“Who’s the next of kin that needs to be informed in case something happens to you?” V was only half joking. We were indeed intending to go where no man/woman/child/dog from the civilized world had ever attempted to go before.
Are you familiar with Saki Naka? It is a junction in hell. It is where the trying-hard-to-be-cool-but-failing-miserably Andheri-Kurla Road meets gateway-to-hoity-toity-Powai Saki Vihar Road meets just-hold-your-breath-we-will-soon-be-in-middle-class-heaven-Ghatkopar meets seriously-blue-collar-but-builders-are-fighting-to-make-middle class Jari Mari. It is where the stench from open sewers rise to mingle with the dust from monstrous constructions, fumes from thousands of vehicles, and sweat of a million people picking their way nimbly through garbage dumps, open craters, hawkers’ wares and uneven roads. It is where if the combined road rage of all commuters were to explode at the same time, it would be as devastating as a minor H-bomb.
Off this devil’s own Saki Naka, down a rapidly narrowing and darkening road to Kurla, in one cutting is a little known mall and multiplex called Maxus. We got to know about it only yesterday. We decided to watch Ishqiya there.
Wise people pleaded with us to give up such a foolish endeavor. But S and I, the intrepid duo, were in a mood for adventure. So we set out last evening after work with a militant spark in our eyes. After begging and running around for a rickshaw (oh the cursed place!) S got us into a taxi. The driver scratched his head when we said, “Onward to Maxus!” But we somehow found it, passing Mallika Restro Bar and various industrial compounds.
It was a brave modern building, trying to hold its own on the 90-ft road strewn with lorries and a very mixed crowd. As we neared it, we realized that only the multiplex was operational. We stepped through the gate noticing that in the modest crowd milling around, we were the only women. We got out tickets and went through the metal detector threshold and smack into the dragon security woman.
Now I understand that it is a sign of our times that we go through security checks even to have fun, but where does it all stop? This woman at Maxus went through my bag with more diligence than the personnel in American airports who, mistaking me for a South American, used to check it for drugs. And her frisking stopped just short of a cavity search. All this to the accompaniment of an inhuman wail, as if emanating from a poltergeist caught in a door hinge. As I stepped out of the little frisking enclosure, I noticed that the cry was from the deserted gaming consoles that were blinking eerily.
The theater was big, comfortable and modern. The audience was all male as we walked in. Several pairs of eyes watched us as we took our seats. As the theater filled up, we were heartened to see that a few women also trickled in. This seemed to be a strictly couples or unaccompanied males type of crowd. No families. Definitely no kids.
As the lights dimmed, I noticed a phenomenon I had not encountered in Mumbai ever before -- a raucous audience. This was going to be a movie annotated, underlined, and footnoted by the audience. Luckily, they were loud but not lewd.
But then, Abhishek Chaubey’s Ishqiya is a movie that is perhaps most comfortable with this sort of watching. Earthy, witty, sometimes steamy and with chockfull of cuss words, it may come covered with the dust and mud of eastern UP, but it is definitely rural chic. It is unmistakably Vishal Bhardwaje-esque movie. It is also, in many ways, a cowboy film.
Khalujaan a.k.a Iftikar (Naseeruddin Shah) and his nephew Babban (Arshad Warsi) are a couple of smalltime thieves, living by the seat of their pants and their wits, somewhere in UP. They have now attempted a serious crime--they have stolen a substantial amount from their boss Mushtaq and are on the run. Their mission--cross the border and get into Nepal. In their quest for a safe sanctuary, they seek out Vidyadhar Verma (Adil Husain) in Gorakhpur. But Verma is dead. His widow Krishna (Vidya Balan) allows the two to stay on for a few days.
Things are idyllic for a while, with Krishna engaged in looking after her diary farm, household chores and practicing music. Khalujaan thinks he has found his soulmate. Babban befriends a local teenager, who seems very knowledgeable about firearms and where to find prostitutes. Unfortunately, the duo’s boss track them down in Gorakhpur, but the money is missing. The boss gives them a month to pay it back. Krishna hatches a daring kidnap-and-ransom plan to get the money and lure the two into it.
What follows is a tale of double, triple, quadruple crossing, of love and sex, of humor and violence. We get a flavor of caste violence, arms smuggling from Nepal, and the kidnapping racket.
What makes the movie eminently watchable, without a doubt, is the acting. After a long long time Naseer gets a role to sink his teeth in. There is something tragi-comic about his Khalujaan, who had a musician hanging on his family tree, giving him more refined sensibilities when compared to his philandering nephew. Watch the song “Dil toh baccha hi ji” and you will understand what I mean. Every gesture, every twitch, every breath of Naseer is studied and played to perfection. No wonder we loved him during the heydays of parallel cinema!
Arshad Warsi must be one of the most underutilized actor of our times. His Babban is simple minded, sailor-mouthed, and witty. His chemistry with Naseer is as potent as his chemistry with Vidya Balan, giving way to very memorable lines and scenes, of which “tumhara ishq ishq, aur hamara ishq sex?” is but one of the highlights. But dude, what’s with the jeans?
Vidya Balan is of course a revelation as the scheming, sultry Krishna. But for some strange reason, she put Raquel Welch of 100 Rifles in my mind more than an earthy Indian village woman. It must be either the refined Hindi diction or the very western seductiveness. I mean, while the long, hot, open mouthed kissing scene was definitely steamy, it did feel very “sexually arrived,” if you know what I mean, to be a convincing village belle.
Which brings me to my gripe about the movie: On one hand, it looks and feels like a western, with lines like “apne pichwade ko uthao” sounding like the literal translation of “move your ass,” and much gun slinging. We even have renegade caste army to replace renegade Mexican/Indian characters. Vidya Balan’s house looks like a mud hacienda, seemingly standing on its own in the middle of nowhere. (Fortunately there are no horses.) All this would have been fine if it weren’t for the very predictable plot of a heist/caper.
I have nothing against the genre. It’s just that I wish Bhardwaj and his ilk would get out of this fixation and make some other genre of movies. I am getting a tad bored.
Music is very good, with “Dil toh baccha hi ji” and “Ibn e batuta” being the most memorable. Of course, Gulzar’s lyrics is the tops. Cinematography by Mohana Krishna makes the film look authentic and colorful. I need someone to decode all the swear words used in the movie.
You don’t need my recommendation to watch the movie. It is fun.
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