01.15.1989

Where there’s a will, there’s a Salaam Bombay! To put it plainly, here’s a superb achievement, a film that has you shedding a quiet tear in the dark, that has you doubling up with a belly laugh. So close to the seams and folds of low life, Mira Nair’s first feature film is remarkably perceptive and observant, a breakthrough in an age when Indian cinema is sinking further into a swamp.

Completely deserving of the ten international awards it has been garlanded with, here’s a valentine to the pluck and pep of the Bombay streetkids. It is the next-to-last word about their everyday struggle with a virulent environment, a subject on which the last word can probably never be spoken. Wisely, the wonder director refrains from even trying. Drawing from the hard-as-stone reality, Mira Nair and her co-writer Sooni Taraporevala, sensibly permit themselves the freedom of a fictional story. In that sense, Grant Road-the hub of the plot–could exist in any cranny of the monster metropolis. This is an area of darkness, lit up by the grimy faces: deranged tots pretending to be traffic cops, smarties conning ‘pink-skinned’ tourists, ragpickers dreaming passionately of Sridevi, freaking out to the beat of Hawa Hawaii. Gratifyingly, there isn’t a hint of the moralistic. Neither is there any syrup or treacle.

From the outset, rather the approach is to show it the way it is, to sturdily trek through skidrow. You have seen the kids every day, lowering your gaze as you pass them by, shrugging your shoulder that you can’t do a damn (so why bother?) And the film’s triumph is that it makes you care, it may not change the world but it does swipe at your incapacity to recognize the, humanity of the underprivileged. Right off, you come close to Chaipau (Shafiq Syed), a wisp of a boy whose cauliflower nose and whirlpool eyes have become immune to the sleaze of drug-dens, railway platforms, red-light dives and graveyard hide-outs. Abandoned by the circus he did odd jobs for, he vends tea now on the tough roads and pines to return to his village home, never mind ,the sporadic spats with his family. It’s his innocence, his need for friendship and warmth that makes Chaipau’s story pithy and dramatic. There must be a million Chaipaus out there, his story could be any streetboys’.

The characters he encounters come in incredible shades, whether it’s his junkie pal Chillum (Raghubir Yadav) doomed to die in pain or Solasaal (Chanda Sharma), the frightened girl from Nepal sold into the flesh trade. Chaipau treats the girl to tea, steals a baby chicken for her. When she’s ill-treated, he sends her biscuits. A profoundly moving scene, at this point, lingers on Chaipau’s other little friend, Manju (Hansa Vithal), who gobbles the biscuits down in a fit of jealousy. Manju is the film’s backbone, her selflessness, her affection, her all-giving trust, make her into the one real rose in the gutter. She scratches like a cat on the door when her mother, a prostitute (Aneeta Kanwar) has to ‘entertain’ a customer. She sleeps in the rubble when her father (Nana Patekar), a retired pimp-turned-shyster, wants to make love to his ‘Meena Kumari’. The scenes featuring Manju are haunting. The image of her conducting an imaginary phone conversation, giggling at shadow pictures on the wall when the electricity goes off, her wiggle to the song Mera naam Chin Chin Choo and her taunting resilience when she’s carted away to a remand home, are guaranteed to shake the viewer to the bone. You lose Manju, sequestered in the shadows. Chaipau does bolt out of the remand home. But to what? The climax is a stunner. Throughout, Mira Nair’s documentary background (India Cabaret), enables a raw, life-on-the-lam edge.

Embellishing this, is her feel for humour (the streetkids whooping it up as waiters at a wedding reception and on a tonga ride), her sense for shock effects (a father threatening to throw his tiny girl off a balcony) and even a gift for sensuality (the more than relevant bedroom scenes). It would be a pity if any frame of the film is misread as gratuitous or harangued with that cornball argument, ‘Look, this is only highlighting the poverty of the country. Salaam Bombay! is also admirable for its dialogue by Hriday Lard (a kid who has eaten himself silly is asked, ‘Do you have a stomach or a high court building?’) Kader Khan and co. should rush to take lessons. The camera work by Sandi Sissel is firstclass, opening up Bombay without exoticizing it. And the technical excellence is topped by the great ensemble acting. Aneeta Kanwar, Nana Patekar and Raghubir Yadav, all deserve medallions for their rigorous, accomplished performances. Chanda Sharma has an grace. But ultimately, the triumph is of the magnificently-talented child Hansa Vithal and the brilliantly sensitive Shafiq Syed. After this, they’ll always have a room in your heart.