The sequel to the 2011 hit Tanu Weds Manu begins in London. The four year-old marriage between the quiet Manu Sharma and the temperamental Tanu is in trouble. Tanu, played with her usual chutzpah by Kangana Ranaut, puts Manu in a mental asylum and comes back to her somewhat wild life in Kanpur. Manu manages to get out and come to Delhi. While rumblings about a divorce are going on, he gets attracted to Kusum Sangwan, a toothy Haryanvi athlete with a thick accent, who looks just like Tanu. The story then moves between Chandigarh, Jhajjar and Kanpur.
It is a fun film. But its genius, like that of Rai's other films - Tanu Weds Manu (2011), Raanjhanaa (2013) - is in the way it captures small-town flavours. This is not just through good photography or art direction. The characters, the writing, the dialogues and the even the actors look like people from small-town India.
This is true for at least a dozen successful films in the past five years or so - Paan Singh Tomar (2012), Finding Fanny (2014), Dum Laga Ke Haisha (2015), Ishqiya (2010), Dedh Ishqiya (2014), Gangs of Wasseypur (1 and 2; 2012). They are all set in and around small-town India. Before that there was Bunty aur Babli (2005) and Omkara (2006). Their stories are not about the place. But just like the sleepy village of Pocolim in Goa becomes a character in Finding Fanny, so does Varanasi in Raanjhanaa or Haridwar in Dum Laga Ke Haisha.
Ever since it took off, Hindi cinema either did the stock two-three village films or the one odd foreign or a hill-station one. Most films were set in Mumbai or around it since the industry was centered there, so was a lucrative part of the audience. In the nineties, the narrative went overseas with a vengeance but never deeper into India. What has changed? Why are more and more Indian films setting themselves in small towns? It is a mix of reasons.
One is formula, the god in most commercial film industries. So, for every successful small-town film, there are at least two unsuccessful ones.
Two, the overexposure that foreign locales have had, thanks to the tax breaks several countries now offer Indian films. Switzerland, London and Australia have been done to death. Now they are going after Turkey, Poland and Germany.
Three, small-town India has started becoming a driver of economic growth. And, of course, there is the rise of digital single screen theatres and multiplexes in small-town India.
But there is probably more to it.
I have spent every summer holiday in the seventies and part of the eighties in Dehradun and the towns around it - Haridwar, Rishikesh, Saharanpur. In those days, Dehradun (now the capital of Uttarakhand) easily qualified as a small town. I have seen characters like Bindiya or Murari, played brilliantly by Swara Bhaskar and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, respectively, in Raanjhanaa. Some of my cousins were like that. But my view of these towns, just like that of many in the audience, comes from metro India - earlier as a Mumbaikar and now as a Delhiite. And, like many Indians, while I cannot occupy that place, I can relate to it and enjoy seeing it on screen.
So, while there are loads of metro and foreign-based stories being told, the small-town ones are resonating with audiences looking for an 'Indian' idiom in their stories. This assumes of course that the filmmaker has a story to tell and tells it well.
Rachel Dwyer, professor of Indian cultures and cinema, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, explains: "Some filmmakers are trying to bring in more realistic elements to the mainstream through characterisation, narrative, and use of songs. Location is one of them. It may be the small-town (Lalgunj in Dabangg), the larger city (Varanasi in Raanjhanaa/ Kanpur in Tanu weds Manu) or the local in the metropolis (parts of Delhi in Band Baaja Baraat or Queen)."
Whatever it is, the small-town movie is hitting the right notes - creatively and commercially.
Twitter: @vanitakohlik