Mumbai- a city , which if you’ve stayed in…it stays with you forever, a city of paradoxes, a city so crowded that it has burst at its seams and yet it is the city where you could be the most lonely…
A city that overwhelms you, inspires you, and sometimes makes you numb, apathetic! So if you have ever walked with the winds on the Marine drive during the monsoons, or braved the crowds during any festive season or planned your daily schedule around the timing of the ladies special, you will know what I am talking about…and you will also love this movie called Dhobighat- A labor of love, a tribute to this city of dreams.
The most stark paradox of Mumbai of course is the classes. The first is the rich, traveled around the world, living in sea facing apartment class, the second is the behind the scene machinery that makes Mumbai tick- the bais, the dhobis, the chauffeurs, the dabbawalas ; then there is the intellectual , creative kinds who sip champagne in art galleries and seek inspiration over cups of tea and coffee to write stories or lyrics that they hope will become the fancy of the nation when it watches them on celluloid. And finally the outsiders who come in for short duration because of careers, or as tourists or students- who either live and love the city and make it a part of themselves, or struggle to come to terms with it. That’s Shai, Munna, Arun and Yasmin for you- the four main characters of Dhobighat.
And the intertwining of the lives of these four classes in Mumbai is inevitable. The bai that comes to clean the house brings a little bit of her waterlogged slum into the living room during the monsoon and the young housewife chronicles this, along with the other mundane happenings of her life into a video cam. An artist wears the love and longing of another person, who he is never met, in a chain around his neck and it inspires him in way that he hasn’t been inspired in a long – long time. And a small town boy can almost touch his dreams when he sees them through the lens of an expensive camera while he leads it to capture the real Mumbai- of the dhobighat, the itr waalas, the ear cleaners and the rat killers. All the four characters live and experience the same city in their own way…so while one tops his drink with the incessant Mumbai rain and raises a toast, another, not so far away struggles to contain the same water in a plastic mug as it drips through the leaking roof of his shanty.
They all live through the various stages of love too…the innocent excitement of falling in love for the first time for Munna, the curiosity that it evokes for Shai, the hopes and dreams of a young Yasmin who has accompanied her husband to the new city, the disillusionment of the divorced Arun that makes him fear love, and then the letting go- whether its Yasmin’s final goodbye or Munna’s accepting the reality and giving Shai her chance with Arun.
The performances by the main cast can all be ranked excellent. Pratik who left us asking for more after his debut as the heroine’s artistic, bordering on mad, brother in Jaane tu ya Jaane na is back and how. He plays Munna with ease and charm and gives such nuanced expressions at times that it is hard to believe that this his only his second film. Monica Dogra with her accent suits the role of an Indian banker from America, while Kirti , who only talks through and to the camera in the film impresses with her emoting and is very believable as a small town girl. Aamir too proves through his expressions, as he watches the video diary, why he is rated as one of the finest actors of contemporary Hindi cinema.
But the real heroine of the movie is the debutant director, Kiran Rao. Her sensibilities , her writing , her feelings are the pulse of Dhobighat. She, it seems had a clear vision of what she wanted to show and she has used the screenplay, the music score, the performances, the camera – all very skillfully , to bring it to us.
Go and watch it to fall in love with Mumbai all over again!
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