Last week, I watched two new Hindi movies back to back and realised we have two new legitimate chroniclers of North India. Aanand L Rai, the peddler of earthly smell of Tier-II cities, and Zoya Akhtar, the raconteur of urbane India. Tanu Weds Manu Returns (TWMR) and Dil Dhadakne Do (DDD) left me in splits throughout, the former a bit more.
My biggest criticism of Hindi cinema post-2000, unlike its regional counterparts, is that its comedy is always pratfall-ish and the "witty" version of it is always self-referential or reeks of Internet humour. TWMR is ridiculously refreshing that way. Himanshu Sharma's razor-sharp writing was ably translated on to the screen by Rai, who earlier showed his Kevlar-like grip on the ethos of the hinterland in Ranjhanaa and Tanu Weds Manu.
Akhtar showed similar adeptness in Luck By Chance and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (ZNMD). My faculties couldn't believe themselves when Hrithik Roshan started humming the signature Doordarshan tune of the 1990s in ZNMD. Whatever made her think that this hunk of an actor could do something so disarmingly charming, I wasn't complaining. I felt a similar frisson while watching DDD when Shefali Shah keeps wolfing down chocolate cake to get over a fight with her husband (Anil Kapoor).
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Both these film makers are perfectly deft when dealing with an ensemble cast, Akhtar even more so. She relishes such situations. For example, Juhi Chawla and Rishi Kapoor absolutely steal the show in Luck By Chance in wickedly funny roles of greasy Bollywood people. In DDD, the pre-climactic showdown between the four family members left me in a state of shock considering how much it reminded me of British chamber dramas that Mike Leigh got a patent for.
Rai showed similar sparks in TWMR. It's not as much as Kangana Ranaut that Deepak Dobriyal and Jimmy Shergill knocked my socks off. Each frame with either of these actors was downright funny and those punchy one-liners deserve to be lauded for years to come. The sense of urgency in a particular scene between Shergill and Ranaut in an upscale restaurant in Lucknow was so barnstormingly funny that I thought I got my money's worth already. This is the first ~100-crore club movie that left me in raptures from start to finish.
Of course, Bollywood has other such 'chroniclers', like Imtiaz Ali, Shoojit Sircar, Dibakar Banerjee but they are more of storytellers than narrative fanatics. And that's what sets apart Akhtar and Rai from their peers. They are one-trick ponies but that solitary trick is sufficiently brilliant. At 170 minutes, DDD runs a tad long and it does veer towards sitcom territory but when it tends to be good, it's really good. Anil Kapoor's simultaneously snarling and vulnerable outing as the pater familias of the Mehra family is such a delight. So is Ranveer Singh's character of a brattish, confused scion of the Mehras. But Akhtar's masterstroke is Shefali Shah, whose every twitch of the muscle as the trophy wife of Anil Kapoor enlivens the proceedings.
"Tharki logon ki pasandeeda kitaab hai Lolita". Rai's acute idea of the north Indian male sensibility can be seen when Dobriyal's character, Pappi, says this dialogue while Madhavan is looking at a girl half his age and the camera is focused on her. That's the best literary reference I have seen in an Indian movie in a very long time.
Another facet binding these two film makers is their steadfast refusal for schmaltz, a Bollywood staple as old as the hills. Every time TWMR threatens to be a weepie, an astonishingly funny stray one-liner rescues it. Akhtar goes a step ahead and inserts a dog as the narrator in DDD to avoid any such mawkish circumstances. I would love to hail Rai and Akhtar for kickstarting some sort of a new, new Hindi wave, but they need to be more prolific to sustain this crest. If you have decided that quirky dramas are your forte, better make a film every 18 months. If Woody Allen, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and K Balachander can, anyone should be able to.
That said, as of now I am revelling in the fact that Rai used Dobriyal to such good effect to produce a Salman Khan reference in the snarkiest way possible.
jagannath.jamma@bsmail.in
