windsofchange’s blog

"But why Sirjee?? "The surd asks.

"Just like that!! " The male protagonist replies.

A conversation with the cab driver with twenty five minutes to spare before the movie ends. And to me, that pretty much sums up the ethos of Dev.

"Just like that!!"

You watch it, soak it in, chew it and then either spit it or absorb it but whatever you do, Anurag Kashyap and his team make sure that, ignore you certainly cannot !!

Like a cow, I am still in the chewing phase.

Ok, let me not go back into the danger zone of cows, I will stick to Dev for now.

Dev. The quintessential unidimensionally self destructive male. His pathos intentional. Afterall, that is the only thing he knows, getting his high from self pity and self loathing. Alcohol, ecstasy, roll up joints, coke, women and men around are means to that end.  Like an interesting friend of mine says, "There is a Devdas hidden in all of us!"

The middle class sense of achieving a security in life pushes him back into the closet and locks him up. For good? I don't really know!

Paro and Chanda. A welcome relief in this tale of yonder. Sure, they go through some painfully distressing events but those incidents don't stop them from moving on. "Moving on" a clichéd word in the movie and in life. Sounds a lot more pleasing to the ears than saying "I compromised!"

The dialogues, the mannerisms very much in keeping with the present times. No melodrama here. Double meaning innuendo, unashamedly rude both in language and signs, might make some cringe but hey, there is nothing naive about this affair.

And yet there is ample display of innocence! The case in point is the scene where Chanda takes the mickey out of Dev for not being able to say the word "Randi" and instead he beating around the bush with words like commercial sex worker.

For the one who has not seen it, this might shock but if you have; how can  you ignore the smile on Chanda's face as it lights up her eyes while mouthing the word!! It has innocence written all over it and needless to say that is one of my favourite shots. Thumbs up vodka ke saath is another interesting one.

The scenes are a visual delight. The neon lit streets of Paharganj come alive and so do the scenes in the village, absolutely natural and real. This is no pink candy floss; the only pink is the French boudoir. The only white is the Florence Nightingale of the night. The only black is the suits men wear. And there is  plenty of grayscale; just like life.

Music. Much has been written about the music of the movie too. 18 songs and I personally was begging for more. From folk to international feel, from desi band to fusion, soft rock to hardcore, there is just about everything. From soft soothing touch to ears to soul curry. Everything.

I have been dancing away for the last two days. My personal favourites are Pardesi and Nayan Tarase. The sheer brilliance of the music is that every song just plays in the background. More as a prop to the event rather than breaking the continuity of this non-linear movie. It has been some time since harmonium, sitar, guitar, piano, dhol, tabla, paayal have all been amalgamated seamlessly.

The lyrics. I need to say a few words here too. Nayan tarase, nayan tarase donon se bahe dhaar. Irony!!

Patna ke pelvis and theirEmosanal atyachaar and trejady (spelling error intended) pronounced exactly that way but when it comes to crooning the word Hore (W is silent and invisible too intentionally) perfect pronounciation. Irony again!!

Personally, this movie felt like a treasure cove. As many interpretations and takes as your mind and time allows.

My first memory of this lady was from when I had gone to Hyderabad to attend my appa’s cousins wedding. She was standing with her back straight, smiling and talking to appa. She must have been in her 60’s wearing a bright coloured cotton saree with gold border with equally bright but not matching blouse. She had worn it in a traditional gochi style. She must be 5 feet tall, pale in complexion, petite in built. What struck me about her was the grace with which she stood and held her head high with pride. There was a sense of self assurance in her stance. Her face beemed with kindness everytime she smiled, and she smiled a lot …I thought it was my sight..me tugging her saree every now and again trying to divert her attention towards me which made her smile…Over the years as I learnt and understood more about her life, I realised maybe that smile meant something else.
 
I didn’t think much about her until I attended another wedding a few years later. I was a teenager by then and had certainly decided that I was able to make my own opinions on just about everything. I saw her talking to appa again and though it was a few years more she seemed just the same, that face well puffed, similar cotton saree, kohl smudged big eyes, a very big kumkum on her forehead and more kumkum on her hair partition. Her hair neatly oiled and placed in a bun, a few kanakambaram flowers tucked on her bun,…but again it was the smile..it intrigued me, how she smiled all the time. This time my eyes never left her for a moment… I…kept following her with my gaze everywhere she went. She talked to everyone young and old whoever she saw with similar affection. I saw her smile so much but not once did I notice her laugh.
 
She continued in a similar fashion and then after a while my young restless mind got bored and looked somewhere else to see what everyone else was doing. Then, I saw two ladies in thier late thirties who looked like siblings, wearing lehenga and blouse not much age difference between them wearing two plaits and thier hair tied in ribbons. They behaved like two happy children much younger than me. I wondered, they seemed much much older than me and still behaved like young children, playing, clapping their hands at what everyone would say, eating from other people’s plates and talking in a real child like manner.
 
Now, I found Subbulu nannamma approaching these two ladies and calming them down and looking after them. By now my latest Nancy Drew imagination started working overtime and I went to appa. I knew appa would have all the answers. I asked him who all those ladies were. 
 
Appa told me her story.
 
Subbulu nannaamma like many ladies of her time was married off at a very young age to a man atleast 18 years older than her. She was sent to her inlaws house when she grew a little older. Her husband was the only child so nannamma looked after her old inlaws and learnt the ways of life from them. Over the years she sired four children, two sons and two daughters. Tata’s income was just enough to scrape through to support his old parents, wife and children. As the children grew older it dawned upon everyone that nannammas both daughters had Downs syndrome. The sons grew up too.