Filmi Geek

Haathi mere saathi (1971)

हाथी मेरे साथी

Dir. M.A. Thirumugham

There is a vanishingly small number of Hindi movie stars that I actively dislike.  A few are neither here nor there, but one of the great joys of Hindi films for me is that most of the stars are so generously appealing.   Despite that, though, I have never been a huge fan of Rajesh Khanna.  The better movies of his that I've seen (Bawarchi, Amar Prem) I saw too early in my experience of Hindi movies to fully appreciate them, and his heavy-lidded, mumbling performance style did little to distinguish him for me.  I watched Anand on the strength of many recommendations of that revered movie - and I absolutely hated it, enough to cement him as the rare fillum star whose name in the credits is a deterrent to viewing.

On the news of his passing, though, I knew I had to give Rajesh Khanna another chance.   He is too important and beloved a superstar for me to keep avoiding his movies just because I find him a little froggy.  So I dug into my stack of unwatched movies looking for something with enough fun and delight to overcome the weight of my least favorite star this side of Shah Rukh Khan.   I begin my commemoration of the career of Rajesh Khanna with Haathi mere saathi ("elephants my companions").  Salim-Javed, Tanuja, and four elephants to the rescue!

Four friendly elephants rescued Raju as a child, and as he grew up they protected him and became his constant companions.  Now an adult, Raju (Rajesh Khanna) loves the elephants and cares for them as family.   Even when he loses his home and becomes destitute - thanks to the machinations of an envious carnival owner, Kumar (K.N. Singh) - Raju won't part with the elephants.   Raju performs a successful street show with the animals, and parlays that success into an enormous animal theme park, Pyaar ki duniya ("world of love"), featuring lions and tigers and Mehmood Jr (oh my!).  He also wins the heart of Tanu (Tanuja), whose otherwise kindly father (Madan Puri) had been reluctant to approve of the match when Raju was penniless.  Their marriage, though, brings new problems along with the joy of it - Tanu is jealous of the attention Raju pays to his beloved elephants.   And, she begins to fear for the safety of their son, despite Raju's protestations that the elephants would never harm him.  Is there room for everyone in their happy home?

Okay, for a Salim-Javed movie, Haathi mere saathi doesn't offer a ton of depth.  This is not a movie with the raw intensity of a Deewaar or the culture-defining resonance of a Sholay.   With his massive, sparkling bungalow and magical animal-charming powers, Raju is hardly the gritty face of passionate young India.  But it's not hard to see why Haathi mere saathi was a huge hit all the same - it is delightful and simply a whole lot of fun.  The elephants easily steal the show, and they are charming and adorable - even more adorable than Tanuja, and that is saying something indeed.

Haathi mere saathi's story, such as it is, is all over the place.  It veers from episode to episode, some without much coherence or payoff.   There is an elephant race, a traiterous family accountant giving false testimony in a crucial court case, a seemingly star-crossed romance, some fist fights (including one where Raju pauses to fix his hair), and even an outrageous circus-stunt sequence in which Raju, desperate for money, sets himself on fire and leaps from a 100-meter platform into a tiny pool of water.  Pure entertainment, for sure. Still, there are a few consistent threads - Raju's love for his elephants, his relationship with Tanu, and Kumar's jealous scheming to acquire the elephants for his own carnival.  The last 45 minutes of the movie focus on the repercussions of Tanu's entirely rational fear of sharing her home with enormous wild animals who could crush her small child like a bug. In one of Haathi mere saathi's unintentionally hilarious moments, Tanu encounters one of the elephants smooshing a doll, and imagines, in terror, that the doll is her child.   It is, I have to admit, a rather funny sequence - but at the same time, I can't say I blame her!

And then, there is Rajesh Khanna, nominally the reason I chose to watch Haathi mere saathi just now.  I can't say I like him any more in this movie than in any other - he is as smug, supercilious, and mumbly as ever.  But none of that detracts from a movie that is cute and fun and really more about the elephants than anything else.  Really - how can a mildly unappealing star get in the way of a movie in which Mehmood Jr. leads a parade of elephants, tigers, and lions into a function hall in an orderly line to partake of a wedding feast?

Besides, there are lots and lots of pink suits.  Rajesh Khanna wears a pink Nehru most of the time (except when he wears a blue one).  And Madan Puri sports a dazzling array of very fine suits in shimmering jewel tones, including this magnificent crimson.

What can I say?  Haathi mere saathi offers no purchase for biting analysis, no syncretism or social message to subject to withering close critique.  What it does offer is simply a silly, sweet, adorable movie full of fun animal tricks and goofy bad guys of varying degrees of haplessness.  Oh, and cute, cute, CUTE songs.  How can you not love a song in which four helpful elephants tow Tanuja in a disabled red convertible?

 

A friend of mine told me that after she saw this movie as a child, she threw a pachydermed-up version of the classic "I want a pony!" fit for weeks on end.  She told me that she wouldn't rest until her parents took her to pet the elephants at nearby temple.  That image alone was worth the price of the DVD - if only she had home movies!  But in their absence, at least we have Haathi mere saathi - lots of silliness, and lots of smiles.

Delhi-6 (2009)

दिल्ली-६

Dir. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

A recent Outlook India piece by Sunil Menon (one that also happened to mention this blog, I'm delighted to say) lamented the absence of a sense of place in many Hindi films.  Traditionally, Menon argues, geographical realism yields to movie magic, be it in masala films that are "officially headquartered in cloud-cuckoo-land (with branches in Switzerland)," or even in more serious films that make only passing invocation of locale through picture-postcard shots of landmarks. 

But my own experience of Hindi movies of late has been quite different from this.   From Kahaani's vibrant Calcutta, to Chhoti si baat's bustling Bombay, and even Tere ghar ke samne's romantic traipse up and down the spire of Qutub Minar, I have felt exquisitely connected to locale in many movies I have watched in recent months.  Almost certainly this is a lingering effect of my first trip to India, taken earlier this year, which converted many of the colors and locales of the movies from flat scenery to real, swirling, sensual associations in my mind.  One of the most potent experiences I had - one that made India pop off the movie screen and into the rest of my senses - was a bicycle-rickshaw ride and walk through Chandni Chowk on just the second full day of my trip.  Rakeysh Omprasad Mehra's Delhi-6 whirls through those very same churning streets, and watching this excellent movie closes the feedback loop of my experience - watching Hindi movies has made India a fascination for me of limitless depth and life, and seeing India inperson has made Hindi movies breathe with a new vivacity.

Annapurna (Waheeda Rehman) has been living with her son and his family in New York for many years, but her only wish is to return to her home in Delhi and spend the end of her life there.  Her grandson Roshan (Abhishek Bachchan) takes her there, and meets the extended family of relatives and neighbors who welcome Annapurna back into their crowded Chandni Chowk lives.   Roshan is thrilled by the sensory overload of the neighborhood, the brilliant pageantry of the Ram Leela plays, the broad spectrum of people he meets there.  He makes a bumpy adjustment to the realities of life in old Delhi - city streets choked by the holy spectacle of a cow giving birth, the arbitrary exercise of power (and reaping of baksheesh) by the police.  He is caught up, too, in the fear and excitement that grips the city because of seemingly random capers of an enigmatic assailant, Kala Bandar (the black monkey).  As Roshan gets pulled deeper into the mystery of Kala Bandar, he becomes a part of Delhi 6, and Delhi 6 becomes a part of him.

Among the many pleasures of Delhi-6 is Roshan's broad sense of wonder as he greets the tumult of Chandni Chowk for the first time.  As Roshan gazes across the crowd and exclaims "Awesome!", I can't help but share in that wonder and relive it with him.  Roshan is a foreigner, despite his family roots in the community - he grew up in America, speaks Hindi only as well as is expedient for the story, and greets the city and its inhabitants with wide-eyed fascination (and occasional indignation) that is palpably identifiable to a firang like myself. 

The people Roshan meets there provide the texture that brings the location to life.  Central among these is a close family friend, the avuncular Ali Baig (Rishi Kapoor), one of the wealthier inhabitants of the neighborhood, who becomes a father figure and confidant to Roshan.  Rishi Kapoor is delightful in this role, a more natural performance than his scene-chewing in Luck by Chance.  Less loveable but just as compelling is the cranky Madangopal (Om Puri), father of Bittu (Sonam Kapoor), who hides her makeup and navel-piercing from her family and dreams of Bombay and stardom.  Madangopal's ambitious but somewhat stupid brother Jaigopal (Pavan Malhotra) teases the apparent simpleton Gobar (Atul Kulkarni), who of course turns out to be smarter and wiser than anyone gives him credit for.  A sinister money-lender (Prem Chopra) wields his power and influence like the jeweled walking-stick he carries.  The sweet-shop owner Mamdu (Deepak Dobriyal) greets Roshan with overflowing warmth and offers of sweets; he declares, "Bhookh mitane ke liye kutte khate hain - insaan khaate hain jodne ke liye." (Dogs eat to sate hunger - people eat to bond with each other.)

I adore this sort of neighborhood ensemble cast that brings to a movie a vibrancy, an essence, a palpable sense of life in a particular place.  This was something I loved, too, about Shyam Benegal's Welcome to Sajjanpur - and here, as in that movie, Divya Dutta once again utterly fascinates in a very brief but completely riveting role.  She plays Jalebi, a low-caste woman who collects trash and, with a compelling mixture of viciousness and sadness, harrasses neighborhood boys who cringe superstitiously away from her.  And she is a harbinger of the divisive mentality that lurks below Chandni Chowk's affable surface.

The people generate the pulse of Chandni Chowk, all these religiously, ethnically, economically diverse souls cramped together in the narrow galis of the old city.  And they live together in relative harmony, until the tension of Kala Bandar drives wedges between them, splintering the neighborhood.  Roshan, of course, ultimately helps to repair the shattered community.  But he is not so much the prodigal savior, as is Shah Rukh Khan's character in Swades.  Roshan is not a smarmy hero, swooping in with great knowledge from the West to rescue the backward locals.  Instead, he is something of an accidental savior.   After his initial tourist reaction to Delhi 6 subsides - and when internecine tension threatens to set the neighborhood ablaze - his first instinct is to flee back to the comfort of the US.  But finally, moved by love (both for Annapurna and for Bittu), Roshan sees, and takes, an opportunity for self-sacrifice. 

It is a very satisfying character arc, in a very satisfying movie.  Roshan's growth, the superb cast of richly diverse and colorfully sketched characters, the swirling sense of Chandni Chowk, the beautiful array of A.R. Rahman's songs, all combine and resonate with my own memories of Delhi, for a movie I am sure I will return to whenever I want to relive my thrilling afternoon in Delhi 6.

Luck by Chance (2009)

Dir. Zoya Akhtar

Irrational love for The Dirty Picture notwithstanding, I do not usually have much patience for movies that purport to be self-reflective about the movie industry.  Even the undeniable artistry of Kaagaz ke phool is somewhat obscured for me by that movie's whining about how haaaaard it is to be an artist in the crass, cold environment of commercial cinema.  My experience of Zoya Akhtar's otherwise very good Luck by Chance suffers a bit from the same affliction. 

Sona (Konkona Sen Sharma) is an actor with dreams of landing a big role and becoming a star.  She works tirelessly at bit parts in mainstream productions, and waits for the break she's been promised by a shady producer (Alyy Khan).  Sona meets another ambitious young actor, Vikram (Farhan Akhtar), and the two connect and start a relationship.  In the meantime, big-time producer Rommy Rolly (Rishi Kapoor) is trying to complete his next blockbuster, a star vehicle for the A-lister Zaffar Khan (Hrithik Roshan) and launch for newcomer Nikki (Isha Sharvani), the daughter of 70s silver screen legend Neena (Dimple Kapadia).  When Zaffar abruptly withdraws from the film, an opportunity arises for Vikram - he lands the part, and soon is riding the relentless scree of studio promotion, media attention, and superstar-level temptation.  Vikram's movie is a hit, but his relationship with Sona takes a hit. 

Laments about the hardships faced by industry outsiders do ring somewhat hollow in the all-Akhtar extravaganza that is Luck by Chance.  And in addition to a supporting cast packed with industry elder statesmen, the movie sports actor cameos to a degree not seen since Om Shanti Om - a sure sign of a moviemaker's movie if there ever was one (though I admit my heart broke a little when I spotted Manish Acharya).  Nevertheless, apart from a bit of eyerolling at this (and a slightly draggy middle section) Luck by Chance is a strong effort whose best points stand out much more than its weaknesses detract.  The contrasting arcs of its two principals - Vikram and Sona - are especially well-rendered.  Vikram's abrupt rise and equally abrupt - if predictable - fall serves a sharp counterpoint to Sona's hard slog through obscurity and squelched hope toward a peaceful and mature landing. 

Vikram's arc, in particular, offers the incontrovertible stamp of a movie written by a woman.  Vikram is seduced by success in no time flat, and acts like a complete asshole, making not even an attempt to resist the artlessly forward advances of the vapid, unappealing Nikki.  Sona understandably grieves her lost love - but when Vikram begs for a second chance, she calls him out for the self-absorbed man-child he is.   In most movies written by men, self-absorbed man-children behave like complete assholes as a matter of course, and are usually forgiven and get what they want all the same.  Not so Vikram; Zoya Akhtar makes sure that his actions have reasonably satisfying consequences. 

As for Sona's arc, I wish the movie were less coy about the nature of Sona's quid pro quo with the producer Chaudhary who promises her a second-heroine role in a movie he is always on the cusp of making. It seems from the innuendo of the movie's opening scene that the arrangement includes Sona doing time on the casting couch, but the movie otherwise gives the subject very wide berth, and nothing is made of it after that exchange.  Where Luck By Chance is fearless about poking a stick at so many industry pecadilloes - from the favoring of talentless star kids to the out-of-proportion influence wielded by gossip rags - it is telling that the movie treads so cautiously on the subject of swapping sex for roles. 

It is perhaps redundant to praise a Konkona Sen Sharma performance, but I won't let that stop me.  She brings an outstandingly moving wounded delicacy to Sona.  As Sona's dreams fade she seems to become wearier and wearier; her posture droops and her expression takes on a more exhausted aspect.   Konkona also conveys the real work of acting - when Sona finishes a take, her face and body visibly relax. Always looking to improve her craft, Sona never fails to buttonhole someone on set and ask whether the take was good.  There is another contrast with Vikram here that is surely intentional.  Vikram studies also - he practices dancing and martial arts; he is chastised by a workshop instructor for being too understated in his delivery.  Vikram is studying to be a Hero, not an actor.

And as a hero, I am not yet fully sold on Farhan Akhtar.  He's a very good-looking fellow (just like his father) but his perpetually dazed expression does not convey a great deal of emotional range, and he speaks (just like his father) as though he's still finishing dinner and has a cold.  I will reserve judgment until I've seen more of his movies. 

The supporting cast lends a great deal of texture to Luck by Chance's portrayal of how the sausage gets made in mainstream Hindi cinema.  Dimple Kapadia is always riveting - sometimes I wonder if she is not simply the most beautiful woman in the movies, bar none.  In Being Cyrus, she made an aborrent character thrillingly appealing, and she calls on some of the same art for the slightly more sympathetic Neena, who is part over-the-hill superstar, part horrifying pageant mom.  Dimple brings a measure of subtlety to this blend that makes Neena the most compelling character in the film.  Rishi Kapoor, as the emotional producer Rommy, does a lot more scene chewing in a performance with a lot less depth, but he's nevertheless a lot of fun to watch. 

In sum, if you do not share my mild aversion to industry navel-gazing, Luck by Chance has a lot to offer.   Most movie lovers would be fascinated by the sort of insider peek it offers behind the camera and into production offices.  Toss in an excellent Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy soundtrack (including, over the opening credits, a moving montage of behind-the-scenes workers from set-builders to costume-tailors) and that vast menu of supporting roles and cameos, and on balance you have a well-made movie worth watching - even if it will never be a favorite of mine.