Life in a Metro released thirteen years
ago, in May 2007. At the time, Deepika Padukone was still unheard of, waiting
to make her debut in November.
The Big Three of Indian cricket were still active, and it was a “bold
move” to name Dhoni as the Captain of the T-20 squad, which went on to win the inaugural
World Cup in September. Twitter had started less than a year ago and the current
Chief Beneficiary of Digital India was only starting his second term as the Chief
Minister of Gujarat. And Anurag Basu, the director of Life…, was five
years away from his career defining Barfi!
For the most part, Life… has none of the light
dreaminess of Barfi!, except a stretch with Nafisa Ali and Dharmendra
who play Shivani and Amol – a couple who revive their romantic relationship
in their last years. There is an
undefinable sweetness in their romance, be it their reunion at the railway station, as Amol crosses the track between platforms to get to Shivani, their joyful
traipsing across Bombay, or their quiet togetherness in bed. And the newness isn’t
in that these people are old – we had already had Baghban (2003)
and Pyaar Mein Twist (2005) – but that they are familiar.
Shivani could have been your retired-school teacher grandmother, playing truant
from the old-age home with a portly man dressed in an untucked shirt,
who was not your grandfather.
The other unusual bit about the film is its
treatment of Shruti (Konkona Sen Sharma) who is about to turn 30, unmarried,
and plain. She undergoes a realistic makeover about 20 minutes in (after
she has met her eventual love interest, who likes her as she is), but at no
point do you feel that the character herself has had a personality implant on
account of that. Moreover, the filmmaker takes out time, in an otherwise
frenetically paced screenplay, to show her spending time on the upkeep of her
new appearance. And these are not the aesthetically pleasing shots of make-up
being applied, but the ugly bits involving hair oil and face masks.
Some parts of Life… hark back to an older era
of film storytelling. Sharman Joshi’s track ostensibly seems like an update of
Shah Rukh Khan’s Yes Boss (1997) – even his character is called Rahul. Rahul’s
love interest Neha (Kangana), sleeps with the Boss, in contrast with the
earlier film where Juhi Chawla and the boss (Aditya Pancholi) were in an
adequately 90s’ style platonic affair. Neha has a troubled past and mental health
issues which she helpfully spells out for us in a terrible ‘offhand’ this happened
– that happened sequence. Yet, Yes Boss, for all its well-lit frames,
comedic subplots and cheerful music, is the darker (and better) film.
Shah Rukh Khan in Yes Boss had an independent, almost
crazed ambition. Ensuring a certain lifestyle for his mother was only a part of
that. Rahul of Life..., despite his questionable tactics, is primarily
a ‘good son’ driven by his father’s dreams. While Yes Boss had the menacing
Aditya Pancholi in the eponymous role, the boss in Life… is at most mildly
threatening. Moreover, in an unrealistic
depiction of office life, he seems to go out of his way to help Rahul “meet
investors”, while Pancholi’s character used everything from promises of career
advancement, petty bribery, flattery and emotional manipulation to get his
employee to do his bidding.
However, the thing that struck me the most last night, while
watching the film was, how representative of 2007 Bollywood it is. And I’m not
just talking about the presence of Shiney Ahuja, over-plucked eyebrows, the voice-overs or the ever-present background music.
In 2020, would a filmmaker be compelled to give the otherwise unconventional
Shruti and Monty such a rom-commy ending at the railway station*? Would a gay character’s
only function be to play out a Madhur Bhandarkaresque twist, even if it is to
give the heroine a character arc?
Or take Neha. She attempts suicide after her boyfriend-cum-boss
humiliates her and spends barely a couple of days in recovery. She then resumes
the affair and while en route to another secret rendezvous with said boyfriend,
realizes that Rahul truly loves her. Her reaction is to get out of the car, and
literally run after him, all the way to a happy ending. In 2020, Neha would go
to therapy, quit her job and break up with her boss, and tell Rahul she needed
some time to find herself before jumping into a relationship with him. In the
interim, she would also school him on consent if he tried to kiss her while she
was asleep – though my cautious optimism leads me to believe that 2020 Rahul would
not have tried such a thing in the first place.
And finally, 2020 Shikha (Shilpa Shetty) wouldn’t have
needed her husband to be such an asshole, to contemplate having an affair**. She
would also belly-ache far less about sleeping with the handsome, gentle man she
just happens to meet at bus-stop (She would have actively sought him
out on Tinder). Though even 2020 Shikha would probably still choose her marriage
over the chance at a fresh start.
*Irrfan’s deadpan “Lekin petticoat, blouse toh sab
iske size ka sil gaya, tumne itna late kyun kar diya bataane mein”, to Konkona’s
confession of love notwithstanding.
** He misses his marriage anniversary party to sleep
with the woman he has been seeing for two years already. Then yells at his wife
when she asks him where he was.
