Mumbai Bits and Bytes

A review on "Dhobi Ghat".

Hewn out of a city’s countless stories of loss, success, disparity, grit, grime, and gore, and sculpted to an almost sensual perfection, is the film, Dhobi Ghat (aptly sub-titled as Mumbai Dairies). Debutant director, Kiran Rao’s film glazes over the cityscapes with humane eyes, while exploring the rugged sides of an urban underbelly. It also does make you nostalgic about the sweet moments that you may have spent in the city and forgotten almost instantly. Remember ordering a paav kheema in an insipid hotel watching the rains outside, or simply taking a cab ride around Juhu or Marina, or hearing a little kid shouting his wares inside a crowded train. Several such humdrum moments that lie deep down the vortex of a city is brought back to life in the movie.

Ironically, the city shares its lyrical and chaotic qualities with the film’s characters namely Yasmin (Kirti Malhotra), Arun (Aamir Khan), Shai (Monica Dogra), and Munna (Prateik Babbar). Shai is an investment banker from USA who has come to Mumbai for a year-long “sabbatical”, the word that she can afford to choose over a plain “vacation”. She meets Arun, a painter at his exhibition and obsesses over him following a one-night stand. Enters Munna, a dhobi who instantly likes his mem, Shai, and who also happens to be close to Arun. We see the different contours of the city through Munna’s eyes…whether it be the frenzied buzz of activity at the Dhobi ghaat, life inside a tiny makeshift jhopdi , late-night combing of the streets to kill rodents, dreams of making it big in the alluring tinsel-town, or deadly encounters with the drug peddlers.
Shia befriends Munna for two obvious reasons: to get closer to Arun and to get to know the city better. Shia’s camera lenses begin to take a peek at the city’s best known sights, that is, of its people at work, like the fish seller, a dabbawalla, a street hawker, and a dhobi such as Munna himself. Shia also finds herself adjusting the lenses of her binoculars to keep a close watch on Arun from outside his building.

Arun plays the role of an aloof painter who is estranged from his wife and kids. His gallivanting ways prove him to be a man who eschews attachments of any kind. However, this doesn’t stop him from obsessing over the videos that he discovers on shifting to yet another house in Mumbai. The video letters have been shot by Yasmin, a newly-married girl for her brother. Needless to say, another absorbing account of the city is narrated by a starry-eyed city entrant. Arun falls in love with the city all over again as her hears about its myriad nuances courtesy Yasmin. He paints Yasmin’s experiences on his canvas…pouring the azure colors of a skyline over the lively tints of red, yellow, and orange that represent the bedlam and vigor of a city that never sleeps.

As each of the one character obsesses over the other, while sharing their common love of the city, a thought so profound just slices in like a solid wedge. You suddenly realize that there is a “divide” between the characters. Munna knows for a fact that he can never be a part of the glammed up life that Shia lives, Shia understands that Arun would never be able to form a meaningful relationship with her or anyone else, whereas Arun would never get to meet his muse, Yasmin because of the latter’s untimely death.

With so many layers to uncover and emotions to unfold, Dhobi Ghat stands out to be a film that will remain long in our memories for paying such a grand tribute to Mumbai, the city we love to hate. It is obvious that Kiran Rao enjoys the urban idyll as much as she shares with us her love for each of the film’s well-etched out characters. The film may not find much appreciation at the ticket windows but it does mark the galumphing entry of Kiran Rao, the director to watch out for. Three cheers to her for giving us such delicious bytes of a city gone by.