Iqbal in India's film Dusra

By Jayampathy JAYASINGHE

A scene from the film

“I know I'd go from rags to riches
If you would only say you care
And though my pocket may be empty
I'd be a millionaire.
“My clothes may still be torn and tattered
But in my heart I'd be a king
Your love is all that ever mattered
It's everything.”

“Rags to Riches’ (Song sung by Tony Bennet....)

The SAARC Monthly Film Day, established by the SAARC, Cultural Centre in Colombo, progressing alphabetically, reached India in April.

One would have very well thought, that a special screening of an Indian film, was an ultra-fastidious gesture, since Indian movies enjoy a non-stop ‘Festival’ treatment, as cinematic products from India appear on the small-screen and are theatrically presented, here in Sri Lanka – seven days a week.

But when Iqbal came on screen, as the Indian entry in the monthly SAARC Film Day series, it overwhelmed the viewers, with the devastating effect of a potent Dusra, that demolishes all in the path of its ravaging trajectory.

The end-result of the film's impact, is the stirring outcome of the construction of the cinematic work.

Scenes

When the film opens, the initial scenes seem, bland, non-descript and even down-right dull.

It is located in one of those typical small villages.

The father of the household is fervently religious, and works assiduously to keep the home fires burning.

The central personality of the film is the elder child of the two -children family.

He is deaf and mute, and is consumed by the un-diminishing ambition to become a pace bowler.

The conservative father's objections are adamant and the conflict seems beyond satisfactory resolution.

What would have easily and helplessly plummeted to the level of one of those run-of-the-mill “rags to riches” concoctions, has been elevated to a gripping human drama by the deft director Nagesh Kukunoor.

He cleverly fuses together the dominant twin urges of the Indian mass-psyche-cinema and cricket.

On his relentless path to the nail-biting finale of the cinema-cricket merger, the director populates his story-landscape with an array of lively episodes and absorbing personalities.

Vivid life

That raises this simple-seeming folk-myth into vivid life.

There is this inescapably interesting character - the unlikely bowling coach discovered napping in an alcohol-induced stupor.

When he wakes up into his full senses, he begins his stern and demanding coaching routine, with no holds barred.

The protagonist's kid-sister, the two way translator for her brother, creates a neat cameo-role, exploiting her expertise in sign-language and her command of commonsense, to great effect.

Her brother, who by then had only buffaloes in the field to react to his bowling, seems to fail initially when live human cricketers are present.

The kid-sister whispers something in his ears and his brilliance returns.

Asked what she whispered in her brother's ear, she responds disarmingly; I asked him to think of all the human fielders as the buffaloes he knew.”

Extending the buffaloe idiom further afield, irreverent liberties are taken with the names of some prestigious Indian cricketing luminaries whose names identify the buffaloes, who serve as human fielders. In its unfussy, unadorned simplicity, Iqbal adds a remarkable cinematic creation to India's globe-girdling reputation as the innovators of mankind's film-tastes.

Through its astonishing levels of annual productions on variegated themes, Bollywood seems to have launched a blitzkrieg to try and expand the limits of the possible for Indian cinema. I am quite keen to quote what I felt about some recent developments in the Bollywood cinematic dispensation.

Idiots

Very recently, landing with a soul-shaking thud, on the minds of the movie-going masses, “The three idiots unambiguously and hilariously made the stunning declaration, that Indian film comedy, is just not what it has been all along. Delivering fun, at a mass production rate, and amassing box-office revenues and accolades on a record breaking scale,” The Three Idiots” administered sly but painful knocks on the heads of academic obduracy and obscene pecuniary ostentation. It is outrageously funny and in the same breath, is obliquely didactic. Its appeal was immediate and transnational.

Playing great Sha Rukh Khan, “My name is Khan” built a cinematic parable about a malaise, that affects a wide-swath of humanity in our day.‘Iqbal’ in its own subdued mode, adds yet another work that Bollywood could be justly proud of.

Sensitive

It is quietly probing and is keenly sensitive.

What is admirable about Iqbal to my mind is that while handling a saccharine formula, it demonstrates a capacity to be “Chini Kum”.The monthly SAARC Film Day has now become an entrenched event in the cultural calendar. The cumulative build-up of the series, has to be considered in-depth, when the alphabetical progress continues to move on.