In the limited series #DilliDelhi, Devansh Sharma talks to scriptwriters and filmmakers who have explored the city of Delhi, in all its eccentricities, intricacies, and complexities, through their films.
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Juhi Chaturvedi has lived in Delhi for only three years, though her work suggests otherwise. She has explored three different sides to Delhi in three of the four films she has written for Shoojit Sircar so far. While Vicky Donor (2012) was set in the heart of a bustling refugee colony inhabited mostly by Punjabis, Piku [2015] briefly visited the Bengali-dominated Chittaranjan Park area, and October (2018) intermittently strolled through the lush green Hauz Khas, Vasant Kunj colonies.
Clearly, she knows Delhi inside out. She claims she loves the city with all its ostentatious glory, wintry lethargy, and political unreservedness. These factors, along with the fact that Delhi was her first tryst with 'freedom,' make it the organic choice for her characters' home in all her films. "I moved from my hometown Lucknow to Delhi for my first job. Delhi provided me the freedom that Lucknow didn't. The freedom, economic or otherwise, allowed me to restart as a person. In 1996, I joined Lintas. There were my colleagues — women — who were smoking and abusing in Hindi. The city did not judge them. But I was coming from a place where there was a lot of tehzeeb, and no rough edges. In Delhi, however, there will be a huge car whooshing by, playing loud Punjabi music. You just do not see that in Lucknow."
She’s lived in Mumbai far longer — two decades — but hasn’t set a film. (“I think I was in a different frame of mind when I came here; I was married, there were other responsibilities," Chaturvedi says). She thinks the ‘Maximum City’ is a leveler — with its slums crowding right up against its palatial high-rises. In Delhi, on the other hand, Chaturvedi says these lines are "finer." “Not so much on the basis of economics but more so in terms of backgrounds…” she explains.
“There is a Lajpat Nagar for every Khan Market, a Daryaganj for every Vasant Kunj. But all of them know their 'place.' They are judged, but are fully aware that they judge others too. They do not hesitate to show off who they are.
I've seen women who may not brush their teeth but will apply lipstick before getting out to buy vegetables!" says Chaturvedi, laughing out loud.
Another Delhi trait that intrigues Chaturvedi is the incomprehension of the concept of personal space. She illustrates this with a small anecdote: "I was planning to throw a birthday party in Mumbai, but for some reason, the plan got canned. To my surprise, nobody turned up eventually. Had it been Delhi, people would've been like, 'I don't know about others, I'm coming for sure'. You dare to ask them for some space, they will be quick to retort with a 'kedi space?'".
‘Kedi space?’ was something she encountered frequently when living in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar. She fondly recollects prying ‘neighbour aunties’ who were as concerned about her as they might be for their own daughters. "When I would return from work at 7 PM, aunty would ask me, 'Vaddi der hogi tune?.' But the moment I would tell her, ‘Aunty, weight kum kiya hai kya aapne? Fit lag rahe ho!', the tone would change and she’d say, 'Andar aaja beti, chai pee le!'"
The memorable characters of Dolly and Beeji [Dolly Ahluwalia and Kamlesh Gill], Ayushmann Khurrana’s mother and grandmother respectively in Vicky Donor, were among the various brazen, outspoken aunties Chaturvedi came across in Lajpat Nagar. "These women were always unapologetic about their thoughts and words — whether in the bazaar during the day, or when drinking late at night behind closed doors. ‘Wo ladki moti toh hai par achhi hai,' they would say. And I'd be like, 'Par achhi hai matlab?,' as if it came as a surprise to them that plump girls can be nice too," she says, breaking into laughter.
Chaturvedi recounts the endless nights that she spent overhearing (or rather, was forced to listen to) the haddippas and the burrahs that accompanied deafening Punjabi music. "Most of the men had their own businesses. They would come home late, dinner would be served late, and the children would go to sleep late, even though they had school at seven the next morning. I think this tendency to live life on their own terms, and in the moment, also comes from the fact that they are refugees. They have already suffered a lot during Partition, and have left behind a considerable chunk of what was their own," she muses.
Contrast the migrants' community of Delhi shown in Vicky Donor to that in Piku. The 70-year-old Bhashkor Banerjee (Amitabh Bachchan) and his 30-year-old daughter Piku (Deepika Padukone) lived in Chittaranjan Park, a few kilometers away from Lajpat Nagar, but miles away in terms of lifestyle. Like the Punjabis, the Bengalis were also verbose and argumentative, but they also boasted an intellectual streak that they think distinguished them from the Lajpat Nagars and the Chandni Chowks. "For example, Piku is basically an embodiment of the Delhi girls that I've seen around. They are smart, competitive, and confident. You cannot take them for a ride. They are politically more aware, clear-headed, and can argue with anyone, whether it's a JNU intellectual or a Haryanavi cop. They have this certain Durga-ness about them," Juhi points out.
From the voluble Punjabis in Vicky Donor to the loquacious Bengalis in Piku, Chaturvedi's filmography finally settles in the silences of Sircar’s autumnal tale October.
"The script demanded a sense of poetry, a hint of melancholy in nature. Unlike Mumbai, where the weather is almost the same round the year, Delhi has various seasons. I wanted to show a time lapse in October to depict the exhausting period that Shiuli's family and Dan (Varun Dhawan) live through, hoping she will recover from the coma. Also, the shiuli flowers… the green expanses… they could only come alive in a city like Delhi," she says.
That doesn’t mean Juhi is unaware of how grim those empty, green expanses can be, come nightfall. "There are so many dark patches in Delhi. When you are passing through such a patch in an auto-rickshaw, your body language changes. You become more conscious as there's always a fear, lurking somewhere," she says. Her grave mood passes as she switches to a more amusing recollection; she hesitates for a few seconds before sharing amid some chuckles: “You know I used to call these Delhi men Pinchu Kapoors. Their arms are even longer than kanoon ke haath! There is no place they can't reach!"
Chaturvedi’s humorous outlook has allowed her to depict ‘gloomy’ issues like infertility, constipation, and death in brighter colours. The Punjabis who won’t be bogged down by the past, the Bengalis who make peace after heated arguments, and a lost soul who only knows how to love — all these characters are a part of Chaturvedi. She is aware that just like the city she often goes back to through her stories, her craft too cannot be confined.
from Firstpost Bollywood Latest News https://ift.tt/3n5RxwF
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