Zubaan - a quest for your inner voice

“Music is my art, music is my home;

Music is my heart; music is you and me alone…”

Zubaan is the coming-of-age story of a boy who is scared of music. Dilsher, a young boy from Gurdaspur, Punjab stammers while talking due to which he frequently gets bullied by his schoolmates. Yet, at the local Gurdwara, he manages to sing the shabads perfectly, while accompanying his father. Music happens to be his calling although he has no clue about it. Not as yet.

One day, while Dilsher (Harmehroz Singh) was trying to defend himself from the bullies at a brick factory in the village, onlooker business tycoon Gurcharand Sikand (Manish Chaudhari) gives him the lesson of his life – the only person who can help someone in distress is he, himself. He (Vicky Kaushal) grows up, moves to Delhi, starts working for a security agency and after a series of carefully structured events, gets to meet Sikand, who eventually becomes so impressed by his will and wit, that he becomes his mentor, almost adopts him and keeps him in his mansion. Soon, Dilsher becomes an eyesore for the other members of the Sikand family – especially Sikand’s hard-working yet incompetent son, Surya (Raaghav Chanana). As Dilsher rises up the business ladder, he is subjected to severe resistance and inner politics. Music is lost somewhere along the way.

It is only after meeting Amira, a performer and a friend of Surya, who invites Dilsher to Dhruvtara, a birthday celebration of her deceased brother in the middle of a desert, he is re-introduced to music. He sings at the break of dawn but right afterwards he spontaneously says – Gaje-baje sey koi matlab nahi, yeh meri duniya he nahi hai. Flashback scenes help us understand how Dilsher had to witness a tragic family accident in his childhood that made him petrified of music. Slowly and reluctantly, with a little bit of coaxing from Amira, Dilsher gets back to singing and eventually embarks on a journey to find his inner voice.

In Zubaan, director Mozes Singh has taken an age-old family drama of rivalry and quest for one’s identity and presented it with a fresh, modern day perspective with a dash of music. Cinematographer Swapnil Sonawane deserves a mention here especially for the desert sequences, the vast expanses of which look staggeringly beautiful in the film. The story has many subtle moments which add to the conflict between the characters. The foot-tapping numbers composed by Ashu Phatak have been placed well in the film, although some of their visualizations can sometimes be jarring. The movie seems to stretch a bit in the second half, especially when more importance is given to the ongoing family drama and less on the protagonist’s desire for pursuing music. The lack of subtitles can be an issue since the movie is partly in Punjabi, although it’s not too difficult to follow what’s going on.

At one point in the film, Dilsher says - “Phul gaye ji menu?” Perhaps nobody who has seen Neeraj Ghaywan’s Masaan will ever forget the powerful performance of Vicky Kaushal, arguably the best find of 2015 in the acting department. In Zubaan too, each time he appears on screen, it is impossible to look away from the raw energy he emanates. The character of the elder Dilsher is morally ambiguous. Yet, we understand his angst and feel bad for him when he is ruthlessly beaten. Kaushal breathes heart and soul into Dilsher and lives his part. Interestingly, Kaushal had shot for Zubaan even before Masaan, his technically first release.

Sarah Jane Dias beautifully supports Kaushal through the film and Manish Chaudhari does justice as the bitter and ruthless Gurcharand Sikand. Harmehroz Singh’s innocence pierces through his eyes and even though he doesn’t have much dialogues, his presence in the flashback scenes create a certain impact. Although Raaghav Chanana stumbles with his performance in some parts, he otherwise manages to deliver decently. In fact I could find hints of the character’s alternate sexual preferences and perhaps it would have been interesting to see the director exploring this aspect a bit more, which would have added to the traits of Surya and the overarching acrimony and family politics. Meghna Malik is almost hysterical as the mother and trophy wife. Somehow I couldn’t connect with her.

In the end, however you are left with the lilting ‘Aajj Sanu O Mileya’, which loosely translates to ‘I found all my answers’. We all are looking for answers and most of us haven’t quite managed to find them. Zubaan is a triumph of the inner will and one must take this meditative cinematic journey, perhaps in order to ask the right question. 

Aligarh - a heartbreaking poetry

"Sochta hoon retirement ke baad Umrika chaley jau. Wahan mere jaise log izzat sey jee sakte hain..."

Toward the end of Aligarh, we hear professor Siras, the 64 year old Marathi professor from Aligarh Muslim University utter these heart-breaking lines. Lines that are bound to haunt you long after the credit roll stops scrolling. What does he mean by 'mere jaise loag'? On the surface, it might be seen as the melancholic ache of a lonely, aged homosexual man who has faced the prejudice of the conservative Indian society. But on giving it a second thought, one cannot help but think of 'mere jaise loag' as ourselves - the common man. 

A hardworking professor who is in awe of his University campus, someone who does groceries on a Monday, enjoys his single malt whiskey while Lata Mangeshkar's "Aapki Nazron Ne Samjha Pyar Ke Kaabil Mujhe"  plays in the background - he could be anyone we see in our day to day lives, be it your fourth-floor neighbour or your friend's distant relative. This character is one of us. Yet, the moment one finds out that he was being intimate with another man, a Muslim rickshaw-puller, in the privacy of his bedroom, equations change. A sting operation exposes the alternate sexuality of Prof. Siras due to which all hell break loose at the University and he gets suspended from his job. The society must quarantine him for his so-called immoral activity.

The story is set at a time when the Delhi High Court had decriminalized homosexuality. This gave Prof. Siras the chance to reluctantly fight against the University officials with the help of a minuscule number of friends and supporters, in order to get back his job and his house from which he had been wrongfully evicted under baseless charges. Amidst the courtroom chaos, we see Prof. Siras dozing off, bored because of technical discussions about the various sections of the law. Sometimes he is silently translating his own creation, a book of Marathi poems titled 'Paaya Khali Hirwal' (Grass Under My Feet) into English, oblivious to the accusations hurled at him.

At one point, Prof. Siras (Manoj Bajpayee) tells reporter Deepu Sebastian (Rajkummar Rao), poetry lies not in the words but in the pauses between them. Aligarh is sheer poetry on screen. Cinematographer Satya Nagpal manages to capture the lonely, boring life of an old man with supreme placidity. The film moves at a pace which will engulf you into the monotonous world of Prof. Siras - a world that might be mundane yet lyrical. The scenes are seamlessly stitched together by editor Apurva Asrani. He is also the co-writer of the film and his cleverly penned dialogues (and sometimes the lack of it) make things sound more authentic. We even see him in a cameo. The performances are bang on - Manoj Bajpayee never hits a false note and Rajkummar Rao quietly supports him throughout the film. The bond between these two characters is so real that you feel their agony. Supporting characters like Dilnaz Irani and Ashish Vidyarthi are meteors on screen, who manage to leave a lasting impression. 

Through Aligarh, director Hansal Mehta manages to subtly ask a considerable amount of questions which are significant in today's times. It raises questions on caste, creed, identity, breach of privacy and the status of a single man in contemporary India. It asks us what it means to be different from the crowd. However the towering question that overpowers all the other questions is perhaps this - what makes a person simply want to run away from this precious, diverse land to a foreign country, just so he can live a dignified life? 

By the end of the film, I wanted to howl, but somehow couldn't. Even though the fate of Prof. Siras was tragic, I am still hopeful. This cannot be the fate of the thousands of people in India and across the world who are swimming against the tide and grappling with their individual identities - be it professional or personal. Things must and will hopefully change in the coming years and this film proves to be a silent catalyst in that process. It totally deserves to be seen. Right now!