Bollywood- A Tribute To Mediocrity

By Nidhi Singh

Don't Mind! Enjoy it!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nidhi Singh
• Release date: Nov 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311517548

Nidhi Singh

Nidhi attended American International School, Kabul, before moving to Delhi University for BA English Honors. Currently, she lives with her husband near McLeodganj (abode of the Holy Dalai Lama) in the Dhauladhar mountain ranges. Her short work has appeared in Indie Authors Press, Flyleaf Journal, Liquid Imagination, Digital Fiction Publishing Co, LA Review of LA, Flame Tree Publishing, Four Ties Lit Review, The Insignia Series, Inwood Indiana Press, Bards and Sages Publishing, Scarlet Leaf Review, Bewildering Stories, Down in the Dirt, Mulberry Fork Review, tNY.Press, Fabula Argentea, Aerogram, Fiction Magazines, Flash Fiction Press, The Dirty Pool, Asvamegha, etc. Her translations of Sikh Holy Scriptures, essays on Bollywood and a few novels are available in print and online.

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Introduction

Bollywood, a combination of ‘Bombay’ and ‘Hollywood’ is one of the world’s largest film producing centers in the world, having even overtaken America. Some complain, the term that finds a place in the Oxford Dictionary makes it sound like a poor cousin of Hollywood. Its movies are unabashedly escapist, with the formulaic dancing around trees, and are unapologetically inspired by classics the world over, and even by those at home. I have collected some of the most remarkable movies of modern times- the ones that I have seen, and discussed them from a cynical, abrasive and paisa-vasool audience’s jaundiced point of view.

It’s a whacky take on Indian Cinema! Don’t Mind and enjoy the ride.

Bombay Velvet- Smooth, Not Silk

In the 60s Bombay whetted its appetite for land that was scarce by reclaiming the sea. They heaped sand and grout upon the waters and built roads and ugly skylines that blocked out the sea-views, the salty breeze and the smell of fish and dead plankton. Greedy developers, politicians, bureaucrats, gangsters and cops, all got together to shut down the mills, throw the self respecting working class into the teeming, crawling slums, and give Mumbai a mistaken notion of a Manhattan landscape and metro chic. It was also an era of Prohibition where moonshining, jazz soirees, seedy nightclubs, sexy sirens doubling as seductresses, smuggling, and organized crime thrived and took the wind out of the sails of a besieged, adrift society.

In this backdrop, Bombay Velvet is the chic nightclub Johnny Balraj (Ranbir Kapoor) runs in Mumbai in the 60’s. He goes crazy on discovering that his moll, singing sensation Rosie (Anoushka,) with her collagen-filled, over-the-top lips that don’t gel with the rest of the face, is a spy cum mistress for an investigative tabloid owner, Mistry.

Mistry, with communist pretensions, is a crusader for the mill workers and ethical land development; he has little moral inhibitions when they apply to his own conduct, and thus, a married man, he thinks little of bedding the needy Anoushka tottering on the brink of a pecuniary existence, eking out a living for herself by pandering her naked photos.

He dispatches Rosie into Johnny’s arms to snoop on the cop-politician-builder nexus led by Kaizad trying to grab a share of the landmass to be created by filling up the sea. But she ditches him when she falls in love with her prey, Johnny.

Johnny does petty fixing jobs, such as coldblooded murder and mayhem, for an effeminate Kaizad (dimpled-chin, chubby-cheeked KJo), a building magnate, who heads the greedy forces that are bent on reclaiming the sea to join the seven islands that make up Mumbai, and carve the reclaimed territories into real estate empires between themselves.

Having been raised by a sex worker in a brothel, Johnny has overarching ambition, and wants a fancy identity and a place to call his own. He helps the big shots obtain real estate bounties by wiping out their bête noirs, and one dark day has the arrogance to demand his share, only to earn their derision and rancor.

Anoushka, with her stolen secrets, becomes a threat to the crooks, who then demand that Johnny put her out of the way. But Johnny, deeply enamored of her, comes to realize her innocence, and the pitiable helplessness of her situation, and saves her in the nick of time. The two then make a valiant, last-ditch effort to flee the mob and the cops that are after their lives.

Johnny, who also does bare-knuckled prizefighting at nights to get into a better frame of mind, hardly cuts the ice with his slender, vested, comely form.

After Byomkesh, this is another movie in the tradition of noir cinema, which has become the current play toy of Bollywood. Noir means black in French, and refers to the gritty, depressing, stylish gangster drama of the 50s and 60s that spewed as expressionist angst from a Depression-hit America. With a cynical, disturbing attitude and lurking sexual motivations, the gangster melodramas had rich, expressive cinematography. The storylines had strange, oneiric, ambivalent and erotic moods and were marked by low-key lighting with unbalanced visual compositions. A glib play of light and shadow created a dark, sepulchral mood. The central character could be any conflicted person drawn into the world of crime, and his masculine femme fatale.

This movie indicates much motion and play, but in which direction, we don’t know. Much seems to be happening, but why and how, isn’t explained. There are dark undercurrents; conspiracies abound, and sinister designs seem afoot, but instead of dawning upon you slowly, they jump you in the dark with their obtuseness.

Rather than being a smooth narrative where characters evolve, have discernible conflicts, and behave in rational ways, the plot here progresses in disjointed vintage-filter clips, put together in stylish noir fashion that is all awe but no ah.

Trying to imitate a Martin Scorsese style of crisp, pithy drama, this movie falls short of expectancy and ends up as all-style-and-little-substance fare that doesn’t quite grip your fancy. Loose ends that obfuscate are carelessly left dangling like inverted question marks.

Perhaps the limitation of time inhibited the mining of a convincing screenplay from the spawning novel, ‘Mumbai Fables’ by Gyan Prakash, from which Anurag Kashyap sourced this movie.

Sycophants will tell you KJo has done a masterstroke by donning the villain’s mantle in the movie, I will tell you he looks the toy boy he is, having the one regret of never succeeding in winning over luscious Johnny from the cruel female competition! He once gently fondles the sweat-engulfed, hairy forearm of Johnny with deep longing in his mascaraed eyes and parted, plump lips, but that is only as far and as many times his ego will let him go, leaving the rest to the fevered fantasy of the homoerotic reprobates.

Things happen first and then they are explained in hindsight, provided the director remembers, otherwise, you ask the neighbors; ‘hey, how come this happened? Was I asleep?’

Or, you just imagine, and figure things out for yourself.

The music- jazzed-up, mezzo-soprano version of golden oldies, with scrooping lyrics calculated to offend, is utterly forgettable.

A glittery concoction made by the best craftsmen, which has all the right ingredients, but neither in the right order nor in the correct proportion.

~

Mr. X: X not XXX

I came away feeling cheated from this movie.

One goes to an Emraan Hashmi movie with some expectations. There are supposed to be fireworks and hot steamy scenes galore. Item girls, dancing under the party lanterns, their bellies half-moons wrapped in antique laces, are expected to flicker in and out of view- pole dancing to hummable, alluring tunes. The front row passengers, poor things, are to be condensed into lost puppies looking for monogrammed water dishes and fluffy beds to call their own. Emraan, serenading his ladies into the musky twilight, is expected to make lesser men feel they have achieved superhuman, Viagra-infused feats through his libidinous experiences by the third person omniscient.

Whenever the official mouth-taster of Bollywood flickers his evil forked tongue at a damsel in distress, she is supposed to get overwhelmed by the power of suggestion, and begin shedding the flimsy rags off her curvy back.

Alas, here, no such thing happens.

Emraan seems to be a lackluster copy of his usual serial-kisser self as if the cat got his tongue, or his photocopier ran out of toner. The lady too, regrettably, though very desirable, svelte, tall, willowy, with white spindly legs, silken mane, body light as feather, and flattened breasts like malai kulfi chops, is only as prone to discarding her clothes as a cloistered nun. And she happens to be good enough to be put up on a Xmas tree and drooled over all day.

That leaves the tickets turning to ash in our pockets. That also somewhat explains why the movie, which in the usual scheme of things when the sun rises from the right direction would be called Mr. XXX, is only a Mr. X; a pallid character solitary in its tragedy. Mahesh Bhatt, in an unexpected lapse into good behavior, provides us with lukewarm salad when we were in the mood for crackling tufts of spicy plumes assailing our senses.

Emraan is an agent in ATD, an acronym for Anti-Terrorist Department. So is his love interest, his fiancé, who for some reason is keen to be united in holy matrimony with him. Monumentally attached to him, she can pick off his scent anywhere, even when he is drenched in a can of paint. I do wish though she’d stop taking showers dressed in a towel. What’s the point of grass being shy around a goat?

The boss of ATD plans with the Chief Minister’s son the murder of the Chief Minister, to elevate the inept son to the throne, and earn a sharp promotion for himself as well. He blackmails Emraan to commit the murder, by threatening to get his fiancé shot. Emraan after the murder is forced to go on the run; he is a man chased by the very law he once upheld. Emraan is hounded into a chemical factory, which is then exploded. It is believed Emraan has been killed, but a statue of DwarkaDhish, Lord Krishna, miraculously saves him. He is horribly burnt, and his clothes melt into his skin. The radiation from the explosion causes changes in his cell structure. But an experimental drug, which was about to be tried on laboratory rats, saves him, and gives him the special power to become invisible. He then proceeds to take revenge against his persecutors. His fiancé, shorn of his charisma, becomes estranged, and considering him to be a deviant lawbreaker, becomes hell-bent on giving him up to the law, failing to realize that the poor bloke has been framed.

After much hoopla, confusion, chasing, kissing and swinging from trapezes he transforms into a renegade Crusader for the law with his newly acquired special powers. I hope, that doesn’t mean we are going to have a sequel here!

The scriptwriter, a man with no wings, though having as much imagination as a flatbed scanner, deserves some credit for making a serial polygamist vanish. The plot, straight as a sober priest, is as predictable as a baby in the aftermath of a successful coitus and resultant pregnancy. Someone, with as much flair as the Mayor of Simpleton, writes the damp and moldy dialogues.

Of what use is an artist with his style cramped? Of what use is a pill of Viagra, when all you have is an inflatable doll? Why surround the persona of a man with carefully cultivated sensuality, and cover him in a burqa? Why conjure a man out of sight, when his talent is in visual titillation?

Why, I ask you, put a porn artist in a Marvel comic? Next, I will hear of Sunny Leone’s acting in devout movies!

Superpowers, of the vanishing kind, ill behove our vanquishing knight. Erotic Emraan is a serial misfit here, so give the movie a serial miss.

~

Byomkesh: Punjabi Noodles

For the price of one you get four. Yes, no less than four competing empires get embroiled in this pseudo-crime-mystery thriller: the Land Of The Rising Sun, the Middle Kingdom, the Jewel In The Crown and the Crown itself. And everyone is fighting over Calcutta. It appears the epicenter of the Second World War was not somewhere in Europe, but right here in our backyard, in the South-East Asian Theater of WW-II where four empires hotly contested over the City Of Joy.

It’s something of a hash of Chinese and Japanese Ramen noodles curried in Indian spices and served in English tableware.

The film recreates the mood of contemporary Calcutta during the Second World War, when it faced the brunt of Japanese raids by air, as well as their aggressive intent on the ground.

The plot draws heavy references from the Burmese Campaign launched by Allied Forces during the period. The Japanese overran Burma in 1942, evicting the Allied Forces. Many counter attacks by the latter to regain Burma proved futile. The Japs also occupied Andaman and Nicobar islands, which they developed as a naval and air base for carrying out raids on British forces in India. India found itself an unwitting and de facto ally to the allied forces during WW-II. Britain, India and China became bed pals in the war against the Japanese and the INA (Indian Nationalist Army) of Subash Chandra Bose. Though the Japanese could not invade Calcutta on the ground, they found it practically defenseless by air at night since the elitist allied air force was deployed elsewhere in Europe. Japs deployed their Mitsubishi fighters and bombed Calcutta relentlessly right up to 1944, i.e., just before the end of the war. The destruction of Kidderpore Docks in 1943 still rankles in the memory of Calcutta. Finally, the British, shocked out of complacency by the inadequacy of their obsolete air battle machinery, deployed radar-equipped night fighters called the Beau-fighters to meet the Japanese challenge. They managed to save much of the architectural marvels of Calcutta from getting reduced to rubble and shot down many Jap planes. Many airstrips were hastily developed, including the famous Red Road. The Japanese ground assault was halted in the battles of Imphal and Kohima; hence they never managed to realize their ambition of a foothold in Calcutta. Many intense moments in the movie are shot