Reimagining: Part 2
Faces behind the hoardings: Life
in a Metro
Tears of love and smiles of sorrow crowd
the city spaces. Often, sifting through this crowd, a well scripted Bollywood
film brings forth some tales and we halt for a little while to know the stories
behind those strangers’ faces, walking past us every day. Juri Baruah, in her insightful
article on Life in a Metro, awakens
our consciousness to the daily lives in the busy city. Through her shrewd sensitivities,
Juri brings out the dynamics of identities, customs, power and relationships that
shape the life of our cities. Underlying this article is the landscape of
Bollywood itself and its instrumentality to the creation of visions – visions
of Indian cityscapes and the life within it.
The Faces of the Unknown
Spaces
Consciously or
unconsciously we need a medium to travel from one person to another; the medium
may be emotional, may be a promise, or revenge, may be a smile, or an
incomplete dream. Life thus collects so
many mediums from our surrounding spaces that are directly or indirectly
superimposed on our imaginations. The cosmopolitan feelings and the post modern
identities intersect through different variations of snapshots and are
simultaneously entitled by different names. From private space to public
dimensions the sensation of entitlement configures symmetrical as well as
asymmetrical sensations. It is in a Metro,
the mobile sensibility which indicates towards the space of “known faces
but unknown minds”. The negotiation of life in a Metropolitan city is thus an
interesting example to understand about Indian post colonial modernity and
identity.
Lights, Camera, Action
Club, disco, romance,
corporate world- all these notions act as a border in between reality and
virtual world. The border is idealised as exercising of power from body
politics to authorising complexity. From this angle director Anurag Basu
successfully utilised the emotional cosmopolitan fabric to the slices of bareness.
For this the director used the personification of rain, umbrella and changing
colour of the city in the whole movie.
Shades of Red: Shadows of
truth
In the movie the
perception of Indian marriage is contested. The married couple who are depicted
as the ideal couple portray themselves as running from their social bonding to
illegal affairs. The space for the relationship of marriage is suffocated and
in that, the point of view of the traditionalisms in marriage ethics are
changed within the city spaces. As they run from their humdrum life it
indicates a transition of marriage from tradition to post modern reality. The
dialogue “I have only one life, how can I
ruin it with the wrong man?” is a
representation of feminine identity as an independent outlook. The city culture
which makes a girl independent are depicted here but at the same time the
emotional attachment which belongs to Indian value is also highlighted.
The two
comparing status, one- the corporate world of the business city which use
people for their profit and another is the race which is like a fascination for
the competitors localised the factor of speed-
mobility- race. This race is totally opposite from morning walk. The red
traffic light in the busy space of road with the character Rahul in the movie
suddenly changes its colour from day light to night and is a depiction of the
race. This race has commodified life and its different sensitivities through
friendship, love, marriage and sex.
Life is a showbiz
Shivani, the old
lady living in an old age home is a sensible character who reflects on how she
had faced many obstacles of romance in old age from the society and even from
her son. Her boyfriend who had betrayed her in young age came back to Shivani
from USA. It is a kind of discovery of romance from the materialistic cleavage
to free transgressions of human instincts which cannot be denied. The relation
of these two characters without the bond of marriage is sharing the transaction
of friendship and love in a true manner.
On the other
hand Sikha with her introduction as Mrs. Ranjit Kapoor in front of Aakash Sharma
is like a cosmetic overlap of marriage in an aquarium of responsibilities.
Aakash’s argument on her identity as ‘Mrs’, is a strong response to traditional
belief, and dispensation of gender identity of Indian women. The articulation
of the character Sikha in front of Aakash is quite weak: while in the night of
the anniversary party when she argued with her husband on her position as a
house maker is a strong scene of making space of transaction.
The impact of
the city in the late night from the window of Neha and Shruti’s room is again
portrayed as the unpredictability of life. The smoking scene of Neha with the
dialogue “don’t worry, this city has made me stronger” is a perfect
interpretation of the identity of self with emotion and differentiating the other.
The Solitude of the Lonely
Night
Hybrid setting of sensations
The camera
moving through the three characters Boss, Vishey K and Shruti confines the
narrative’s traversing through time, space, and other relational possibilities.
The issue of virginity loss before marriage is also pointing the hegemony
undulating in between traditional suffocation and post modern hedonistic,
strategic, monitored, self reflexive, rational, instrumental attitude towards
relationship.
The gay
boyfriend, extra marital affairs do not belong to Indian norms. The globalizing
networks thus exchange the cultural variations and compose a hybrid social
order.
Pillars of Success or Props of Happiness
“It is that
simple. You are Gay. It is your life- straight or gay. It is your wish, it is
your right.” Shruti’s dialogue in the FM Radio station defines how the cultural
variation intersects with the modern thinking of an Indian girl. The girl who
is confused earlier about her virginity loss before marriage later depicts
herself as a strong character to define sexual right.
Neha who is aggravated
to her limits attempts suicide in Rahul’s flat after the conversation with her
boss Ranjit Kapoor. Rahul found her in the bathroom; this is a reflection of
how the young generation of post modern Indian society are suffocated in
between traditional ethics and the western cultural transformations, of intercourse
before marriage and live in relationships.
“I have a family”,
Sikha’s interpretation as a city centric home maker introduced her as
emotionally weak but at some points of view she is an analytical representation
of her gender identity. Her relation with the theatre boy Aakash in the movie
is a reflection of physical barrier of Indian woman after marriage. The moving
taxi where Sikha is crying and Aakash running behind the taxi, is a cinematic
representation that talks about the running city life and ramified the bodily
integrity rendering women as powerless.
The Cocoon in the Crowd
When Ranjit
inform about his affair to his wife Sikha, she realized that they both suddenly
occupied the same space in their relationship explained her own story with
Akash. But Ranjit as a dominating husband didn’t forgive her and left the home.
It is nothing but a kind of polarising the norms only towards the male and
marginalises the identity of women.
A distinct scene
to the film: Shruti shouting on the top of a building and challenges the
concrete structure of the city.- the whole city is subjected to her anger and
is a symbol of perturbation, anger which represent not only the character of
shruti but all the other characters who want to fill the blanks in their lives
in this city.
Standing Tall Above the Fall
Reality vs. Imagination
Politics, power
and masculinity in the whole are projected through the characters. The whole
movie with diverse imaginations give the idea of cosmopolitan livelihood. The
configuration of gender and its growth through tradition and modernity
regarding space and time introduce power hegemony in post colonial geographic
domain.
The privatisation,
deregulation and decentralisation of identity problems in relation to gender
peformativity bring an ambient fear[1] with
a mixing of uncertainty, unpredictability and instability. The politics of
exclusion and the balkanisation of gender representation thus polarised the
geographical bonding in post modern space. The discourse between tradition and
modernity which intersects in city spaces pointed towards the idea that “personal is political”. In that case the
ramification of gender negotiated with cartographic
surgery and political engineering.
Mumbai as a
colonial city and a hub of hybrid dimensions regulate the gender representation
in a mixed version of tradition and modernity. It is very interesting to note
down that the priority of gender here provide a genealogy of power in relation
to symbolic spaces. The cityscapes thus simultaneously replace the traditional
ambiguity and rebuild the post modern boldness with respect to gender
articulation. In that sense though the movie is primarily based on two classic movies
The Apartment and Brief Encounter, it is successful in
carrying the originality of the conditional effects and pre conditional
intensifications in post modern city space.
Lyrics of Reality &
Melody of Imaginations
Throughout the
movie, Anurag Basu (director) used the visuals of rain and the melody of music
to magnify the reality of Indian lives and the different colours of life. Music
as a motion from reality to virtual world is very creatively shown in the
movie. The singer and guitarist at the top of a building or in rain, and in
their background the whole Mumbai city reflected how the Indian cosmopolitanism
borrows so many sensations from the local social setting.
Life in a Metro
is a film that upholds the human heart above all. It is a perfect celebration of
this series of Romance and Tragedies in Bollywood as well as Life.
Picture Sources: From
the film and Google Images
Author’s
Bio- Note:
Juri Baruah has completed her M.A. in Geography from Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi
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