Life in a Metro…in 2007

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.