Growing up in Delhi, one always felt something extremely reassuring, secure and comforting about the Sikh and Punjabi elders around, much more than the seniors of any other community. They seemed to ooze an infectious optimism and positivity. An affectionate word, a warm hug from them and even in your worst moments of crisis, and you’d feel that everything will eventually turn out alright. No wonder, a scene in Udta Punjab broke my heart and betrayed these long-held beliefs in a mere instant. A patriarch gently addresses the Bihari migrant girl Pinky (Alia Bhatt, utterly real, raw and vulnerable) as “puttar” (child) and asks her why she stole heroin worth a crore if she had to eventually throw it away. The soft, soothing enquiry sets the most disturbing tenor for the viciousness and brutality that come to be heaped on her by his family of drug dealers, with his tacit nod of approval, of course. Udta Punjab is all about such bitter pills. Punjab has largely been a prosperous and happy, gregarious and gung ho, outgoing and all-embracing State in our collective thoughts. Chaubey exposes us to the frightening dystopia it has become in the past few years. That the drug menace could turn it into a lawless Mexico (remember Traffic ?) is not just something that the film cries foul about, but has been reported, read, seen and heard all along the way. But it acquires an added urgency and manic immediacy when it begins to unfold on the big screen. No surprise then that the film is forced to kick off with one of the longest disclaimers seen recently. A packet of heroin gets thrown like a discus from across the border and we are plunged into a pulsating, frenetic world of rock ‘n’ roll and drugs, of snorting chitta (white) powder, injecting a cocktail of liquids into the veins. Rock star Tommy (Shahid Kapoor, all sound and fury and sheer madness), aka Gabru, takes you straight on the trip. But Chaubey also breaks the frenzy and hallucination of the title track with the sad, worn out and gloomy faces of the ordinary, nameless addicts. The film might feel a trifle too loud and feverish for comfort at the start, but you settle into its wildness and delirium. Not once does Chaubey glamorise the use of drugs. In fact, the film is unpleasant, disturbing and raw. His moral core is strong and firm. It’s a war against drugs, against political and systemic complicity (Badal anyone) and against one’s own self. In the madness all around, there are two voices of sanity and transformation – ASI Sartaj (Diljit Dosanjh, easy-going, charming and nuanced) who gets sensitised to the issue when his own brother Balli turns an addict, and doctor Preet (Kareena Kapoor, a figure of hope in her calm, untainted self), waging a war against substance abuse all on her own.
The cop-doc romantic track as well as the tenuous bond between Tommy and Pinky do seem out of place. But ultimately for me, Udta Punjab is about relentless exposure to a gut-wrenching reality. It is haunting me. Still.
namrata joshi
Udta Punjab
Genre: Drama
Director: Abhishek Chaubey
Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor, Diljit Dosanjh, Satish Kaushik
Storyline: A rock star, a labourer, a doctor and a policeman are all into drugs in Punjab
Bottomline: A choppy, but wholly worthwhile trip
