Queen - When Life gives you Lemons, make Lemonade!

It is like a tall glass of freshly squeezed lemonade on a warm summer afternoon. At the same time, it is like a power packed pill of courage on a day chock-full of trials and tribulations. It is Delhi’s 'gol-gappas', colour and love, Amsterdam’s hostels, beer-bikes and pole dancers and the parties, glitz and allure of Paris - all blended into a heady medley. And amidst all this is Vikas Bahl’s Rani, a.k.a Queen, who takes us along on a journey from the bowels of helplessness and heartbreak to the pinnacles of strength and confidence.

As the film begins you find yourself standing in the courtyard of a classic middle-class household in Rajouri, New Delhi where wedding preparations, reminiscent of films like ‘Tanu weds Manu’ and ‘Band, Baaja, Baaraat’ are at their peak. Bearers balance steel tumblers brimming with frothy lassi on trays and decorators streak bare walls with strings of marigold. An endearing Dadi and her retinue of spirited friends sway to the tunes of Hindi dance numbers. With restrained euphoria, Rani – the much protected daughter of the family – gets her soon-to-be husband’s name painted on her palm with henna. Despite a couple of customary hiccups like power cuts and missing photographers, the smiles, ‘thumkas’ and blessings flow unbridled, blissfully unaware of the tragedy that is about to strike them down.

Days before the wedding Rani’s shy smile is wiped off her face in an instant when her London returned fiancé suddenly deems her unsuitable to be his bride. In one callous sweep he dusts not only the dried grains of her henna off the table but also the shattered remains of her dignity off his conscience. That moment sticks with you and your heart goes out to this lost girl clad in a simple hand knitted cardigan, tears threatening to tumble down her cheeks any moment. It appears as if her whole fragile world of dreams and hopes has come crashing down right in front of her eyes. The story could have ended here, leaving us with a pitiful image of a jilted girl withering away till yet another knight in a shining armour appears on a white steed to rescue her from a life of stodginess.

Instead, with growing respect we observe Rani surface from under a film of shock and self loathing to nurse her own wounds and experience by herself the hidden joys that the world has to offer. Drawing strength from the kindness and encouragement showered on her by the family, she quells her fears and heads to Paris – a city she had earmarked, what seems like an eon ago, for her honeymoon. At first, her insecurities plague her and she misses the presence of a man by her side, guiding and instructing her through life. Nevertheless, one cathartic monologue and a shimmy to the tunes of ‘Hungama ho gaya’ later you see her breaking the chains of propriety and releasing all her pent up emotions. The weight lifts off her chest and she spreads her wings and takes off.

Rani’s adventures have only just begun. With wide-eyed amazement she watches, learns and discovers her own potential – to make friends, to charm strangers, to drive a car, to earn a living and to take care of herself. Slowly, buried under layers of pain, she unearths her smile as well and with that fixed firmly on her face she lights up the movie infinitely. Soon she finds herself enjoying all those harmless things that are otherwise labelled abominable for 'girls belonging to good families' back home. From befriending boys to savouring a night of drunken revelry and from turning down her ex-fiancé’s offer to take her back to experiencing what she calls  her first 'lip-to-lip' kiss with a firang whom she has a crush on – Rani does it all and with the merry abandon of a soul who has snatched peace and happiness from the clutches of despair.

What makes it even more believable is the fact that she does not undergo a total transformation. She is still the girl who thinks that a vibrator is a joint-massager and that losing her ‘virzinity’ is a total no-go for an unmarried girl. It is refreshing beyond words to see Rani retain her identity and her innocence without a care for people who might find it hilarious. And, it is exhilarating to know that when she was at a fork in her life from where she could have chosen to either go down a path inundated with pity, hurtful gossip and self destruction or opt to forget her misery and start afresh, she selected the latter. Even though the film has a women-centric overtone, I believe that there is something that all of us, irrespective of gender, can learn from it. We can all learn to take life as it comes and to never forget who we really are. As for me, in addition to all of the above, Queen was exactly what I needed to mop clean the gloom that a sky full of clouds had cast on my day off.

                                

Syria - Where is the Humanity?

 

Ornate marble domes and minarets, almond-eyed dancing girls twirling in chiffon harem pants, narrow cobbled streets lined with mounds of fragrant spices, vials of perfume, plump, juicy dates and bolts of rich fabric ready to be sold in exchange for pieces of gold, olive-skinned men going about their daily business and turbaned bards with snow white beards reciting fantastical tales of magic and mystery. Fed on fables from the 'Arabian Nights', my imagination once invoked this portrait each time I thought of cities like - Damascus, Baghdad, Kabul, Cairo and Ankara. They sounded exotic, wealthy and clairvoyant beyond words.

Sadly, pictures and news clips from war-torn Syria have brusquely obliterated every inch of this fairy tale image. It is more than evident that over the years things have taken an unsettling turn. Streets aren’t paved with prosperity any more and people are no longer engrossed in the healthy humdrum of every-day life. Instead, amid concrete ruins of once bustling alleys, bloody carcasses and armed men with a maniacal glint in their eyes, a sea of innocent men, women and children, most of whom are missing a limb or two, wearily make their way to the aid trucks handing out food packets. While some of these people might get lucky today and go back with a meal, others will yet again sleep miserably on empty bellies, urging themselves to feel grateful for at least being alive.

A potent concoction of political discord and religious dissonance has left Syria a shadow of its former glorious self. What started out as a peaceful protest by citizens advocating democracy as opposed to a one-party dictatorial government, has in a mere 3 years exploded into a civil war of cyclopean proportions. Several different warring factions have in the course of time jumped in with their own varied philosophies adding fuel to the already out of control fire. Not only do you now have pro-democracy blocs like the Free Syrian Army fighting the security forces controlled by President Bashar-Al-Assad but you also have a landslide of radical Islamist groups and Kurdish opposition wings embroiled in violent scuffles amongst themselves. The fact that these groups pledge allegiance to disparate foreign powers doesn’t help either.

In the chaos, the number of wounded and dead civilians skyrockets with each passing day. Those prudent enough to have sensed the looming danger in advance find themselves in a slightly better situation cooped up in refugee camps which have mushroomed all over neighbouring Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. Grief-stricken little Syrian boys and girls stare at you wistfully from the glossy pages of magazines like ‘Time’. It is either the physical pain of injuries or the mental trauma of losing loved ones or in some cases both, that is writ large on their agonized faces. And it makes you wonder - aren’t these kids entitled to a secure childhood brimming with good health, love and learning like our own children? What is it that they did wrong to get dealt such a rough hand?

‘The quality or condition of being humane’ – this is how Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Humanity. You might thus expect humanity to be a basic characteristic, ingrained deep within every specimen of the human race – a trait that sets us apart from savage animals. Alas, heinous reports such as the one about children as young as 6 being taken away from school to have their fingernails pulled out by barbarians suggest otherwise (Source - Syria through the eyes of children). Humanity seems to have died a rather brutal death along with the rest of the war causalities in Syria. All that remains now is an abysmal hollow shell of a country with a handful of antagonistic elements feeding on its battered remains.

Highway - A Road Less Taken

Hidden beneath layers of hard to digest opulence, tear-jerking melodrama and billionaire heroes who are straight as an arrow, Hindi cinema has lately rediscovered a breed of dark, brooding, Heathcliffe-type protagonists. From Lootera’s troubled con-man Varun to D-Day’s angst riddled RAW agent Rudra to Ishaqzaade’s wayward Parma – these days we get to meet far from perfect characters whom we might run into in real life as well. Perhaps this is why they tend to leave a more profound impression on us. With life’s pain etched deep on their faces, it is difficult for them to hide the scars of a gruesome past. Yet they try. And in the process they manage to garner our sympathy. Highway’s anti-establishment, expletive spewing abductor Mahabir evoked this very emotion in me last night as I sat deeply engrossed in Imtiaz Ali’s latest piece of work.

The film begins on a warm note with home video style clips of pre-wedding preparations in a swanky New Friends colony bungalow in Delhi and then suddenly plunges into a cold hearted account of a chance abduction on a deserted petrol pump somewhere off the Delhi-Haryana border. The transition from the suave sophistication of high society Delhi to the rough mannerisms of the hinterland is so rapid that it takes a few seconds for one‘s sensibilities to adjust and respond. And then, just like that, characters representing two very distinct segments of Indian society appear alongside making us uncomfortably aware of how the two are poles apart.

On one hand you have the abducted - Veera - an influential businessman’s daughter whose 'brocade and precious stones' swaddled life turns upside down when she is unceremoniously picked up by a bunch of pistol-toting thugs. The terror is evident in her eyes as she is gagged, handcuffed and thrown in the back of a run-down lorry to be taken to a place where unknown horrors await her. The girl who moments ago was ensconced in a plush Audi dreaming of getting away from the noisy confines of her uber-rich life in the city is about to have her wish fulfilled in a most unusual manner.

On the other hand you have the abductor – Mahabir – a hardened, remorseless criminal who swears that he will not flinch even for a second before selling his hostage off to a life of misery in a brothel. He is crude, dishevelled, ever-scowling and bitter to the core. To him the privileges bestowed upon the rich are unjust and believes it to be his prerogative to teach a harsh lesson to anyone who belongs to this section of society. The man who abhors the seemingly flawless lives of the affluent is about to realize that even money cannot buy a life untouched by grief and agony.

At the outset it is difficult to imagine that Veera and Mahabir might have anything in common. She is fragile while he is hard-edged, she is annoyingly puerile and light-hearted while he is mysteriously quiet, sulky and easily inflamed. But as the story unfolds, it becomes evident that under her delicate exterior hides an inured, embittered soul thanks to a childhood battered by sexual abuse. And, under his gruff, rustic demeanour resides a soft core that yearns for his long separated mother and a life of simple domesticity. The two are thus bound unwittingly by a common thread of suffering which slowly culminates into an undefinable yet beautiful relationship. At one point, she acknowledges the bond by declaring with coquettish defiance that 'darr toh na ek dum khatam ho gaya hai'. Somewhere along the way dread has transmuted into camaraderie and animosity has altered to affection.

Amid all this there are flashes of jauntiness which lighten the otherwise hard-hitting story. Be it an incredulous Veera rambling on about how she never knew such beauty existed in the interiors of the country or breaking into peals of laughter when asked why she is so taken by ramshackle buildings and dusty premises or a baffled Mahabir looking on as one of his cronies shakes a leg with Veera to the tunes of a rhythmic English number or again a befuddled Veera trying to figure out why she didn’t make a run for it when she had the chance – an element of humour brings down the pathos by a notch or two.

Even though you know that these kindred souls are eventually going to be wrenched apart, deep down you hope not. You wish for the state of utopia that they find themselves in for a few blessed moments to be the story of their life – a simple hassle free existence comprising a mountain-top shanty for a home, Maggi for dinner and a friend to share it with. Nevertheless, as their dreamland fades into reality at daybreak, the bubble goes kaput when a sniper‘s bullet pierces Mahabir’s body. A screaming and shouting Veera is taken back to the world that she never wanted to go back to ('jahaan se tum mujhe le ke aaye ho wahaan main waapas nahi jaana chahati'). But this time she has the courage to confront not only the skeletons in her closet but also her duplicitous family. Mahabir has given her the ultimate gift – the confidence to walk away from a life of extravagance and leisure, to live a dream with her head held high.

Vast expanses of fissured earth under a sky bursting with stars, an orange orb of a sun hanging low on verdant fields, endless serpentine stretches of charcoal grey roads, tall snow capped peaks and men and women exhibiting rural guilelessness form the canvas on which with bold strokes the storyteller paints a tale of myriad inexplicable human emotions. All of this is accompanied by an earthy soundtrack modulated by the flavours of cities that the film drives us through. For me Highway is yet another example of the Hindi film industry‘s slow but sure progress in the right direction – one which is not just visually and aurally pleasing but also appeals to the intellect.