Dhobi Ghat...a Story Well Told

The complexities and hidden mental kinks of a throbbing metropolis make for thought-provoking cinema...and debutant Kiran Rao makes no mistakes with this one. Of course you wish Prateek Babbar kept reappearing on screen...but that's hardly Rao's shortcoming.

On a bleary Saturday, having been bitten hopelessly by the stay-at-home syndrome, I thought I'd catch a movie, and I was left with this brilliant spin-a-yarn...

Rao weaves the various layers of the story with superb dexterity. So you have Munna, the immensely talented Babbar, stuck in a profession that is obsolete in the west...the eponymous dhobi. Munna, like many, wants to make it big in Bollywood. But perhaps he doesn’t take himself seriously, until he meets Shai, the fresh-faced Monica Dogra.

Shai is an amateur photographer, and like many from the west, finds India’s poverty to be the country’s glamour quotient, something she can perhaps talk about over Caviar and Chardonnay with her Picasso and Botticelli-loving friends back home. What she doesn’t realize is that life in Mumbai or even Manhattan is a lot different from arty monochrome moments captured in film.

Then you have Arun, the reclusive painter with a mercurial mood. Aamir’s stardom is wasted in this movie. Even if he was Aamir Khan, just an actor, he would have carried off the role with aplomb…if you know what I mean. Arun looks for inspiration from Mumbai…as he says, ‘Mumbai is my muse, my whore, my beloved.’ For Arun, the squalor of old Mumbai, the claustrophobia of the dingy alleys, and the paleness of the sad horizon are points of inspiration. He is well-placed in life…well-placed enough to think of the squalor as an element of choice…something that he can run away from in a jiffy and be surrounded by ripe women, stiff-collared waiters, Bach, and champagne.

This squalor is reality for Munna, a photo-project for Shai…and oh! We have Yasmeen! I shouldn’t give it all out. This isn’t a film review after all. It’s just a simple appreciation of a story well told. Well done, Kiran.

An afterthought…Prateek Babbar is good…but in a brotherly way. There is something ridiculously wrong with me lately. I am starting to think of all men as brothers...Imran, Shaheed, Ranbir...the whole lot. Surely, I must be getting old!