Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Music: A R Rahman
Cast: Abhishek Bacchan, Vaheeta Rahman, Rishi Kapoor, Om Puri, Sonam Kapoor
Ever encountered a situation where you are desperate to like the film, want the film to work spectacularly, attach yourself to the critical result of the film on behalf of the director, often more passionately than even the director did, yet, you stare at the slipping away of the film with impotent rage. You urgently wanted to declare the film as ‘classic’, but feel terribly indignant for having to dismiss it simply as ‘yeah…nice movie.’
The preamble may be a bit exasperating and seem unfair for a film like Delhi 6. Rakeysh Omprash Mehra’s canvas is huge, the ambitions are lofty, and the imagination is brilliant. Ably supported by highly innovative and heart rending music by Rahman, he strides into the gullies of old Delhi with deepest and genuine affection. The camera cruises along, and among the multitude of characters, freely and at times carelessly. He doesn’t judge anyone; they are captured with their own charm and idiosyncrasies. There’s a character of mentally challenged fakir in the film. He doesn’t do much except carrying a chipped mirror and holding it at one or other character. That fakir has significance in the end. In a way, Mehra dons a role of the insane fakir. The colours, exuberance, chaos and frenzy of the streets of Delhi are captured with the same mad enthusiasm with insanely charged music yet with an amazing paradoxical calmness. The America born Roshan is the only odd man out among the odd ball characters, who are carelessly at ease with themselves and their surroundings. There’s the spectacle of a cow’s labour pains in the midst of daylight traffic, and an MLA nonchalantly interfering the serious Ram Lila play where the actor dressed as Lord Siva dances specially for the politician, they affect the senses of Roshan but they don’t affect the senses of the people. Actually nothing really affects them, be it the irony of a Muslim sweetshop wall adorning Lord Hanuman’s picture or the same set of Hindus who have spent their lifetime at his shop, ransacking it furiously and throwing down both the picture of Hanuman and of the Mecca.
What seems odd to them at all? On the surface, Roshan’s interference in their affairs actually does. He questions, first quietly and later vehemently. Those questions are often insouciant reactions of an American to an alien culture but later become more informed and urgent. The people around him still find him odd. When things trundle out of control, he becomes the source to blame. They need a scapegoat. None of them could be found to be faulty. Only the alien could be cause for disturbance in the harmony. Harmony? How can chaos be disturbed? And how will you notice when you disturb chaos? Well, you actually can if you are Mehra.
With certain finely crafted moments of nativity, highly imaginative arrangement of songs, and sincere intentions of the filmmaker, Delhi 6 had all the ingredients of becoming one of the classics of our times.
Until it begins to falter on its own grandiosely erected scaffolding. The crafty structure, the intricate script, the delicate fusion in music, does not take you beyond presenting some painfully predictable plot elements. Roshan is alien not just because he is American but because he is neither a Hindu nor Muslim. That makes it convenient for him to stand out against the lunacy of conflicts. The sweetshop owner is a Muslim and one of the organisers of the Ram Lila festival. When you see him at the marquee you feel the ominous foreboding. And by the way, does he keep the Hanuman portrait to consciously proclaim religious harmony or for commercial considerations that he has to do business among Hindus? And within two scenes of the mad fakir, you sense the significance of the mirror and also the things to come. As careless as the streets of the old Delhi seem to you, the film begins to get self-conscious and then you scream ‘No’; helplessly at that. At one point, Roshan in an apparent epiphany, cheerfully declares, ‘India works.’ Nothing before or after indicates his change of perception. And his recognition of the mirror motif seems urgently resolute. Hindu-Muslim conflict is deeply historic, intricate, and complex. It did not start with the proclamation of a sinister saint or a mad Mullah. Nor can it end with an unintended sacrifice of a well-intentioned human being. It is historic, theological, and at some level political. The film’s ending is nothing but playing to the gallery.
There is news that Mehra actually wanted to have a different ending. He, in fact, has gone onto re edit the film for Toronto film festival. He has not only changed the ending but also perhaps trimmed a few sequences. Perhaps that version would have looked tighter and more confident. Probably we may never get to watch that version. The one stacked at the Landmark shelves leaves you with the emotions described in the first paragraph. However, despite all the unfair criticisms, Mehra is still one of the most promising filmmakers of our times. It is still his third film. The comforting aspect is, he is going to make eight or ten more films in his lifetime.
Some of them are going to change Indian cinema.
