‘The secret ingredient is love’ isn’t just a cliché, it’s an embarrassment. It says a lot that two unconnected stories in Modern Love Mumbai, a six-episode series based on the popular New York Times column, have a variation on this line. At least one of them—the otherwise delightful Mumbai Dragon—uses it in passing, possibly in jest. Baai has it right at the end, capping a heavy scene. “The secret ingredient is… coriander” may not be poetic, but it’s better than making the viewer groan as someone is dying.
Let’s start at the top. Mumbai Dragon is perfectly pitched, engaging
with history and identity and prejudice without seeming laboured. Directed by
Vishal Bhardwaj and co-written with Jyotsna Hariharan, it’s the story of Sui
(Yeo Yann Yann), a third-generation Mumbaikar. Her grandfather came here from
China and, if a flashback is to be believed, invented sweet corn soup. Food has
helped them build bridges ever since; Sui used to sell dim sums at Nariman
Point. But it becomes a comic barrier when Sui’s son, aspiring singer Ming
(Meiyang Chang), brings home his chatty girlfriend, Megha (Wamiqa Gabbi). She
doesn’t eat meat or even garlic, which makes Sui defensive and tetchy. She
takes a vow not to speak Hindi anymore until Ming agrees to marry someone from
their community.
Bhardwaj draws a lovely sardonic performance from Yann, whom some might know
from the Singaporean films Ilo Ilo and Wet Season. Ming resists
Sui's emotional blackmail, but we can also see he’s unable to disappoint her
(Megha’s fridge is overflowing with Sui’s lunch boxes for her son), and realise
that eventually she’ll have to come around herself. Tassaduq Hussain makes
masterful use of cramped spaces. The cultural exchange in the languages—an
Indian Chinese woman speaking Hindi, a Punjabi man speaking Cantonese—is very
Bhardwaj and also very Mumbai.
The fear of abandonment prompts another remarkable comic performance. In Raat
Rani (written by Nilesh Maniyar and John Belenager, directed by Shonali
Bose), Fatima Sana Shaikh plays Lalzari, a Kashmiri woman living with her
security guard husband, Lutfi (Bhupendra Jadawat), in a modest one-room that's
apparently in shouting distance of Shah Rukh Khan’s house. When Lutfi leaves
one morning and doesn’t return, a frantic Lali heads out to look for him. His
absence forces growth upon her: she gets the house fixed, learns to ride a
bicycle, starts selling kahwa.
Like in some of her recent films, Shaikh is on the receiving end of
injustice. But here she’s allowed the space to be desperate, silly, unsure and
funny. There’s a euphoric scene where she’s riding her bicycle on Worli Sea
Link at night, a ‘two wheelers not allowed’ sign prompting her to launch into a
litany of things she’s been denied in life. “And when your husband leaves you,
being happy is NOT ALLOWED,” she yells. But there’s a huge smile on her face.
The other four episodes are less successful, for various individual reasons,
and for one common one: they have a heavy touch. Baai (written by Raghav
Raj Kakker, Kashyap Kapoor, Ankur Pathak and Hansal Mehta; directed by Mehta)
might have the heaviest. Manzu (Pratik Gandhi) is a singer who comes out of the
closet over the course of the film. Hanging over everything is the memory of the
Bombay riots, evoked through a nifty action scene possibly modelled on the
single-take from Children of Men. The two strands are connected by
Manzu’s grandmother (Tanuja), whose bravery saved the family during the riots,
and who’s now dying without the knowledge that her beloved grandson is happily
married. In the past, Hansal Mehta has been a deft observer of spiky family dynamics
and difficult romances; this, though, is laboured and rather sappy, taking in
too much for its 33-minute runtime, with achingly sensitive music poured over
everything.
Viewers who skip the opening credits of My Beautiful Wrinkles might
nevertheless recognise it as a Alankrita Shrivastava film, given her earlier
forthright treatments of unlikely relationships. Here, it’s between a woman in
her 60s (Sarika) and a much younger man (Danesh Razvi)—first a friendship, then
a flirtation. There’s a teasing waltz that reminded me of ‘Yumeji’s Theme’ but
the film lacks the delicacy and wit that might prompt further comparisons to In
The Mood for Love. Dhruv Sehgal’s I Love Thane (co-written with
Nupur Pai) looks at modern dating through the largely unsuccessful efforts of
landscape designer Saiba (Masaba Gupta). As she texts with and meets a series
of unavailable or undesirable men, and finds herself drawn to a sincere
architect (Ritwik Bhowmik), the film settles on a tame take: that people on
dating apps are mostly shallow and duplicitous and the ones who aren’t on it
(and live in ‘real’ neighbourhoods like Thane) are genuine. Of Cutting Chai (written
by Devika Bhagat, directed by Nupur Asthana), I'll only say that the
musical-style fantasy moments are a good try and it’s always a pleasure to see
Arshad Warsi (I like that the film gently suggests Chitrangda Singh is out of
his league).
Modern Love Mumbai will do for a rainy afternoon. But it’s alarming
how quickly streaming TV in India has started to resemble Hindi cinema: the
same directors, the same actors, the same music and editing and thinking. I
certainly wouldn’t begrudge established filmmakers a chance to work in a new
medium. At the same time, if streaming doesn’t bring forth new voices, is it
just another little Bollywood? The horror!
This piece was published in Mint Lounge.
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