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It was 2002 — the year when I would leave college. On a DTC bus, battling terrible traffic, I made the trek to PVR Priya in South Delhi, to watch Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas . This was a time before YouTube or TV in student flats. I had seen the trailer on a single screen, and was skeptical. But the promise of a 40-rupee front-row ticket, air-conditioning and the company of friends who might move on after college drew us all in.
I recall having been woken up from an AC-induced stupor (Shah Rukh Khan’s perpetual nose-furrow and Aishwarya’s slightly diabolical happiness had lulled me to sleep), and spilling Pepsi all over me when Kirron Kher decided to yell at the ‘Thakurayin’ from her balcony, berating her for humiliating her daughter Paro and promising revenge. I fumbled and mumbled apologetically while walking up to the ladies’ room to clean myself up.
I was blaming myself for wasting time and money on a silly, over-the-top film. But the trip to the loo brought me a shock. Inside, were four decked-up women, sporting make-up in that peculiar Delhi style, sobbing, sniffling or weeping. For a second, I thought maybe they too regretted watching the film. But that wasn’t the case. Paro and Devdas, with their silk-bound Technicolor heartbreak, had touched a chord.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali had pulled off the ultimate trick in popular art. He had glossed up a classic Indian novel that connects with countless men, women and families, making it the wedding catalogue of the year. In a country where matches are arranged according to wealth, stature and opportunity, and societal restrictions rule the most important decision of a woman’s life, these emotionally-overcome women were either a bit of a Paro themselves or knew a Paro closely. I am not imagining this. I did ask a few, and got a couple of garbled responses in the affirmative. I verified this further during the film’s interval. So did my male friends who prowled around the men’s room, smoking area and snacks counter. Devdas’ defeat, ineffectual weakness and heartbreak resonate with men too. As does Chandramukhi and her selfless love.
We were, of course, a motley crew of Delhi University students — armed with quips and commentary. A friend referred to Chunnilal, played by Jackie Shroff, as a closet nursery school teacher as he peppered his dialogue with phonics stuck on the alphabet D ( D Se Dosti and D Se Dushmani ...). He was asked to shut up by his neighbour in the theatre, and show some respect, please.
Such is the contradictory pull of watching a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film in a movie theatre with audiences. A section of the audience that queues up for a Bhansali film is privileged, literate (mind you, I won’t use the word educated here), and upwardly-mobile. They go for the puffery, the hyperbole, the gorgeously clothes, lessons in home décor and an update on fabulous jewellery designs. They identify with his cinema as being Indian and as vintage Bollywood. Sometimes, it’s a social event. I can’t fathom this even if I try, but it’s true. His appeal among the posh public emerges each time one watches a Bhansali film in a theatre with general audiences, and not the press or members of the film industry.
Critics tend to find his films tiring and ostentatious. I stand on the skeptical and critical side. Apart from Khamoshi (1996), and to an extent, Bajirao Mastani (2015), I have struggled to explain the massive pull of his films. They lack story and try to replace that with too much splendour. This is the point where I diverge from a large section of the audience. Criticising a Salman Khan film will find resonance with most educated middle-class Indians in cities, especially the women. But a Bhansali epic tends to drive emotions, irrespective of its quality as a film.
Recalling the Ram Leela experience brings forth similar memories, this time at a PVR multiplex in Juhu, Mumbai, of girls mooning over Deepika’s earrings and skirts. An enlightened friend said that she was tempted to wash Deepika’s face throughout the film as the character just looked muddy. Be it humour, reverence or awe, Bhansali’s films divide opinion and become a talking point. It’s often a big draw with urban, educated women, for they see a reflection of their experiences and their divaesque fashion aspirations in his theatrical brand of cinema.
Padmaavat is a movie a film journalist must not miss what with the general brouhaha around it. As a new mother, I had decided not to go to theatres, missing out on great big screen experiences in 2017. Which was sad but unavoidable. Now, for work reasons, Padmaavat became an unavoidable trip to the big screen, at an over-priced paid preview.
Given that Sanjay Leela Bhansali has adapted the Roussel 1923 musical verbatim, the story didn’t hold any suspense for me.
Predictably, the films plot trudges along at a testing pace with splendour taking center stage. The only relief comes from a maverick performance by Ranveer Singh as Alauddin Khilji. By the interval, I was bored and felt a headache setting in from exposure to all the gleam and glamour.
However, the old rude awakening repeated itself in the ladies room. Asked what I thought of it as I waited in line to access a loo, I replied honestly that I hadn’t liked the film, that the unbridled celebration of imagined Rajput glory felt regressive and outdated. Three women turned around, upset, and sneered that mine is the ‘intellectual’ point of view. Almost everyone in the loo was in awe of Padmavati’s dazzling outfits, spine-bending jewellery and regal manner. Shahid Kapoor’s translucent Lucknow Chikan kurta was being sagely discussed as a wardrobe option for a daytime function for one’s husband. And Khilji was not mentioned much.
While my ‘intellectual’ point of view did feel alienating and belittling amidst these prim and proper women, I was amazed that not one amongst them noticed how tame Padmavati becomes after marriage. Of course, there was no reference at all to the first queen, Nagmati and the injustice she faces. If Bhansali shows it in a film and says it is so, then it is so. When the film ended, almost 60% of the audience gave the film a standing ovation and I simply had to find out why. So I asked. Most men looked dazed and bleary-eyed, maintaining a safe silence. Some giggled over Khilji’s entertaining act, but had little to say about anything else. One could gauge that the film didn’t resonate with them.
The women reacted very differently. Most loved the film, and were moved by Padmavati’s sacrifice. I asked if jumping into a fire with a town’s population made sense when she could have tried to fight the marauding Khilji (Padmavati is shown to be a free-spirited archer when the film opens). They agreed that no one would jump into the fire today, but that in the past women sacrificed their lives for their honour and that was okay. And they then moved on to the splendid visual imagery of Padmaavat .
Women watched it for the baubles, dazzling, elaborate outfits and overall decoration (pots and pans, bed throws and curtains, swords and spoons alike). Myth or history, moral questions, logic, reason or meaning, were of little significance. Most had dressed up themselves, finding a threadbare connect to Bhansali’s gloriously bedecked queen. Their sole reason for catching an expensive preview seemed to be an immersion into glitz and imagined glory.
In this sense, Sanjay Bhansali’s films will always have an audience to count upon. He tends to partially empower his women on-screen and makes them noble with sacrifice and tears. While some amongst us who fret over such content as regressive and worrisome, we must rest easy. For many women who swear by his brand of cinema, Bhansali’s experiences resonate. They feel true and close to real. Above all, they make suffering pretty. Perhaps a radical change, with true empowerment, is not a change that they themselves are quite ready for, just yet.
