Paheli as a movie is pre-rational. The people who wash it away or question the logic of it are people who are unable to locate the world behind the parable, the universe in the folktale and the truth in a legend. They question and smug in their own enlightened logic, fail to understand the structure or the flavour of a folktale. Set in a pre-modern Rajasthan, this Amol Palekar movie from the first shot onwards, unfolds a tale of tensions and conflicts –Earth and Fire, Body and Spirit, Love and Power, Passion and Pain, and goes on to resolve each of these conflicts in an interesting way.
Orange and yellow and red and gold, rust and bronze and silver and blue – the movie captures the spirit of the people, the flavour of their language and the spices of their lives exquisitely. From the awkwardness of language to the exoticness of the costumes and jewellery, Paheli manages to take us in a time that is once upon an untime. The story of a young woman – Lacchi (played to exquisiteness by Rani Mukherjee) who is married of to a Father-Obedient man of the matters- Kishna (Shah Rukh Khan who is so believable in the two roles that he plays) who leaves her untouched on her wedding night and leaves her for five years in the next morning. Shattered, dumbstruck and losing to the powers of wealth, Lacchi finds solace in the elder daughter-in-law of the house whose husband has left her without returning in seven years – an understated and not much visible but very impressive Juhi Chawla. However, the tale takes a twist when Lacchi discovers another lover. A ghost who takes the form of her husband and comes back to love like never before.
However, Lacchi, unlike the character in Karnard’s Nagamandalam – a story that resembles the folklore Duwidha, upon which Palekar’s movie is based – is not duped into accepting the ghost. The ghost, as any true lover would, tells her the truth and she takes the decision of starting a romance that is so believable, so natural and so sheer that it propels the movie further. The first half of the movie captures Lacchi and the ghost pretending to be Kishna’s romance and love as bliss and happiness settles on the two. The second half of the movie is a little predictable as the ghost pretending to be Kishna, in a Rajesh Khanna Bawarchi style, solves the problems of the family and gains honour and becomes the hero of the village as he performs tricks beyond comprehension.
However the tour de force of the movie is spun glass fragile romance that develops between Lacchi and her masquerading ghost as they establish peace and harmony and joy in their lives. After two years of these state of affairs, the original husband returns just when Lacchi is about to deliver their first child – the child that has come into being due to her relationships with the ghost. What happens next, is for you to find out. How will the climax resolve itself? What is the resolution to the conflicts that Palekar brings to his movies.
A visual feast enriched by amazing music by M.M. Kreem and poetry as can only trickle out of Gulzar’s pen, Paheli is a moviegoer’s delight. In an age when Bollywood is blindly aping the West in producing mind numbing movies – torn between opulence and starkness, Paheli gives a gentle unhastened narrative in tales of a long ago. Palekar manages to maintain a pace that is unhurried and hence so much more savoury throughout the movie. The script is subtle but hilarious and can keep you engrossed. More than anything else, the dispensing of a formal narrative and building up of relationships and identities is a delight. The delicacy of the shots and the vibrancy of the colours are more apprecialble because unlike Bhansali’s movies, the poetry of the technique does not supersede the story itself.
The performances are awe inspiring – Nothing less could be expected from such a powerful cast. Rani Mukherjee, after the disastrous Bunty aur Bubbly proves that she is a talent worth reckoning in her breathtaking and elemental portrayal of Lacchi. SRK proves again that he is a director’s actor. What Ashutosh Gowarikar could not make him do in Pardes, Amol Palekar makes him do in Paheli. In the two roles, he is muted, emotional, sensitive, atypical and so believable, that inspite of his ill fitting moustache and ridiculous turban, you can not but fall in love with both the Kishnas. Aditi Gowatrikar is unrecognizable in the movie and largely a prop. Juhi Chawla is not given much footage but leaves a lasting impression. Anupam Kher as the money minded patriarch makes an amazing comeback to prove that nobody can beat his comic timing in Bollywood. The voices of Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak-Shah as the puppet king and puppet queen – the universal audience and narrator of the tale are flawless. Amitabh Bacchan does a cameo at the end and hams as usual. However, the movie works so well because the actors have done such a brilliant job of making their characters come to life.
The verdict is out. Paheli has not pleased the box office. The Pundits have already started calculating how much loss SRK would have to bear as another one of his home productions fails to hit the silver screen. However, it is a sad verdict. Sad, that an audience that ludicrously accepts superheroes; that an audience that can talk so freely about feminism and patriarchy; that an audience that subscribes so easily to foreign recreations of myths and cultures; that an audience that mindless gobbles teenage sex flicks and mindless adventure stories, would dismiss Paheli on grounds of logic or rationality. For those of you who can still look at the germ of a story and read the crises of our times in tales that are not our own will find Paheli a ravishing mix of questions and answers all set in the form of a movie. You will enjoy it more if you go to Paheli, not to know the answers but to ask the questions; not to hear a story but look at many monologues subtly woven together. If to watch or not to watch is your conundrum, my suggestion is Watch it…and watch it fast before it sneaks its way out of theatres.