GANGUBAI AUR WOH KAMATHIPURA KI BADNAAM GALIYAAN ...

By Manmohar Mohabbat Iyer

In the mid 70s, I worked as an accounts assistant for a machinery manufacturing company run by five Maharashtrian brothers. Their office was located at Trimbak Parshuram Road near Alankar Cinema. If this doesn't ring a bell, then near the infamous Kamathipura, a red light area established over 150 years during the British regime as one of Mumbai's fun zones for the firangi soldiers.

I was around 20 years then. Besides writing the accounts books, my work entailed going to the CA's office or the sales tax and income tax departments. I had to pass through the narrow alleys and lanes of the pleasure district of Kamathipura which was crammed on both sides with bawdy houses and bordellos where scantily clad nubiles posed as mannequins and threw inviting glances at the prospective customers. The sight was quite appalling and disturbing.

The street also boasted of a few dilapidated and sleazy theaters like Silver, Gulshan, New Roshan, Alfred showing B and C grade Hindi films and a number of shady joints and restaurants, shops and saloons all clamouring for attention.

When the taxi in which I traveled crawled through the crowded streets, even I couldn't escape the come hither looks of the hookers. Petrified, I would slide upward the glass window of the cab. Something I never forgot all my life.

The entire character and climate of Kamathipura was captured and recreated to the hilt in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's film 'Gangubai Kathiawadi' which I watched two days back and which I rate as his best. Unlike his other ostentatious and opulent works, 'Gangubai Kathiawadi' is more grounded to reality, compelling and coming on strong, honest and hard hitting, stark and straight from the heart.

Based on Hussain Zaidi's book 'Mafia Queens of Mumbai', SKB's film highlights the plight and sufferings of young girls forced into the flesh trade and their pathetic circumscribed living conditions; laments at the exploitation of the sex workers emotionally, physically and financially; advocates for their rehabilitation and rights to social equality, education and live with dignity.

The theme on the lives of prostitutes and sex workers and their rehabilitation has been touched and tackled by several filmmakers from Shantaram (Aadmi), Bimal Roy (Devdas), B R Chopra (Sadhana), Guru Dutt (Pyaasa), Kamal Amrohi (Pakeezah), Madan Mohla (Sharafat), Shakti Samanta (Amar Premium) to K Balachandar (Aaina), B R Ishara (Chetna), Gulzar (Mausam), Shyam Benegal (Mandi), Muzaffar Ali (Umrao Jaan), Mahesh Bhatt (Sadak), Mira Nair to Abbas Mustan (Chori Chori Chupke Chupke), Madhur Bhandarkar (Chandni Bar), Sudhir Mishra (Chameli), Anuraag Kashyap (Dev D), Srijit Mukerji (Begum Japan) to name a few.

The ill-fated characters in.these films have an ostracised existence filled with abuse, exploitation, miseries, sorrows, sufferings. With no home and hope, no freedom and future, no today or tomorrow, abandoned by near and dear ones, they resign quietly to fate, wallow in self pity and swallow the inevitable. In many of these films, rebellion, rehabilitation, politicalisation formed part of the narrative to heighten the emotional heat and intensity and we're successful at the box office.

But, SLB's gung ho Gangubai is larger than life; though brutally abused, exploited and victimised, she rises like a Phoenix, crusades for the kamathis, dons the mantle of the madame of the mandi, articulates unabashedly before a huge crowd, even meets the prime minister with an impassioned appeal to let them live with dignity, legalise the profession, accord police protection and not ostracise them physically, fights and wins an election to become the President of Kamathipura.

The transition and transformation from Ganga (a naive starlet) to Gangu (the victim of circumstances) to Gangubai (the victorious crusader) has been portrayed brilliantly by the ever dependable Alia Bhatt though she looks quite young for the role. Be it the Kathiawadi dialect and diction or the Kamathipura gait and glamour, she straddled effortlessly striking a perfect balance between happiness and despondence, hope and despair, pleasure and pain, poeticism and profanity! Even her silence spoke and her speech silenced whether it be the policeman, politician or the Prime Minister!

Her tone, timber and tenor varies with the person she was interacting and the purpose for which she was fighting; aggressive and assertive at one moment and self assured and self possessed at another moment. Particular mention is made of her scenes with: Kamli (Indira Tiwari) with whom she shares a heart warming bonding; the parents of her beau (Shantanu Maheshwari) whom she meets with the marriage proposal of one of the 'untouched' girls; the underworld don (played by Ajay Devgun) whom she looks up to as a brother and with whom she feels safe and secure; the journalist (Jim Sarbh) who is instrumental in getting her an appointment with the PM; and a helpless looking PM (Rahul Vohra) whom she shocks with her effortless rendering of the ever resonant lines of Sahir to validate her appeals in favour of the women living on the margins of society:

मदद चाहती है ये हव्वा की बेटी,

यशोदा की हमजिंस, राधा की बेटी,

पयम्बर की उम्मत, ज़ुलै खां की बेटी,

जिन्हें नाज़ है हिन्द पर वो कहां हैं?

These and other hard hitting lines in Sahir's nazm on the decadence of the society and moral squalor in the country were a direct indictment of the disappearing Nehruvian policy of socialism. While Sahir's scathing attack on Jawahar Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, left him disturbed, in the film, unfortunately, Alia's recitation of the lines, though effective, failed to create the needed impact on the character who played Nehru as well the audience.

Incidentally, the film had some baddas, direct, hard hitting and raw dialogues which made me feel stop and run the scene again. Pithy lines like:

Zameen pe baithi achhi lag rahi hai tu; aadat daal le, teri kursi to gayi!

Kunwari aap ne chhoda nahin, shrimati aap ne banaaya nahin!

Aap ki izzat ek baar gayi to gayi. Hum to roz raat ko izzat bechte hain, saali khatam hi nahin hoti!

Sahir's 'Jinhen naaz hai Hind par woh kahan hain?' evoked instant nostalgia and I was transported to the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s which marked the golden era of Hindi films and film music. Apparently set in the 50s or early 60s, the film displayed posters of films ranging from the Madhubala starrers 'Mahal' and 'Nirala', to 'Rangeeli' (Raj Kumar's debut film), 'Jahaazi Lutera' (a B grade stunt film starring Jairaj and Shashikala), 'Pyaasa' all of the 50s to the blockbusters of 1960: 'Barsaat Ki Raat', 'Chaudvin Ka Chand' and 'Mughal~e~Azam' and several others which were indistinct. Also, indistinct was a song by Talat Mahmood heard in the background but the more audible 'Aa teri tasveer banaalun' by Talat from the Dev Anand~Madhubala starrer 'Nadaan' more than made up for it.

Talking of music, the songs of the film have an old world charm particularly the mujra (on Huma Quereshi) 'Kisiki yaad mein shaamen guzaarne ke liye' (very well written by A M Turaz and equally well rendered by the immensely talented Archana Gore). The composition based on raag Darbari is a blend of the evergreen song 'Mohabbat ki jhoothi kahani or roye' (from Mughal~e~Azam) and the relatively less heard qawali 'Jab ishq kahin ho jaata hai' (from 'Arzoo'). The two vibrant garba songs 'Jhoome re gori' and 'Dholida' are well choreographed with the typical opulent and ostentatious aesthetics of SLB.

I left the (in)famous 'pleasure district' or 'fun zone' of Mumbai, rather the theater, humming effortlessly the tune of the last song 'Muskurahat ko bhi aane pe mazaa aane lage' may be because if its striking resemblance to Madan Mohan's classic gem 'Rasm~e~ulfat ko nibhaayen to nibhaayen kaise' from 'Dil ki Raahen'.

From Kathiyawaad to Kamathipura, Bhansali's escapade and exploration of the badnaam gali, inter ALIA, was endearing and emotionally rewarding!

Presented by Ali Peter John