Maximum city, with simplicity

I did two things on my return from the family vacation....get back into my fitness regimen..low oil, less carbs, crunches, squats and brisk walks..sometimes I am surprised at my amazing muscle memory. Second, I saw three good movies in a row. 'Band, Baaja, Baraat', supposedly a no-brainer but came out tops at the BO. Dilli da flavour took me back to my college days. 'Chippad, bhukkad, ainvayi, kya scene hai', all took me down memory lane and the despo Punju boys who used to follow us Delhi hosteller girls !! 'No One Killed Jessica' another Delhi-based movie was one of the best movies in recent times. Enjoyed Rani's gaalis, but give her 5/10 and Vidya gets full marks. This Tam Bram girl is something else. She takes restrained emoting to another level. Yaar is kudi mein baat hi kuch aur hai!

Now let me get to the film which the title of this blogpost talks about. 'Dhobi Ghat' a virgin offer from Kiran Rao's lenses, from Aamir's production house. The halls were empty. Janta mein shayad kuch jami nahin. Slices of four lives, strung together with a common thread in Mumbai. Simply told, in a bald, no-nonsense sort of a way. Raw at times, it punches you on the face! Each of the characters were very starkly portrayed. It had none of the masala which you would expect in a Mumbai movie...nor an overboard Danny Boyle style of portraying the filth and poverty of Mumbai's underbelly. This is where the crux of the blogpost lies....Kiran, spending substantial part of her childhood in Kolkata portrays Mumbai in a very Calcuttan-type of a way. I can relate to it..the pathos, the stoicism, the confusion and sarcasm...tinge it with hues I am so familiar with. Having been brought up in East India and with Calcutta as my home for the last 16 years, I know how it works. The devil is in the details, God is in small things.....No wonder the director found meaning in the bylanes haunted by a rat killer or the hook from the ceiling where the fan once hung...The movies ends cynically. Nothing changes in the lives of the protagonists. Its more a narrative, less a story. I would give the movie three stars.