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Release
date:
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February 21, 2020
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Director:
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Hitesh
Kewalya
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Cast:
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Ayushmann
Khurrana, Jitendra Kumar, Neena Gupta,
Gajraj Rao, Sunita Rajwar, Manu Rishi Chadha, Maanvi Gagroo, Cameo:
Bhumi Pednekar
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Language:
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Hindi
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It has
been a long time coming.
From
the pre-2000 decades when LGBT+ persons were almost always (almost, but not
always) written purely as objects of either derision or comedy by Bollywood
scriptwriters, to this week’s Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (SMZS);
from an earlier era when comparatively sensitive Hindi filmmakers
packed their works with subliminal messaging about same-sex love, to
the post-2000 era’s intermittent open declarations; from the days
when the homosexual relationships in My
Brother Nikhil (2005) and I Am (2011) were assumed to be of niche interest by producers, distributors and
exhibitors, to the present day when glamorous mainstream stars have been cast
as same-sex lovers in films bearing all the trappings of mainstream
commercial Bollywood such as Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (2019) and SMZS, it has been a long long time coming.
Bollywood in 2020 is far from being a jannat, orthodox masses still seem to need comedy as a package
for a sensitive reality, and at a couple of places, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (Be Extra Wary of Marriage) does make apologetic noises to
traditionalists. Still, from a time when audiences were conditioned to assume
that songs like Yeh dosti hum nahin
thodenge (We will not break this
friendship) were about platonic male buddies, to
today when SMZS is questioning those
assumptions, Bollywood has come a long way, baby.
Ayushmann Khurrana stars in writer-director Hitesh Kewalya’s Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan as
Kartik, a young man living in Delhi and in a committed relationship with Aman
(Jitendra Kumar, listed for some reason as Jeetu in the closing
credits here). The two are not out
to their families. When they travel to Aman’s hometown, Allahabad, for a
wedding, relatives go berserk on accidentally discovering that they are a
couple in love. SMZS is devoted
to how Kartik and Aman come to terms with this rejection and how the family
comes to terms with their truth.
Kewalya’s film is an intelligently handled affair. It is hilarious, but
it never mocks the two gay men at the centre of the story. Its laughter is
reserved entirely for the prejudice they encounter and the straitjacketed
existence of those around them who are determined to preserve their notion of “normal”,
even if that “normal” has sucked the joy out of their own lives. SMZS’s sense of humour does occasionally
slip up for other reasons (example: that really flat joke about
Neil Nitin Mukesh), but at no point does its comedy turn homophobic.
With a
word here and and a touch there, through long conversations and fleeting
references, Kewalya invites us into his questioning mind and shows a
deeper understanding of human relations, gender, Hindu mythology and popular
culture than most mainstream Hindi filmmakers. In 2014, when I was working on a feature about the history of LGBT+ portrayals in Bollywood, Ruth Vanita,
co-editor with Salim Kidwai of the book Same-Sex
Love In India, had told me that when she showed Hindi films featuring the
old-style intense yaari-dosti between
male leads to her students at the University of Montana, “all
of them commented on the fact that the men are singing romantic songs to each
other like Diye jalte hai (from Namak
Haram) and the songs from Dosti. If you played those
songs without knowing that a man is singing to a man, it sounds like a man is
singing to a woman...” (For more on that, click here.)
Like Vanita, Kewalya repeatedly asks us to step outside ourselves and
consider the possibility of messaging, including coded messaging, featured in
art works and mythological motifs we have long loved but seen with different
eyes in the past.
SMZS’s intelligence
extends to its acting. Khurrana and Kumar are not bound by any of the traits
formulaic Bollywood has so far compulsorily assigned to gay men. Khurrana does
tweak his body language to play Kartik, but those changes are barely
discernable and in no way stereotypical or caricaturish in keeping with
Bollywood conventions.
Aman’s
relatives, played by the phenomenal Neena
Gupta, Gajraj Rao, Sunita Rajwar, Manu Rishi Chadha and Maanvi
Gagroo, perfectly capture various shades of bias and acceptance to be
found in families that are weighed down by social conditioning and ignorance,
not hate.
In the
midst of this carefully chosen cast, Bhumi
Pednekar appears incongruous, not for any fault of hers but because of what her
brief appearance in the narrative signifies. The lovely Ms Pednekar was
the heroine of the 2017 Bollywood hit Shubh
Mangal Saavdhan (with screenplay and dialogues by Kewalya) in
which she had a solid role alongside Khurrana. Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan has no plot connection to the previous
film, the title merely cashes in on that one’s recall value. It is telling then
that the producers felt comfortable revisiting the name while dispensing with
the leading lady, instead of establishing a new brand. As it happens, this is
customary in the world of Bollywood franchises and
sequels. Obviously Pednekar’s cameo here is a bow to the success
of Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, but
her role is written almost like a spare tyre lying unused, it is embarrassingly
insignificant (a cameo need not be) and forgettable, and it is an unfortunate
reminder of the continuing dispensability of women stars in this
male-star-obsessed industry.
Repeat: Bollywood is far from being a jannat of progressiveness. It is up to viewers to decide whether to
see the glass as half full or half empty. There is a third option: we could
celebrate forward movement and yet draw attention to missteps and steps yet to
be taken.
SMZS
falters during a scene in which Aman’s mother laments her husband’s
unwillingness to fight for her son, but simultaneously criticises her son for –
so she says – expecting his family to evolve overnight. This monologue is
designed as an expression of empathy, so it has to be placed on the record that
marginalised social groups do not owe it to dominant groups to break them in
gently. Individuals may CHOOSE to do so for strategic reasons or out of love
and affection, but no one has a right to demand it.
Whether
this scene is a mark of the writer’s own sub-conscious conservatism or a safety
net spread out with commercial compulsions in mind is hard to tell. It is
troubling though, as is the odd emphasis on how homosexual relations ought to
be private during a TV news announcement about the Supreme Court’s ruling on
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that earlier criminalised same-sex
relations. This moment in the film would perhaps pacify conservatives who seem
to have this bizarre expectation that anyone who is not heterosexual wants
nothing more than to have sex in public. Perhaps that is why it is there.
Hopefully
these aberrations will find mention among the many conversations SMZS will spark off. That it will spark
off conversations is a given. This
is, after all, no ordinary film raising ordinary questions, as is evident early
on when two characters dwell on how a father’s sole contribution to
creating a child is his sperm. One of them adds that a child spends an
entire lifetime repaying the debt of that single sperm. So you see, SMZS’s
courage lies not just in its condemnation of homophobia, but also in its
questioning of the
very foundation of the Indian patriarchal family structure which rests on the
belief that children owe parents a debt of gratitude for having made them/us.
SMZS is
funny, brave, smart and thoughtful, and Kewalya is a voice worth listening to.
Rating (out
of 5 stars): 3.5
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CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
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Running time:
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119 minutes 37 seconds
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This review has also been published on Firstpost:
