Bombay Velvet is eliciting mixed reactions. Some are excited with what Anurag Kashyap wanted to achieve and others are critical of what actually he has. Any which way one can’t take away the pulsating soul of the film which has emerged from the original story by Gyan Prakash, the professor of modern history at Princeton University. It is in his mind that Johnny Balraj and Rosie Norhona of Bombay Velvet took shape.
What is it that draws a trained historian to write a well-researched book on a bustling metropolis with a novel-like visual quality calls it “Mumbai Fables” (Harper Collins) and then turn it into a film script? Gyan Prakash is the changing face of academic discourse where a common man’s past is as important as a king or ruler’s.
Prakash clarifies that he didn’t write “Mumbai Fables” to be adapted as a film. “The research for the book became the basis for the original story I wrote in 2004, much before the book was published. I had been researching the city for about four years, and had gathered a lot of material on its history. I came to write the film story at the invitation of a filmmaker friend (Rohan Sippy) who was intrigued by what I said about land reclamation — that it was actually land stolen from the sea, but we tend to legitimate this theft when we call it reclamation, as if we had a claim on it. I found the idea of telling a story for visual representation challenging because I think the modern city in a crucial sense is about its visual surfaces. Think of the new built forms, display windows, advertising, and signage in the city. I found in my research that first time visitors to Bombay in the 19th century were struck by its appearance. Instead of rivers and mountains, the “natural” environment of the modern city is its built form, the surfaces of its architecture, the look of the crowd on the street. At least that is how I approached Mumbai’s history as a modern city. That is why ‘Mumbai Fables’ took the form that it did. I wanted the book to capture the city’s fable-like existence. So, the shift to the film register was not a big conceptual jump.”
However, Prakash admits the process of writing for a film needed a different kind of approach. “You had to translate the story of big, historical change into a narrative of everyday life, and tell it through the desires and ambitions of protagonists. Both the book and the film focus on ordinary people because I wanted to show how historical change is expressed in everyday life. The concern with the common people has been a strong tendency in academic discourse for a while, particularly in urban studies. Like many urban scholars and theorists, I believe that social relations become powerful only when they shape everyday life. For the same reason, everyday life is also the site of alternative thought and dissent.”
Despite the low key response at the box office on the first day, Prakash says he is still quite upbeat about the film. “I think that audience here is used to spoon feeding. They don’t really know how to work their way into the film, how to connect the dots. It is an ensemble piece and demands the audience to come a little prepared about the history and the characters that shaped Mumbai.” He reminds of L.A. Confidential , which combined different strains of Los Angeles into a compelling whole.
On the charge that the setting and the love story overpowers the anti-capitalist tilt, Prakash says between the lines and the backdrop you can sense the critique of capitalism. Prakash says the film is about how the greed unleashed by the growing power of real estate and finance capital is expressed in everyday life, how ordinary folk are ensnared by the seduction of money and wealth. So much so that greed and ambitions for property infiltrate even the love story. If you look closely the love story is doomed because of the larger capitalist designs at play.”
His protagonist could not get over the ‘apan tapan ki bhasha’ but draws inspiration from James Cagney’s The Roaring Twenties . Prakash reminds that the film with its setting in prohibitionist America and aspirational tone is a nice inspiration to fuel Balraj’s ambition because in Bombay too prohibition was the rule but liquor was flowing in clubs. “A Jaali Note , CID or Howarh Bridge could not have that kind of impact on Balraj. He might not understand the language but he is fascinated by the images.”
Talking about the strong a retro noir feel, Prakash says, “I thought that because the story was about the dark side of Bombay’s transition from an industrial to a post-industrial city, it could best be told in the genre of film noir. But since it was being made now about a time when the film noir genre was prevalent, it could only be a contemporary take on the genre. Hence, retro noir.”
Talking about his process and what to leave and what to keep conundrum, Prakash says, he wanted the film to present the complex social architecture of the city, where a Hindi speaking boy from a red light district aspires to rub shoulders with the elite. “I didn’t want to focus on just one group or class but wanted the different social worlds to collide, as they did in real life. The film story, as in my book, presents the changing city through the collision of these different worlds and aspirations. Of course, the film needed an anchoring narrative, which the love story provides. So, it needed a juggling act. My initial script was sprawling and perhaps too ambitious in this regard. Anurag Kashyap thought that it would be prohibitively expensive to make. So he revised it, streamlining the narrative, putting greater weight on the love story while retaining the overall context and the ensemble of characters.” Prakash says he wanted include a little more of crime syndicates the capitalist vs communist angle but the length of the film proved prohibitive. It would have been easier to depict if Balraj were a mill worker’s son. “Then it would not have been my story. I wanted to show different people that make the city and Balraj represents those who shifted to the city after Partition. He came as a 8-year-old so he acquired the city’s dialect.”
This brings us to his chemistry with Anurag. Prakash says, “Anurag’s visual sense is brilliant, and he is very conversant with the different global styles of filmmaking. He is also a filmmaker with a penchant for telling dark stories. So, I was convinced very early on that he was the right person. Generally, we have been on the same page. I must say Anurag has always been very committed to the film, and to making it the right way.”
The best part, he adds, is Anurag doesn’t go by Hindi film conventions. “That is why I first went to him. For him, storytelling is important — he doesn’t go for unmotivated singing and dancing. The music has to advance the narrative. So those issues were never a problem.”
