At #Udaygiri in the modern state of #MadhyaPradesh,about an hour's drive from Bhopal, there are about twenty rock cut caves dating to the Gupta period. Most are just niches, however some form columned temples. they are from the pre Gupta era and were extensively reworked in Gupta times, especially in the reign of Chandra Gupta II, #Vikramaditya. These must have been impressive once , they are mostly desolate now. Cave five, the most impressive of the twenty that remain, is a rock-cut cave from the early 5th Century. This large-scale sculpture depicts the myth of #Vishnu as #Varaha, the Boar, rescuing the goddess Bhudevi, which represents the earth, she is seen held up by his tusk, rescued from the murk into which she had sunk. The rows of figures at the back are sages and divinities and two male musicians. On the sides of the panels there are images of the river goddesses Ganga and Yamuna with figures of attendants. There is a large sculpture of Vishnu reclining on Seshnaga, and another of him as Narasimhan, several of the caves have Lingams, and some were used by Jain ascetics as well. Also of note is the broad central passage, which grants access to the top of the rock formation. The romance of desolation, the mystery of isolation and the untold stories from a time long past echo in what remains. Sharing some pictures from a visit in 2013 ....
This is #ZoyaAkhtar's third outing as a Director. the first film, Luck By Chance, bombed, perhaps because it was too close to reality. Having learnt her lessons from that Akhtar has taken to making movies wrapped in Candy floss, #ZingadinaMilegiDobara, was such, so beautiful that Hrithik Roshan was only the fourth or fifth most beautiful thing on screen,pure fantasy. One small road trip with best buddies is all it takes to teach you to seize the day, gaze at the stars, have lots of great sex, mend relationships, and have all manner of life-altering epiphanies. the film, wrapped in golden tissue, came to all its realizations amidst tremendous beauty,it looked like a travel brochure for Spain, this one , similar on all the above, is a brochure for Turkey and Greece!!
It takes its title from the song that played over the opening credits of Zindagi, and like that film, this, too, is a road movie –rather, a sea movie. A super-rich Punjabi patriarch – Kamal Mehra (#AnilKapoor) – and his wife Neelam (Shefali Shah) invite family and friends on a cruise to Turkey and Greece to celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary. As with Zindagi, the metaphors write themselves. Families are like a cruise – you’re stuck with the same people. Sometimes, the voyage is choppy. Sometimes there are clear skies. You may find yourself adrift, but, at the end of the day (not to mention #Ranveer Singh) in a spot of trouble during a business presentation, and he jumps in to save Kabir. There’s an echo of this at the end – Kamal literally jumps in to save Kabir. Some people learn screenwriting from Syd Field. Zoya Akhtar appears to have learnt the craft from a shoelace. Everything crisscrosses and loops around just so, in neat little bows.
This is essentially an update of a 1960s family melodrama. It’s all here – the line about how, after marriage, beti parayi ho gayi; the concern over log kya kahenge when they hear about a divorce; the mangni toot gayi tragedy; a father’s expectation that his daughter should gift him a grandson; the rich girl falling in love with her father’s manager ka beta… These tropes are refracted through a soap-opera prism, and staged with an emphasis on setting and character that those older films did not bother too much with. Neelam, for instance, is a stress eater – she worries about her weight and is often seen in front of mirrors. Kabir likes to fly. Kabir’s brother-in-law Manav (an ill-fitting Rahul Bose; just wait till you see him attempt a wolf whistle in a song, but then perhaps that is the point, he is ill fitting, with the rest of the glossy family) – he’s married to Kabir’s sister Ayesha (#Priyanka Chopra) – is a mama’s boy. Mama, meanwhile, keeps announcing that she’s suffering – from vertigo, from asthma, from arthritis. And the family pet, a bullmastiff named Pluto Mehra, likes to dispense trite observations in Aamir Khan’s voice, neon-highlighting the goings-on. Maybe this is Akhtar acknowledging that Khan is the industry’s top dog.
On paper, this is a can’t-go-wrong situation. An ensemble cast of good-looking stars, many of them good actors. A director who has the most exquisite taste. And a complicit audience, aware that this is one of those times we are at the doctor’s reception room and, after a cursory glance at the magazines, are going to choose People over The Caravan. Akhtar thinks in English, and has that aesthetic . Each time someone has to say 'what was that' we hear 'woh kya tha', Kamal hears of Kabir’s relationship with Noorie (Ridhima Sud) and asks, “Tumhaare iraade kya hain?” It’s an American father from the fifties asking, “What are your intentions, young man?” Couldn’t he just say something like “Us ladki ke saath tum kya kar rahe ho?” Elsewhere, from a broken-hearted Noorie, we get this gem: “Mera fiancé ne mujhe mandap pe chhod diya.” Oh no, sweetheart. You’d have said you got dumped.
After a while, it’s easy enough to overlook this, ( though it does go to the very end, asked if he'd wait for her(Ayesha), Sunny says,hamesha hamesha ke liye, he's thinking 'forever and ever of course!) – it is what it is. Dil Dhadakne Do is like entering a five-star hotel. The outside noise disappears. It’s all very hush-hush. it may seem farcical, terribly upper class, devoid of all outside noise,removed from the dross of the real world,but there are no pretenses to be otherwise, and it does nuance the peculiar issues of the super rich.
It's a bit too neat though,every problem is a cliché. Every outcome is preordained. And there are too many characters with too little to do. Son wants to step out of domineering dad’s shadow, daughter wants to end an unhappy marriage, and so forth. Had any one of these issues been stretched to movie length, it may have been affecting, but with Akhtar directing with a finger on the fast-forward button, there’s nothing and no one to care about. Yes, this is a light film and not really a drama, – except the ones that involve Kabir; Ranveer Singh is a lot of fun to watch,essaying his part with aplomb – I liked the subplot with Ayesha, who’s a fascinating character. She’s an achiever, but her successes haven’t given her much confidence, probably because she’s been so undermined all her life. There’s a great scene where she pushes Manav away in bed and then feels sorry (or guilty; or maybe both) and reaches out to him again. These terrific shadings deserve a life-size portrait. We get a picture postcard.we get to see the travails of a real woman caught between two worlds, unable to be completely in either, till such time as she has her own epiphany, and ofcourse she has one. There's a lesson in empowerment there, as also with Farha's (#Anushka Sharma) character.The contrast with the mother, who has no where to go, and therefore stays with a philandering husband, pretending all is hunky dory, is poignant.
The parts with Kabir and Farha have some zing. I loved the cut to Ayesha’s face when Kabir tells his parents about Farha. You expect a cut to their horrified faces. But here, we see Ayesha thinking, Dude, did you just say what I think you said? It’s nice to see Anil Kapoor’s eighties-style intensity bounce off Farhan Akhtar’s two-decades-later nonchalance. The latter plays a Caravan-style journalist named Sunny, who’s slightly bemused in the midst of all these people. I wanted more of him, indeed I loved him and his blithe elegance.No wonder he is the one who gets kissed, Priyanka, Ranvir, sundry Aunties and the bullmastiff all get a lick !!! It's an 'all's well that ends well' movie, common place little stories, woven into several characters, engagingly easy on the eyes. Can't fault it for anything other than the fact that there are too many stories being told in the space of the ten days of the Cruise and it seems fantastic that that much happens in so small a time capsule, and the climax is a little too contrived.the family had dad its moments and I thought Kabir ought to have chased after his lady love on his own, it was his moment, somewhat robbed by the inclusion of the clan. On a personal note,I am taking such a Cruise to the very same lands come September, just hoping all my issues are quick fixed too !!! ;) Priyanka and Farhan also sing ..here goes, do take a listen.
First things first, I couldn't come
to terms with the title: #TanuWedsManuReturns. Considering the
audience just needs to be told that this is a sequel, was Tanu and Manu Again, unavailable? Tanu Weds Manu Returns sounds like Tanu weds and Manu returns.
The severely suppressed Grammer Nazi in me kept wanting to insert a comma midway. Though,
really, it’s Tanu who returns and Manu who weds, well almost!!!
As the film begins – this, too, is directed by #AnandLRai – we see the
Tanu-Manu wedding which was promised in the earlier film. Soon, we are told
it’s four years later. The festive Indian colours give way to chilly Western
ones. Tanu (#KanganaRanaut) and Manu (#RMadhavan) are in England. Their
marriage is on the rocks. So they do what every troubled couple does. They go
to a... mental rehabilitation centre. Yup. Clearly,
marriage counsellors are so last century. He says she’s bipolar. She says
he’s boring. He says she’s a flirt. She says he’s a pervert, alluding to the
best scene in the first film, where he took a picture of her as she lay
sleeping. It was a creepy-cute moment that made you wonder where things were
going. Nowhere special, it turned out. Anyway, Tanu gets Manu committed and
returns to her hometown, Kanpur.
This is an awful, outlandish contrivance and I could never get past it. I
see what this scene is doing. It’s trying to remind us how impulsive Tanu is.
But why not think up something more plausible to tell us the marriage is
over? I would have believed it if Tanu had simply woken up in the middle of
the night, packed her bags and headed to the airport. Because she is that way. That’s why we like her. That’s why we are maddened and
frustrated by her. And it’s easy to see why Manu feels all these things too.
What’s not so easy to buy is the whole marriage. The fact that they are
separated after four years is less surprising than the fact that they lasted
that long. She’s a firecracker. He’s a bath towel. It might have helped if
we’d seen a few scenes from their marriage.
Once Tanu is back in Kanpur, the film picks up speed for a while. Raithinks in Hindi. This
isn’t just about the great lines dripping with ghee (I howled when a
translator went from “[night]club” to “Gymkhana”), or the rooted, small-town
atmosphere. It’s that his reference points are all from Hindi cinema. He
likes to feature old songs. Tanu Weds Manu Returns begins with Sun sahiba sun playing over the wedding. And near the end, we get a song sequence
where a heartbroken Tanu dances at Manu’s wedding – he’s back in India too,
and he’s getting married to Kusum (Kangana again), who looks like Tanu.
Through the song, I kept thinking what a strange, Pakeezah-like moment this was – Sahibjaan dancing at Salim’s wedding – and sure
enough, a poster of Pakeezah is glimpsed a
little later. The lookalike, of course, was a staple of Hindi films of a
certain era – you could point to Sharmilee, say.
And somewhere in between, we have a nod to another love triangle, Aar Paar. Ja ja ja ja bewafa plays on the
soundtrack, and it could have been written for this film. Tanu accuses Manu
of bewafaii, infidelity. That’s
not a word you hear very often in the post-multiplex Hindi movie. This
stretch of song is lovely. It’s night. There’s Geeta Dutt’s voice. And Rai
stages nice little bits. Tanu, a glass of whiskey in hand, stumbles upon a
beggar. She steps into a beauty parlour and tries on a wig that makes her
look like Kusum. But the song comes out of nowhere. This level of sadness,
this level of longing needs to be built up to. Songs this big need the grounding of
equally big emotions. Think Tanhayee in Dil Chahta Hai. It works because it’s the culmination of a journey; it’s the epiphany
the film has been building towards. This film uses its equivalent of Tanhayee as if it were just another song, as if it were Jaane kyon log pyaar karte hain. I was relieved when O saathi mere – sung exquisitely by Sonu Nigam; my favourite in a very strong
soundtrack by Krsna Solo – was simply used as background music; otherwise,
we’d have been wondering at what point Manu was feeling what Sonu Nigam was
feeling.
It’s understandable that Rai doesn’t want to get too emotional, he wants
to keep things light and entertaining – but the premise is anything but. Or
maybe I should say premises. There’s a lot in here. Empowerment messages. A
subplot about artificial insemination. A khap-panchayat scenario. There are many characters and they keep cluttering up the
plot. Of course, this gives us the chance to see a lot of good actors – Swara
Bhaskar, Deepak Dobriyal, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, and especially KK Raina,
who plays Manu’s father and has a standout scene where he advises his son
about marriage, even as his wife keeps screeching in the background. But
these characters are given very little to do, and you wish more time had been
devoted to Tanu and Manu. Early on, he refers to their sex life. Wouldn’t
that have been something to see? Tanu blindfolds Manu and he thinks there’s
been a blackout. Or something.
Even Kusum is a bit of a cipher, though Kangana plays her beautifully.
(Tanu and Kusum truly seem to be portrayed by two different actresses. It
isn’t just the externals. This is acting from the inside out. I hope that the
fact that this is a “light” movie doesn’t prevent Kangana from being
recognised richly for her work.) Manu answers our question when he says he
doesn’t know why he’s fallen for Kusum, though it’s clear that he loves
the idea of Tanu and because he can’t seem
to live with the version he has, he’s looking for a close-enough replacement.
But we know he’s going to end up with Tanu – and besides making the film
extremely boring after a point, this makes Kusum collateral damage, and thats shabby treatment in return for all that goodness. (She’s
got #JimmyShergill’s Raja for company. He, too, is hurt in the crossfire
between Tanu and Manu.)
But maybe this is what makes Rai’s films at least a little special.
Whether inRaanjhanaa or in his Tanu-Manu
outings, he isn’t afraid to show us unlikeable, borderline-crazy people – and
this is unusual in a mainstream love story. People get hurt in his films.
People die. The Abhay Deol character in Raanjhanaa was killed in the crossfire between Dhanush and Sonam. Kusum and
Raja just happen to be in a lighter movie, with great sight gags like the one
where we see Sardars dancing the dandiya. Remove these gags and
you have the push-pull romance between two terribly self-absorbed people.
Despite his stolidness (and solidness, I must say; Madhavan is doing for
heroes what Bhumi Pednekar and Vidya Balan are doing for heroines), Manu is
as much a flake as Tanu is. He seems to care more about his promise to Kusum
that he’ll marry her (again, a Hindi-cinema thing, that whole vachan concept), even after Tanu re-enters his life and makes him
re-evaluate his feelings. For the first time, I felt that he did belong in a
mental rehabilitation centre, why does he still want Tanu? and why does he
want Datto at all? the "arhar ki daal mein Azinamoto" simile so apt
to both those pairs, doesn't he realise the truth of it?
At least Tanu is more fun. She’s a magnificent flake. When she returns to Kanpur, she sees an old friend – an old
flame, maybe – who’s now a rickshaw-wallah. She hops in and asks him, “Meri yaad aati hai? Kab?” This question is as impulsive as the
hug she gives him when they reach her home – her parents look on horrified.
Another lovely scene has her wondering if she should call Manu and say she’s
sorry. As if it’s all a game. But Rai grounds Tanu, he tells us why she is
this way – because her father (Rajendra Gupta) has spoilt her, not raising
his voice ever.That said, and Kangna's magnificent act notwithstanding,
indeed the movie struggles to match her performance(s) in both those roles,I
had trouble with the characterization of Tanu. Its not empowerment to be
misbehaved, to the extent that you have a man committed to an asylum, nor is
it "Kewl" to come sit wrapped in a towel and nothing else other than
a generous dose of vodka, amidst guests come to see (screen) your sister as a
prospective bride. Nor does the " hum thode se Bewafa kya ho gaye aap to
badchalan ho gaye", line wash. What is a little infidelity? and how is
Manu the immoral one? His intent is clearly rooted in an ingrained sense of
rights and wrongs, She is the one with the negotiable values. Strange that. I
couldn't help but think that all of Datto's charges against Tanu were
insight -fully close to the truth, they ring true. why then does she get to
ride her horse back into the sunset, Manu in tow? Is that the picture of an
empowered woman the director wishes to endorse? Empowerment is not
irresponsibility, It is Datto for whom the heart bleeds.
The film is saved by the provocatively
written lines and the superlative performances, Kangna standing out in both avatars, the Haryanavi spouting Datto, my favoured one of the two, The film however, could however have done a
great deal more for the cause of women in general with more thought put in. In lighter vein, there is a 'Sharmaji' I know, internal fallacies in that line notwithstanding, am so longing to 'swagger' up and say" Sharmaji, hum thode se bewafa kya hue, aap to badchalan ho gaye!!!"
