Mumbai Meri Jaan

There is a scene in Mumbai Meri Jaan where Irfan Khan Raises his hands and looks to the sky. He has just made a hoax call. What I noticed about this scene was that one hand actually rises in a crooked way. That crooked hand just stops that moment from exuding complete freedom.

Now there are three ways that I could interpret that scene:

First, It may be a mannerism that Irfan Khan had adopted for the character of Joseph. Second it was just the malice in that act that corrupted that feeling of complete freedom. Third, may be the way I would like it to be, the life he lives cannot make him experience that freedom. May be, the third interpretation is actually a summation of the first two.

Mumbai Meri Jaan is an ode to irony. And there is something beautiful about irony. It has all the colors, even black and white, but it paints things in the colors they are. And Mumbai Meri Jaan travels through five lives and shows all those colors.

It is a movie about five people, with each person representing a different stratum. And it ends on a realization for each one of them. But what hits you is the silence of those realizations. It is written all over them. It is conveyed by the randomness of Tukaram Patil’s(Paresh Rawal) retirement speech, or the look on Suresh’s face(KK Menon) who scans two eyes in the end to judge the pain, the people whom he suspects of blasts, feel,or that smile on Nikhil’s(R Madhavan) face when he stands in that railway compartment in the end.

The movie ends on a hope. May be not enough to make up for what happened but enough to take you forward. Paresh Rawal is an exception to that hope and may be in a place where he cannot make changes. A Man’s greatest dreads are brought to fore by Paresh Rawal’s character in the movie. He is at a point of no return. He just ends up on a regret “Zindagi me ek bada kaam karna tha…”

I have seen Dombivali Fast. Paresh Rawal’s character has a finality in it, which I experienced in Dombivali Fast. In the movie, a police inspector says to his sub “Chala Shinde, Manus Marayla Chalu Ya”. The finality is both these statements because of the choices these people cannot come to make. The difference is that one is helpless and other did not realize it on time.

I sometimes feel that a blast is never done a justice on screen(For the movies I have seen at least). This movie was different. There was more of the blast on the faces of KK Menon and R Madhavan than all the gory scenes put together. The horror was brought to life by their faces.

I have had my problems with the way Mumbai lives. I used to discuss it with my two friends who live in Mumbai. Then one fine day they took me on a tour. We intended to go to South Mumbai. Throughout the day we travelled in the local trains from one place to another and the day ended in South Mumbai.

While I was coming back I pondered upon what we did. And I saw certain efficiency in the whole system of local trains. The efficiency lies in the fact that people travel in the space that is just about enough for them or may be less than enough. The chaos gives rise to the rules that you follow for getting your share of just enough or less than enough space. And still there is nonchalance to it, while the act is being performed. As another of my friend rightly puts “There is always a space for one more in the Mumbai Local.”

May be this is not a right way to live and people deserve more, but at the same time it tells you about how much a person can take without even realizing that his endurance is being tested.

I consider Mumbai Meri Jaan an experience, may be prone to the flaws that the medium has in our country. But it has that Loud Silence to make you feel, without being scandalous. It is a movie that makes you realize that the phrase “Yossarian Lives” from Catch 22 is actually exhilaration. And the fact that this needs to be realized, is an irony.