Chaman Bahaar

It is only now, when much of Hindustani cinema is losing its originality, that films from the Hindustani heartland have, ironically, started to emerge much more regularly: while many, especially from the Netflix stable, show an exaggerated world of lust-crime-passion, as if Zola were resurrected into Indian films (or as if the B-grade films of the old days have gotten themselves the Netflix gloss and unabashed viewer permissiveness), there are rare gems such as Chaman Bahaar, which are trimmed to the authenticity of India and its people and are important chapters not only in Indian cinematic history but also in a record of Indian people's lived lives in the centuries to come.

The film's title, quite appropriately given that the film revolves around an incipient paan shop owner, is the name of many paan shops in India, with "chaman bahaar" literally meaning something like "a blooming garden" or "a blooming flower-bed" or "a garden in spring." The film, however, is not about paan: one would need to watch many of Saeed Jaffrey's films to appreciate paan. It depicts the mentalscape of many a Indian youth: not well educated but having enough brains, aimless, wanting to be a big shot, idling alone and in company (often around a paan and cigarette shop), and finally getting infatuated with a girl: a girl who is a package of many of the things they are missing in their life, namely "modernity," English, confidence, education, pampered upbringing, money, acknowledgement of feminine-ness, and a role for feminity. Some of the boys end up in a state of overbearing and noxious masculinity (called nowadays as "toxic masculinity," which this film does not celebrate, contrary to some myopic critics' judgements), and many, like Billu (the protagonist of the film), end up in a state of feeling sorely and helplessly their lack of masculinity. The film sticks to Billu and his world: the film is his universe, his emotions, confusions, frustrations, feelings, understandings and lack of understanding. The film is his eyes, his senses, his voice, and the director never compromises on that: staying true and courageous to his story, he remains loyal to his character and that character's universe. Billu never talks with the object of his infatuation, and hence the object of infatuation is even more objectified, with the girl Rinku having no dialogue in the film, simply flitting around and exciting boys' desires. There is nothing demeaning to women in this, as some critics have fallen headlong into such surmises: rather, this is the aesthetic demand of the film, because Billu is in his world, trapped in his frustrations, and although he watches Rinku every day, watches her with a rising crescendo of passions in his heart, yet he never sees her for who she is, as will be realised by Billu himself later in a painful episode of life that may serve him well.

The film paints an extraordinarily authentic picture of India, though reality can be much more scary when politicians' sons start chasing a girl than what is shown in the film, meant to be light-hearted and meant to keep focus on Billu, not the other boys and bees. I know many Billus, and I think many in India would know many of them and would themselves have been a Billu at some stage of their life. To be a Billu is a man's fate in India, especially in small-town India, for a boy and a girl can hardly even walk together hand in hand in India: inevitably, frustrations for some mount, especially (but not uniquely) when presented with a birth that was not in a power-wielding household. The Marathi film Sairat, which deals with requited love unlike here, comes to mind: Sairat is a good (and very different) film and story, but it could have developed its male protagonist's character a bit better at the beginning of the film, giving him Billu-like shades.

A final word about the film's other aspects. Dialogues are brilliant, with humour underlining the film throughout, and lines such as "puus ke jaaRaa men aam phal jaaen" in one of the songs are extraordinarily poetic if Hindi is a language you understand well or you are born in: the very selection of the word for winter here, "jaaRaa," elevates the song to sublime poetry, staying true at the same time to the film's small-town register. Acting performances are all adequate, with Jitendra Kumar as Billu doing the necessary, the two actors who play the characters of Billu's friends Somu and Chhotu putting in the best performances of the film, and Ritika Badiani as Rinku looking the teenage girl whom all the boys find hot. The film is based in Chhattisgarh, a welcome rarity, but the film could have been based anywhere in the Indian subcontinent: this story is to be found everywhere and yet so less and so lackingly told! The film is not celebrating the Billudom of India's youth: the film is showing a Billu's story, with compassion and understanding. The film is rather lamenting the Billudom of India's youth. This is a powerful debut by the director Apurva Dhar Badgaiyann, who is not only directing the film but also donning other roles (such as writing the story and co-writing the song lyrics). I hope he does not chase big banners and starts making inane films, as sometimes happens to young promises.

Thappad (2020, dir. Sinha)

Thappad (in English: "A Slap"), unfortunately, is too much trapped in the Western feminist world to be able to understand woman, in particular the Indian woman. The film would have been a great film if it had devoted itself to one story, to the story of Amrita (or Amu): instead, it tries to take up the cudgels for women of all backgrounds, to show the universality in their lives of being the powerless and exploited or ignored, and then also tries to show what the solution, the fix, is in each case. When you universalise, and then you miss the typical Indian woman and her life, and her dilemma, that's a significant crime.

Let's forget about the film for a bit and let's think of a woman, especially a woman of India. Imagine being married to Barnaby Rudge. That Barnaby Rudge is not necessarily deranged, as in Dickens' novel. But he is everything else that he is in Dickens. This Barnaby is selfish, knows how to use others' love, is cruel, and, at the same time, foolish, helpless, like a child, unable to understand the wily ways of the world, error prone. In Dickens, Barnaby is son to a mother, whom he distresses enough, but let's imagine a different life for our non-deranged Barnaby. Imagine the typical Indian woman married to this Barnaby, now let's say she begot children too with him, let's say she has invested a life in living with him and trying to build something. But Barnaby is selfish, is cruel, maybe even jealous of her intelligence and luminosity. Barnaby tortures her: if by nothing else, then by snide remarks, insidious suggestions, outrageous accusations, violent outbursts. The woman has been trying through it all to better their life as well as to "reform" Barnaby, to make him see that maybe they could have a good life together, if only he were to appreciate his life, his wife, his children. The woman, all the time, is working hard through her intelligence and goodness to make her own and everyone's life better. She is wise with everything: money, lifestyle, rearing up of children, respect for the family in public eye. But Barnaby continues being Barnaby, with spells where he is much less mean to his wife and children, alternating with spells where he is as if a monster has possessed him. What does the woman do? She is bold, she doesn't care for what society will say, she even has those who will back her decision, let's say her brothers, she is even educated so she can be on her own feet, she can leave him. But how does she leave Barnaby to his own devices, when she knows that Barnaby will get into bad company, bad habits easily, will be ruined, diseased, poor, dead if she were to leave him? She can, of course, but she doesn't want to: she feels herself responsible to the fate that brought them together. What does she do? Continuing to live with him is not so pleasant; but leaving is also out of the question for her. She can only fight, unpleasant though it is, every day for every inch of space, but there's not much space she is ever going to get unless Barnaby gets a miraculous cure from somewhere. Does Anubhav Sushila Sinha, the director of the film, have a quick-fix solution to this, among all the solutions he presented at the end of his film? If you have not understood, if you have not thought of the story of the woman married to Barnaby, then you have failed to understand a human being, in fact, forget even whether it's woman or man.

And, indeed, what about the men? Amrita's story by itself is a story that was waiting to be told: the story itself is not shot with great subtlety, but at least it's a necessary story to be told. Yet, by universalising it through showing various women characters in that plight makes the film preachy and a propaganda. Where are the men of this society? I know men who were not given good education because the poor family preferred their sisters to receive it, even though the boys were more interested in education; I know men who have often sacrificed their lives for the sake of their sisters' or daughters', and sometimes their wives', ambitions; I know well-to-do families where the boys have been asked not to marry so that they can continue be the beasts of burden for their families; I know families where girls' littlest of achievements are celebrated but boys' greatest ones are given a perfunctory nod. All these stories are there in Uttar Pradesh itself, the land of the film and its director: a land where severe discrimination exists against men, too, in many families. If these stories sound difficult to stomach for some of you, trained as you might be to focus on discrimination against one set of people only, then surely you must be knowing thousands of men who have been forcibly thrust into the masculine role of the provider of everything, the one who is supposed to step out of the home, to work and make their way up, to provide riches and muscular protection to their family. Society does not like men to stay at home or those who wander around without earning money or power. It doesn't even like men to work from home: it wants men to step out and do some "action"—if nothing else exists, visit a brothel (but don't just tell it). Staying at home is "soft." I have seen thousands of listless young men, especially in India, burdened by the society's wants. Go to any busy bus depot of India: you will meet these young men I am talking about. Where are they in the film? When you universalise and yet leave at least half of the world from it, that's not universalising: that's a fake universe you are creating. If the director had dedicated himself to the story of Amrita, then there would have been no qualms: but by making a portmanteau, he has exposed himself to questions regarding his choices of what to put in the portmanteau. A portmanteau usually ends up being a vehicle of propaganda. The title of the film, "Thappad" ("A Slap"), rather than "Ek Thappad" ("The Slap"), also reveals how the film is more about the portmanteau rather than Amrita's story.

As for the story of Amrita itself, it could have been better told through use of more and better subtlety and casting the husband Vikram's character differently. Rather than show an impatient, hot-tempered Vikram, show a man who does not have these flaws in such a great extent: then show the subtle undermining of his wife. That makes the story richer and closer to home for the audience. There are men who do most of their own work (and know how to do it) rather than asking their wife or mother to do that for them, who are more mature, more patient: but they too have the power balance on their side and use it to keep others around them under their thumb. Show them. Symbolism-laden shots such as the one where Amrita sees herself in the image of a mere servant, when Vikram asks for medicine from his maidservant, make the film only preachy and rob it of any subtlety. Such symbolism at best only ticks the director's ego in having managed it. What I demand would require more subtlety (than films like this or the short film Juice), but that is the story to tell rather.

Taapsee Pannu herself acts well and her dialogues with Tanvi Azmi towards the end of the film are well written and important. Unfortunately, the rest of the film is poor and preachy when it could have been so much better.

I will end with what exists. There are at least a couple of excellent Indian films that show both the worlds of men and women, the pressures on each of them in our society. One is Ray's Mahanagar (int'l title: The Big City), and the other is Rajkumar Santoshi's much-underrated Damini, which is explicitly about the miscarriage of justice but in reality a much deeper film in spite of its melodrama. It's time for Sinha maybe to watch them and learn a thing or two.