My name is Malhotra and I'm not a homosexual
Last week I went to watch Kapoor & Sons. I haven't been to the movies in ages. The last film I watched was Karan Arjun, which must have been when I was in college. Or was it?
I book the ticket on my phone. When I arrive at the theatre, I discover I still have to stand in queue at the counter and get a physical ticket. This I feel defeats the purpose of booking online. The lady in front of me doesn't have the correct change. It takes time.
The hall is full of chattering Indians. The film begins. The atmosphere reminds me of the first few minutes when one boards a train. There is much excitement. I wonder: these families must be chatting with each other at home, in the car to the multiplex, standing in the queue at the box office. I marvel at their ability to not lose interest in each other.
The film seems like Karan Arjun and makes several references to it. But I soon realise that it isn't Karan Arjun. It's about two brothers who are writers - one successful, the other unsuccessful. The successful brother had stolen the unsuccessful brother's plot via the mother. For the sake of convenience, let's call the brothers Karan and Arjun.
Karan, the successful one, has an Indian-American agent. The agent's accent is indecipherable. Karan stays at home with his parents. The unsuccessful Arjun has chucked his job and works as a part-time bartender in New Jersey. He is also working on a novel.
The film has a funny scene which involves a plumber with an incessantly ringing phone. He's trying to fix a leaking tap while a family quarrel rages around them. Ratna Pathak Shah shouts at him to apply more M-Seal. A little later Karan and Arjun hit the road.
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| Alia Bhatt and Sidharth Malhotra in a still from the film. |
The car stops at a toll booth. The one in the driver's seat pays the toll fee; he gets a ticket and a green lollipop in return. The green lollipop is in lieu of change. I turn to the lady sitting next to me, the one who was in front of me in the queue outside, and say: "Thank your stars the man inside that box of an office didn't give you a lollipop." She ignores me. She keeps talking to her bhabhi.
The train is chugging along now. The members of the audience continue to share intimacies at the top of their voices. In one scene, Alia Bhatt finds Sidharth Malhotra rolling a joint in the bathroom of her beautiful old house in the middle of a tea estate. They smoke the doobie in the loo. As Alia (Tia in the film) takes the first drag, Lollipop Aunty asks the baby in her lap - "Beta, batao iska naam kya hai?" She's pointing at the screen. The baby obliges: "Tia." I'm impressed, both with the baby and with Alia lighting up onscreen.
There is a lot of pot-smoking in the film. This is both discreet and in-your-face. The brothers share joints. It lessens the competitive tension between them. Rishi Kapoor, who plays the grandfather, tokes with his grandsons. Later that night Karan and Arjun lie in bed and wonder: Pata nahin Dadu itna acha maal kahan se laye. Dadu is full of beans. He calls an iPad an iPapad, and fondly reminisces his youth when he went to watch Mandakini bathe under a waterfall in Ram Teri Ganga Maili fourteen times.
Talking of sex, there are a couple of smutty jokes about the size of the male organ, both mouthed by Alia. Sidharth says: "You know what they say about men with long noses - that their..." Alia says: "You have a long nose, so does that mean..." For a fleeting moment I contemplate going to the toilet and measuring my own nose. I think of Pinocchio.
The man sitting to the right of me receives a phone call. He gives directions to someone. "Forward this email to X. Forward that email to Y. If in doubt, click send all." My landlord calls from Delhi. I know he wants his rent. I avoid the call. No one wants to pay rent.
By now I've realised that the core of this film is in the dialogues. The characters speak softly to each other as in real life. I don't want to miss the dialogue. I pick myself up and move to a different row. My neighbours here are yet another mother-daughter couple. Trays of food arrive: hamburgers, Coca Cola and potato crisps. Much munching, crunching and slurping. I can barely make out what's being said. So I get up and move to the unoccupied front row.
This is just like school - in an epiphanic moment, the backbencher transforms into a frontbencher. But it's not the same. Being a backbencher in a movie theatre is expensive. You pay extra for it, like I had. But now, as a reluctant frontbencher, at least I can follow the dialogue. It's very good.
The only time the audience stops talking to each other is whenever a crying scene comes on. I find this bewildering. You can talk during a crying scene. Crying after all is a silent act. You don't have to follow the dialogue. I call up my landlord and tell him I'm watching a crying scene. I'll pay the rent when I get back to Delhi.
The plot twists and turns. The facade of the happy Indian family crumbles like a house of sand. Skeletons tumble out of the closet. The plumbing of the house though remains intact.
Alia sips a Kingfisher and smokes another one. There's an extra-marital, tension between husband and wife, a fatal car crash. Rajat Kapoor poops a party. Arjun, the unsuccessful brother, manages to sell his novel. The white editor says he loves the new draft with the new ending. At some point, Fawad Khan's character admits he's gay. M-Seal mom throws a hysterical fit. She finally relents and accepts Karan for who he is. The lights come on.
It's a happy climax with a tinge of sadness. I think to myself: Karan and Arjun have evolved. Karan Johar has evolved. Indian society has evolved.
As I said, I haven't been to a theatre in a long time. I've forgotten where the exit is in a movie hall. I race up the aisle to the entrance; I want to get to my car quickly and beat the rush outside. I run into a solid block of the happy Indian family. The usher gestures to me frantically - Exit vahaan neeche hain. To the left of the front row, where I'd been sitting all along.
The families are thinking: who is this chikna boy watching the film all by himself in the front row. Why is he running in the wrong direction? Why is he going against the flow of things? They don't move an inch. Aunty Lollipop is not as indulgent as the mother in the film. Her gaze is suspicious.
I want to scream: "My name is Malhotra and I am not a homosexual." All I want to do is come out. Out of the hall that is.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)