Delhi-6: It's a movie to be watched fursat se FILM REVIEW: DELHI-6 Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Starring: Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Waheeda Rahman, Rishi Kapoor, Om Puri, Atul Kulkarni and Divya Dutta.
Ratings:  Sometimes in a sea of trashy, flashy films, a movie comes along and breaks your heart. It doesn't shout, scream, swivel its hips or even wear neon costumes. It just is, like life, messy, complicated, sometimes fun, at other times bloody awful. Delhi-6 is a film like that. What's it about? Well, it's about a young man, son of a Muslim mother and Hindu father, who brings his dying grandmother to her 1808 haveli in Chandni Chowk, because she wants to die here. So there she is, doing her "maut ki shopping" as Abhishek's character, Roshan, puts it drolly. And there he is, becoming more and more involved in life in Delhi-6. He stands up to the local cop, a corrupt police officer played by Vijay Raaz, and gets slapped for his pains (though he does give it back). He speaks up for the untouchable jamadarni, played by Divya Dutta, and gets washed with mud by his grandmother. He gives voice to Sonam's character's desire not to get married to the first fat or rich guy who comes along, and again gets slapped for his effort by her dad. Roshan is the observer, the "foreign element" who seems to shake things up wherever he goes simply by being. He's overwhelmed initially by Chandni Chowk's warmth, the jalebis which are too "meetha", the temple bells which rung too loudly, the kids who are content to play cricket and monkey around, and the nawab, his mother's former admirer, who drinks tea and plays pool, when he's not driving around in his stately open top. Chandni Chowk, so often reduced to clichs in the recent past, has never looked so beautiful, shot usually early morning or late in the night (and usually in the stand-in town of Sambar in Rajasthan). The tangle of wires, the masjid opposite a mandir, the Ramleela, the narrow bylanes and even the wall with a hole dividing two brothers. It's got it all right. It's difficult, almost impossible to make a movie about a metaphor. Imagine hearing this pitch: it's about the kaala bandar, the monkeyman, the monster, that is inside all of us. Yes, yes, roll your eyes and imagine it being made into an engrossing story which weaves a real life monkeyman scare in New Delhi into a story about how it almost divides the two communities that comprise Chandni Chowk, Hindus and Muslims, when a fake swami insists that the monkeyman is striking the area because an old temple was destroyed to build a mosque. Yes, you got the parable, a tricky political comment to make in our spineless times. But Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra succeeds. His ensemble is outstanding, whether it is Deepak Dobriyal playing Mamdu, the jalebi maker who is provoked into feeling his religion, or Aditi Rao Hydari who plays the bua who never got married. Sonam Kapoor is so beautiful and engaging that it seems the role of Bittu was written with her in mind. She conveys in a glance what other girls try so hard to do with their abs. The romance between her and Abhishek is one of glances, half-finished exchanges, and mock fights that capture both her sweet and independent nature. Her desire to become an Indian Idol, which makes a somebody of a nobody, is at war with her growing love for Roshan. Which brings me to Roshan. Is there another actor who is as brave as Abhishek Bachchan in Bollywood? Yes, there is Abhay Deol, but he hasn't had to bear the brunt of such big budget movies on his shoulders. In Delhi-6, Abhishek has excelled himself, getting the accent of a New York bred and born as pitch perfect as the bafflement of an outsider at the growing distress in the community. Roshan is that rare hero in Bollywood who has all the time in the world, whether it is to record pigeons on his phone or shake hands with a goat. Yes, there is a cheesy encounter between him and his father, playing his grandfather, that could have been avoided but it's forgiven in a film that says so much with such economy. The scene between Roshan and his grandmother when he is wracked by confusion over whether to stay or go, the part where a cow giving birth to her baby holds up traffic in the entire street even as he is trying to get his grandmother to the hospital and yet another bit where the entire community virtually sits down to sing in a candlelit jagran are wonderful. Hey, am I making this movie sound serious? It's not only that. There's a lot of subtle humour here, whether it is the exchanges between the feisty Bittu and Roshan, or Roshan's American awe-isms. "Oh, look, Dadi," he says at one point, watching the Ramlila, "that's the bit with the golden deer." Among the many lovely lines written by Prasoon Joshi, there's one I really liked: "Hindustan ke nalon main paani ho na ho, hamari ankhon main zaroor hota hai (India may not have water in its taps, but it has enough in its eyes)," says the Nawab. Quite. You'll be shedding a lot of that water in the course of this movie. Go watch it. Now. But at leisure. As they would say in old Delhi, "fursat se". Why to watch it:
1. Abhishek Bachchan. "Bahut hi shaista bachcha hai," says the local Muslim leader. Yes, and back to looking super cool as well.
2. The ensemble cast, from Om Puri to Sheeba Chadha, Atul Kulkarni to a surprising Cyrus Sahukar, is awesome.
3. The romance between Sonam and Abhishek. Old fashioned, goose-bumpish nice.
What to avoid:
1. A ridiculous encounter with Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek.
2. That's all. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29827§ionid=4&issueid=93&Itemid=1
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