Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi

This post was brought on by one of the comments to my previous post about Nagesh Kukunoor. Sinfully Pinstripe (and one day you'll explain to me the significance of that intriguing blog handle) said, "I almost physically assaulted my roommate when he said that the only recent neo-hindi movie he could compare Hazaaron with in terms of quality was Teen Deewarein." It was also brought on by the fact that I finally watched Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi this weekend, after being exhorted to do to so by friends for four months. I watched it on a VCD with scratchy sound, in a cacaphonic drawing room that had, among other things, a noisy dog. I watched enthralled, engrossed and haven't stopped thinking about it ever since.

I would want to physically assault anybody who compared Hazaaron with Teen Deewarein, too, Pinstripe. Teen Deewarein – well, you just feel like saying 'poor guy, at least he tried'. The raw passion of Hazaaron is something you take away with you – it sticks on you the way a passionate kiss does long after it's over. No PhD on the frustrated angst of the Naxalite movement, the JP movement, the fear and the paranoia of the Emergency could have done a more thorough job of explaining what it actually meant to live in those times. What it meant to be young in those times. I didn't, and I have had a very apolitical youth, but the film has a way of getting under your skin, of making you restless and frustrated and just a bit more aware of your world.

Then, hardly ever have I come across a film title that so magnificently captures its essence. A thousand desires – the impossible desires of youth and that youthful arrogance that there is nothing in the world as important as them.

The film traces the lives of three students from Delhi University (and it felt strange to be back in the Hindu College corridors and hostel lawns – I kept expecting to see friends popping up into the screen) from 1969 to 1976. Siddharth is an idealistic young man born into a privileged background (money and idealism weren't as completely irreconcilable back then, it seems), Vikram an ambitious small-town, middle-class boy with a Gandhian father, and the third is Geeta, the girl they both love – a sophisticated Stephanian Tam Bram with foreign education behind her.

The way the movie unhurriedly, subtly yet thoroughly goes into the backgrounds of these characters – their families, beliefs, motivations and antecedents – is in itself a treat to watch. Settings are recreated with such complete attention to detail that you can almost smell the breakfast coffee in Geeta's house – though the scene is less than a minute long. Yet, there is none of that fake sophistication in terms of set design one finds in many recent films – that maniacal wish to make everything look picture perfect. When Siddharth and Geeta make love on the floor of what looks like a college laboratory, there is none of that orchestrated, almost choreographed love-making one has come to expect from movies. It is as clumsy as these moments almost always are – but it unambiguously and beautifully conveys desperation and urgency.

Then there are the host of minor characters you keep wishing the director had explored more extensively – so full of potential are they. As fellow blogger Fool on the Hill said in his post on Hazaaron, these characters with their typical (though not clichéd or overused) regional idiosyncrasies recreate the environment perfectly. The police officer looking for Naxalites hiding inside the village school, the old man in the hospital bed next to Siddharth’s, the college friend who backs out of the village project at the last minute, Siddharth’s father the retired judge, Vikram’s father the Congressman. Also, as a friend pointed out, the treatment is not heavy handed or overtly sombre – there’s a wry, self-effacing, very Bihari, humour that alleviates the seriousness throughout the film.

And beyond the politics of the time, the love story. How each one of the protagonists realises their desire in the end, though in ways they had never dreamt of. And the music – ah the music. Bawra mann haunts me day and night –those of you who haven’t heard it yet, please do so at the earliest. The lyrics are simple and poignant and so beautifully poetic.

In fact, they carry the essence of the story in them. Sad, even tragic, but ultimately hopeful.