complete treat in itself. But there are scenes so powerful and original that they just pull the viewer inside, making them part of it, allowing them to breathe in the harmony of the beats being struck. While the entire cast of The Visitor is just impeccable, it is really the Walter Vale’s character which stays with you even after everything is over. Richard Jenkins does a brilliant job as Walter; he makes his character come alive in the screen, bringing in the kind of sincerity not often found.

The Visitor is that continually progressing canvas in motion, which keeps on getting larger and larger until its final movement, where everything stops mattering except that one thing where it leaves behind the canvas, now complete, for us to reflect on it.

Grab its DVD and watch it or wait till you catch it on TV like I did. For such films are eternal, no matter how old they get, they never loses their quality. The kind of feeling films like The Visitor invokes in us is worth the time it takes from us. Films as such may leave you wanting for more but will never leave you feeling empty or unsatisfied. Never.

KAHAANI: A Mother of a Story

By Sadho Ram

Starring: Vidya Balan, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Saswata Chatterjee and Nawazuddin Siddiqui

Direction: Sujoy Ghosh | Story: Sujoy Ghosh and Advaita Kala

Dialogues: Sujoy Ghosh, Ritesh Shah and Sutapa Sikdar | Screenplay: Sujoy Ghosh

Additional Screenplay: Suresh Nair & Nikhil Vyas | Music: Vishal-Shekhar

It is said that a very long time ago, somewhere in the magical realm of Hindu mythology, when the demon called Mahishasura had unleashed terror on the three worlds, creating havoc and chaos all around; made so powerful by the blessings of Brahma that no god could ever defeat him. It was then that a goddess was born, summoned by all the gods, to liberate the world from the clutches of Mahishasura, she was the culmination of the energies of all gods. According to the mythological tale, she is the original illusion caster and the material manifestation of the Brahman, the Supreme Absolute Godhead, (the universal Spirit that is the source and support of the phenomenal universe). 

KAHAANI is the story of one such world (in here Kolkata), where terror of the demon has been unleashed, creating havoc and chaos all around; and when everything else fails to stop the demon, a goddess, somewhere from the far off world, arrives in the form of an ordinary, 7 month pregnant woman.

We are told that she is a no one, just an ordinary, 7 month pregnant woman looking for her missing husband. That she seeks nothing else, but the truth which seems to have somehow vanished her husband into the thin air of Kolkata, made almost mystical by the superb direction of Sujoy Ghosh. But the reality of KAHAANI is nothing what has been established from the moment it unfolds.

Vidya Balan is the Durga of this KAHAANI. Her character has been written so exceptionally well that it is almost synonymous to what the Durga is. Filled with fierce compassion and creative feminine force, Vidya seems to exist in a state of total independence from the universe and anything or anybody else, in other words, she is self-sufficient,  just like Durga. You take her out of KAHAANI, and you are left with nothing else but a dead canvas incapable of evoking any emotion whatsoever. You put her back in KAHAANI, and the same dead canvas comes roaring back to life, ready to invoke the emotions you least expected it to. Vidya’s character, in her search for her missing husband (as we are told), shows fearlessness and patience, and never loses her sense of humour, even during the situation of epic proportion. She becomes a child when she is with Subash at the guest house she is staying in, who is crazily in love with his radio, which he keeps with him all the time, and the nervous and diffident Partho at the chaiwala. She becomes what the situation demands her to be, and at times she herself becomes the situation where she can be what she wants to be.

The story of KAHAANI, though not once losing track, ticks only because of the way Vidya’s character unfolds itself throughout the KAHAANI. Has the character of Vidya Bagchi (played unlike anything else seen in a long-long time in Hindi cinema by Vidya Balan) been any less in terms of emotional proportion and substance, KAHAANI would have been just another wham-bam story that we witness in bundles every other Friday.

While Vidya Balan deserves all the admiration that is being showered on her for her role in KAHAANI, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, in his portrayal of young cop Satyaki fondly addressed as Rana, is a natural. A new face for Hindi cinema, Parambrata Chattopadhyay is a big name in Bengali film fraternity. He lives to the character name of his role as Satyaki, the chariot of Arjuna, guiding, following, and even protecting Vidya from the risks and threats of people from both sides; the good and the bad, in her quest, as we are told, to find her missing husband.

Supported competently by Nawazuddin Siddiqui in his portrayal as the foulmouthed IB agent A Khan; Saswata Chatterjee as the dishevelled and grouchy contactor killer who greets his targets before shooting them down, along with a bunch of other superbly crafted extras, KAHAANI is almost infallible.

Sujoy Ghosh, who previously gave us unmentionable duds like Home delivery and Aladdin, seems to have woken up from his slumber, completely transformed into a master story teller, who keeps you thinking, even challenging you it at times, and not letting your attention go haywire with his smartly written story and almost tight direction. He seems to have understood that the basic art of story-telling lies in making your audience part of it and not just mere spectators. And rightly so, you find yourself moving along with the KAHAANI as it unfolds the mystery that lies beneath its camouflage. KAHAANI doesn’t let you rest from the moment you step inside its world, surprising you, even shocking at times, hitting you with twists and turns, one rarely gets to see in Hindi cinema these days.

I would not want to, but if I have to sum up what KAHAANI is, then it’s a mirage, an illusion, a wholly different story in garb of a camouflage that at the end will leave you, shocked at first, and later smiling in admiration at the talent that the whole team of KAHAANI has brought to it.

Watch it for what it is – KAHAANI, an illusion. Because as Durga, upon emerging from the pool of the light of all gods, had said that it was not they who created her but her lila that she emerged from their combined energy, KAHAANI too it seems as if has not been created by the team of Sujoy Ghosh but by its own lila that it emerged from their combined talent.

A Rebel called Paan Singh Tomar

By Sadho Ram

What would you call a man, who after joining the army and accidently becoming the seven-time national winner in steeplechase, retires as a Subedar, only to pick up the gun again, this time to fight a personal battle, and thus becomes a dreaded man?

I’m guessing – a rebel. Because that’s what he calls himself.

Who is he?

Well, you’ll know.

But no matter whomsoever this rebel is, there has never been a rebel whose story didn’t have a tale in it. So, just like every rebel has a story to tell, of himself and how or what made him a rebel,  this rebel too has a “story with a tale” in it of himself and how he became what he finally became.

And just for the record, this rebel goes by the name Paan Sigh Tomar, who occasionally delights in the mouth-watering taste of hot gulab-jaamun and ice-cream, and doesn’t like to be addressed as a daket (dacoit). Because as per him, “daket milte hain parliament me.” (Dacoits are found in parliament).

So rightly in the beginning of this “story with a tale” when the interviewer, who after boasting in the morning to a paanwala that tomorrow he is going to become famous, and now at night panting (after climbing long stairs) and nervous in front of our rebel, asks, “aap daaku kaise bane?”, Paan Singh Tomar, with his piercing eyes and equally piercing voice replies, “bihad me baagi hote hain, daket milte hain parliament me.” And thus sets the premise of this gritty (yet jovial in parts) “story with a tale” that our rebel is going to narrate in flashback, taking us with him wherever he goes, making us feel - and at times even reflect on - what he feels.

Brilliantly directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia and magnificently acted out by Irrfan Khan, as soon as Paan Singh Tomar the film begins, it catches your attention and pulls you into the biopic drama of a hero long forgotten by the country, and doesn’t let you go even after it ends. It lasts within you, only to make you feel the grit that Paan Singh Tomar the man had in him.

Such movies are rarely made, just like rebels as such as Paan Singh Tomar are. Tigmanshu, after successfully practicing the genre and the nuances required for such kind of story-telling, has given us his best effort as a director and writer. Paan Singh Tomar shows the effort he has put in and the skills he has used. If not until now, then Paan Singh Tomar is what will give him the due recognition and respect that he rightly deserves. It is something he has worked very hard for and unlike many others in the industry; he is someone who has earned it.

The less is said about Irrfan Khan the better it will be. Because words do not do justice to what that man has become. Since the time I’ve seen him acting, that man has only grown and outperformed himself in almost every film that he has done. We all know the kind of actors that throng the industry now. Rotting on weekly basis, the graph of acting talent in our Bollywood has only gone down. But there are few, still around, still growing, and going only strong, who are keeping the ship from sinking completely. Irrfan Khan is one of them, a rebel of sorts who refuses to stop evolving. In Paan Singh Tomar, he rises to a level that was not expected, but not surprising either. It’s hard to tell whether Paan Singh Tomar became him or he became Paan Singh Tomar.

A final word on the film: It’s a true delight in such genre, possibly expected from the likes of Dhulia and a few others. The story is well-written, well-woven, well-told, with attention to detail and specific highlights, thus making it worth the money and time, both.

Watch it for the sheer talent that Dhulia and Khan bring to it. Watch it for the rare masterstrokes Indian Cinema has to offer. Watch it for the 7 time national winner, who died a rebel. Watch it for all those unsung national athletes who lived a life of misery after sports and died penniless.

But if you still can’t (won’t) watch it for any of those, than watch it at least for the sake of it.

dhobi ghat (Mumbai Dairies)

By Sadho Ram

Life is just life. It’s just as it is. Like a movie running on theatre. Both possess the distinct quality of being as they are – unique. While some are just lame, damn, wham bam and all that. Some have the ingredients, each single one, which makes them stand apart. Those, with ingredients to stand apart are like a celluloid celebration of vivaciousness building in between the momentary silences which is ought to go unnoticed for the reason that the viewers are too engrossed in chatters and fizzles. Life is just like that. Its goes, for the most part, unnoticed and at the end of it, the viewer, the one watching that particular life, complains that it never lead him/her anywhere. It has betrayed him/her and has left him/her with nothing worth the pain he/she took all through the time while watching it. And the final conclusion: It was just a waste of time… and money!

Image Courtesy Google

dhobi ghat (Mumbai Dairies) is one such life. It’s a blank canvas with vividly painted borders kept in some random corner of a long gone painter’s dilapidated house. To those looking at it with an restlessness of a man holding a little bucket full of water and his tummy, waiting outside the gate of public loo for his number, it will only give an impression of an irritating, vulgarised wall containing amateurish graphic details of private parts and of rage to break open that damn door.

In the similar manner, dhobi ghat, to those looking at it with an already a judgemental mind and concluded thought, it will only give the impression of random frames and very Kiran Rao’s inability to write and tell a story.

It’s an attempt to re-create life as it is but on celluloid frames, and it so does, implacably and impeccably. In a crowd full of herds thriving on mediocrity and mindlessness, Kiran Rao dared to stand apart if not alone and show the crowd of its own mediocre and mindless gibberish that it throws at each other and also gleefully accepts. Dhobi ghat straight away gives the impression that it does not matter to her that she would be condemned by them for trying to show what they see daily, of course, without bothering to take notice of it.

If I were to describe of my emotions while watching the film then I would be lying if don’t tell you of the little joys and of curiosity and empathy and of sudden loss of self that Yasmin experiences while filming the digital letters to be sent to her brother in a faraway village in UP. I would be lying if I don’t tell you the sense of amusement and of enlightenment coupled with unfelt emotions that were not available to Shai till she has not come to Mumbai on a paid sabbatical to get the perspective of city. And I would be utterly dishonest if I don’t accept all that Munna feels and thinks of Shai, while showing around her the localities and places and people that grows on her through him. The helpless desire of Munna to touch her while watching a film with her, the immensely burning fire inside him to kiss her irresistible lips while she lay asleep on the couch and the understanding of the life that he, Munna comes to realise and accept that he has to lead now.

But above all I would be untrue and this little piece in ode to dhobi ghat will be incomplete if I keep all that Arun, the reclusive painter living a life of a loner by choice as well as circumstances, goes through each frames shot in the mannerism of lifelike suddenness. His sense of awkwardness among the very people inside the gallery of his solo art exhibition, and the realisation of his own growing restlessness inside him in presence of the very person he just spent the entire night in drunken cuddling and kissing, and finally the sense of a life, complete and compelling, in the company of an absent Yasmin and her present digital letters which she had filmed for her brother.

It all came to me while watching this utter beauty named dhobi ghat, this muse called Mumbai dairies, this whore the inimitable Bombay of Kiran Rao, which she treats her with the utmost honesty otherwise ghastly missing from other so called true representatives of the city and its life.

Last words –

dhobi ghat will grow on me, inside me, with me as this city, this very Bombay has been growing in past 3 years, with the realisation that it won’t stop, that the feeling is mutual, and is without any bounding.