Imagine standing at a roadside chaat thela in puraani Dilli, all set to savor gol-gappas, or paani-puri as they call it in my home town. Your taste buds are waiting to explode in a trance, you can hardly control the slurpp dripping from your mouth.
The bhaiya-ji carefully prepares each puri, deftly breaking its center crust, adding smashes potatoes & chana, dipping it thru various chutneys, garnishing it with a lil dahi, sev and what-have-you and serves the first morsel, which you eagerly bite into. Your eyes roll up with the anticipation of the taste, but then reality strikes - somethings amiss. There's no salt. And the entire taste just comes undone.
The optimist in you waits for the next puri, expecting things to be perfect the second time around. But then again, no salt. The wait begins again and before you know, you've gulped down the entire serving, waiting for that pinch of namak which would bring it all together. Alas, your wish just remains that - a wish. An outing that should have been a lip-smackingly chatpata experience, leaves you with that utterly disappointing feeling of yaar, maza nahin aaya. So near, yet so far.
That, is exactly how I felt as I walked out of Delhi 6. A wonderful opportunity lost.
I am perfectly fine with the movie not having a very strong "story" per se. Even if it were a collection of fleeting moments of great cinema, I wouldn't have been so disappointed. What bugged me was that suddenly in the last 30-40 minutes, Mehra hurriedly tries to force a story, a preachy and overly simplified one at that, into the narrative and even more hurriedly drives the movie to a very disappointing and unfathomable climax. Not done, just not done.
Rang De Basanti, despite the implausibility of the climax, worked because the story was leading up to its finale all through the second-half. The purpose was defined the moment Madhavan's character dies in the plane crash - not way towards the end, like is the case with Delhi 6.
As much as I don't want to compare D6 with RDB, I can't help but notice the thematic similarity of the plot points - the protagonist being a foreigner visiting India with a purpose that is somewhere related to his previous generation, an array of interesting and diverese characters, discovering India through the eyes of the protagonist, the central fulcrum of the story hinged on one of India's many problems and ultimately, the sacrifice of one or more lives for the particular cause -- the two movies are structured pretty much the same.
Anyways, back to Delhi 6 - Another issue I had was the forced romance. As a viewer, I just didn't see Roshan falling for Bittu, or any situation that justified him uttering the shocking "I am incomplete with you" line at the end. Pretty unconvincing, at least as far as I was concerned. It would have been so much better if there was no romantic track at all. At least the movie would've stayed consistent.
Another let down was how Mehra failed to effectively use a massively brilliant Rahman soundtrack. He has not done enough justice to the two best songs of the lot by not giving them the kinda visuals and treatment they so thoroughly deserved - rehna tu & maula mere maula. Cardinal, absolutely cardinal. However, he does make up for it to some extent with the way he has conceptulized dil gira dafaatan against a juxtaposed backdrop of Times Square and Chandni Chowk- if ever there was a real dream sequence, this is it. Brilliantly done. genda phool is also pretty neatly picturized, impromptu jig, et al.
But to give credit where its due, Delhi 6 will always be remember for its stellar, absolutely stellar ensemble cast - Waheeda Rehman, Rishi Kapoor (good to see him spout Urdu couplets), Om Puri, Atul Kulkarni (my pick of the lot - simply outstanding), Pawan Malhotra (wonderful to see him in a meaty role after ages), Deepak Dobriyal (in crackling form), Vijay Raaz (brilliant!), Supriya Pathak, Prem Chopra, Sheeba, Cyrus Sahukar, Divya Dutta, Aditi Rao, KK Raina, Raghubir Yadav - the acting by almost everyone is top-notch. They infuse such believability into their characters, that for once you really don't complain about the lack of a cohesive story as such. You are more than content seeing this motley bunch live out one day of their lives after another in their dilli che mohalla. Only if Mehra had let it remain that way.
And who really was the bespectacled fakir who holds up the mirror to one and all? For some reason, every time he came on screen, my mind kept telling me that he looked like Prasoon Joshi - was it really him?
Some of the scenes are pretty well done - brothers living in neighbouring houses separated by a brick-wall, each pouring a glass of whisky, one with soda, one paani, each lamenting over their life's kahaani, pakoras being exchanged across the household, Atul Kulkarni being fooled by Pawan Malhotra with a Rs. 1o note v/s two Re 1 coins and then his killer, absolutely killer line at the end, the two little kids walking up to Divya Dutta, asking her to convert them from boyz to men, the sequences between Rishi Kapoor and Abhishek, the MLA speech between a RamLeela sequence - they all bring a smile to your face. This is the India we all know.
The slice of life is pretty well depicted too. The movie evokes a certain warmth inside the cockles of your heart, taking your back to the neighbourhoods you grew in, amidst the bunch of people you perhaps didn't really like at one point of time, but without whom your life was strangely incomplete. And You can almost smell the jalebis!
Another big positive is Binod Pradhan's astounding camera work. From capturing the dusty by lanes of the walled city, to the lazy afternoons perched on the rooftops, to the dimly lit jaagran sequence, the tight maneuvers in closed confines, the shadow-play of the Ram Leela characters, the inventively picturised "dil gira dafaatan", the bursting montages of delightful visuals depicting the mood and character of the city, Pradhan deftly does it all. Its a sheer joy to watch one frame after another.
However, even with all its ingredients, how much can you really relish a chaat minus the namak?
Sameer's Stars - 2.5/5
ps: This one's for you, Anonymous :)
