Titli :)

Titli

Hello ppl!

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 :)