Titli
Winter knocking at the door and Diwali round the corner…
Bahut busy hoge aap sab, nai?
Pata hai aaj toh mere saath badi durghatna si ho gayi…..
No no, don’t worry, no bodily injuries baba J
Actually kya hua ki today was Sunday, and as a rare
occurrence we found ourselves having time, heading towards the movie theatre.
Now we had the decision of -which movie to watch- in our hands…and fast. So for
once I googled for reviews of the Friday releases and the movies running in the
theatre before going to the ticket window.
The one sentence that made us decide upon Titli was – the
best hindi movie made this year in one of the reviews!!!
That’s quite a strong statement and whatever the
repercussions, at least this was a seeable movie, I decided. Thus we took the
tickets available then and that was none other than the Magnum Class of Fun
Cinemas J
This was the first encounter with the super luxurious Magnum class couch seats
and we were still exploring n enjoying them by the time the movie already started.
After I settled and directed my attention to what was going
on on the screen I was shocked….progressively scared, frustrated……PANICKY !!!
I wanted to get up and run away…………..…stat.
No less….
What was going on in front of me was harrowing. The violence,
the language, the whole set up….
I looked to both my sides for help….pleaded with my hubbs to
exit…
My daughter a teen, was all for it but my young sonny boy
was adamant. He had found his new toy in the dynamic Magnum seat which made him
nearly supine and he was in no mood to comply. He said ‘I don’t care about the
movie but I am not leaving this seat’. So there. We decided to sit on till he
had his fill. We even tried to persuade the waiter who came to take the order
for snacks, to kindly get us the tickets for some other benign movie running in
the adjacent screens. But unfortunately…..or fortunately he returned pleading
non availability of tickets.
Siiigh….
So there I was…stuck….
The movie meanwhile went on…..
Eventually, I found myself getting engrossed, besides
myself…….against my voluntary mental protests……
The three brothers, the marginalized community….Titli….the
need to break free….oh how I identified with that, having felt exactly the same
a few minutes ago…
The idea of getting Titli married off so that a female comes
to aid into the business…the business of car jacking, seemed criminal. The raw
truth that females are used to make all kinds of things done, all kinds of
products sold hinted by Bawla [Amit Sial], from daily utility things se ‘hawaijahaaz tak’ , hit hard.
The dump that was their home….the way they cleared their
throat while brushing their teeth….[and mind u, they did that quite many times
during the film :(], spit, vomited relentlessly…..impossible to tolerate.
I was reminded of Raju Hirani’s movies like Munna bhai and
3-idiots where he was so fond of showing men in washrooms…… :(
Is it some kind of OCD or superstition of directors to show
filth? Beats me… :/
The very sight of a young vulnerable bride in that madhouse
was unimaginable. A rabbit in the midst of jackals. The only feeling rampant
being…… ‘oh poor dear, how will she survive?’
But all my misgivings were allayed to see the assertive girl
she turned out to be….the way she successfully barred Titli’s advances and the
brave front she projected in front of the brothers made me almost smile. Her
interaction with the salesman in the Ford showroom made me relax. And I laughed
at the “Prince hamare ‘Love’ hain!!!” backlash. :))
The movie finally ended.
It shook me. Didn’t leave me even after exiting the hall.
I researched……
I was pondering why it was called “Titli” over anything
else. Though I did not get the real reason but I did chance upon a Bangla 2002
flick with the same name starring Aparna Sen, Mithun da and Konkona Sen Sharma
– Aparna Sen’s daughter and incidentally Ranvir Shorey’s wifie. J There real life
mom-daughter duo play the same role onscreen and both root over Mithun da :)))
Khair, coming back to ours, a thought crossed my mind what
if Suraj Barjatya is made to see this movie? He would have the fright of his
life :))))
Let us talk about the people making this whole web called
Titli which grips you and leaves you scathed in the end.
Its made under the famous YRF Banner-the Yas Raj Films. Haan
naa, sach mey!! :) Now it’s a movie entirely opposite to the genre YRF is
renowned for. The family, its values, love, etc etc all have distorted
definitions in this movie. Its as if the people, for want of basic needs to be
fulfilled, for bare survival, move down the line of evolution that man had
climbed and attained the designation of being the most evolved and “civilized”
creatures. These words sound hollow when survival is at risk.
The debutante director Kanu Behl who was assistant director
to Dibakar Banerjee in films like Love Sex n Dhokha LSD, has been writing this
story even before the completion of the aforesaid movie. He came up with this
flick under the patronage of Dibakar Banerjee who produced it for Kanu.
Kanu claims he actually wrote the character of the eldest brother
Vikram specifically with Ranvir in his mind. Ranvir Shorey was an acting ace, a
complete contrast to the dabbu black
horse that we saw of him in Chandni chawk to China….oh so loathsome…. The
language, the bloody stark violence and casual indifference to it was shocking
and Shorey gets full credit for it.
The beauty of the flick was [no, not in the literal sense,
nothing was butiful that way here :( ] that no one, absolutely no one appeared
to be acting in the flick. All were completely natural. But it wasn’t easy.
One of the major ‘qualification’ for the role of all the
brothers and the patriarch father was that they all had similar “Noses” that
made them look like that of same family !! hadd hai naa? :)))))
Titli alias Shashank Arora fitted the role with the lean
body of his. You’ll be surprised to know what all the production house did to
him to finally make him fit in. He was actually beaten by the production
assistant by a hawai chappal at least 35 times to make him feel the humiliation
that Titli felt daily….the more yukkkk exercise that he was made to do for the
purpose was to actually go and shit in the open in Varsova beach in the
mornings. All this to remove the urban-ness from him!!! siiigh….
Likewise Shivani Raghuwanshi who played Titli’s wife, Neelu
had no acting experience at all. She was selected because on the audition she
chatted on n on n on when asked to introduce herself :)))) she too got lot many
thappads for real to make her cry with conviction. :)
Pata hai kya us bechari ko toh pehle story ke bare me kuchh
bh nahi maaloom tha. All she knew was that she was the heroine and had a boy
for a hero plus some luv interest too…that was enuf to make her excitedly happy
:)))))))
She was given the script very late into the making of the
movie.
It was so preposterous how her wrist was broken by a hammer
and the hero was as competent as an expert anaesthesiologist giving superb
intraveinous regional anaesthesia for the forearm perfectly, painlessly
breaking her wrist. :(
In the end there is mention of the need of putting in a rod
in the fracture of wrist. Gazab bhai!!! Hain jee?! :)))))
Pata hai kya, the patriarchal father was Kanu’s real father
Lalit Behl the theatre actor director.
Aur maze ki baat Kanu’s wifie Namrata Rao is the third and
final editor of the movie [yes there are a lot of editors in it]….and quite a
family thingy haan!! :)))))
The whole production team of the movie is a young brigade
which is daring enterprising, tireless, uncompromising, ready to take risks,
full of energy and thirsty for perfection. Its good to find youth taking
over…and in style!! Bollywood!!-way to go!!!:)
Achchha ab having said all this the movie becomes a “Love
Story” in the end…..
Vishwas nai hota naa?? :)
Koi baat nai…you go watch the movie and decide for yourself
:)
Aur fir mujhe batana how you feel…theek hai?
Till then tata bye bye…Happy n Safe Diwali to all you
wonderful people!!!
From me, here at Page-3 :)
