'DDLJ': A metaphor for a meandering Mumbai

Maratha Mandir matinee is a metaphor for a meandering Mumbai As the non-stop screening of the iconic movie enters a world record 850th week, Siva Sankar ponders if this is really an achievement or a sign of the times

I went to the Mumbai Central’s Maratha Mandir cinema (where Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge or DDLJ, has been lighting up the big screen for close to 850 weeks non-stop, a world record) expecting to find no more than a handful of hardcore Shah Rukh Khan fans, maybe a few weirdos / depressives, an odd Bollywoodcurious foreigner on a tourist visa. Instead, a surprise greeted me in the form of some 300-400 people of all age-groups, genders and classes. And this on a bright, pleasantly cool, refreshingly smog-free late January Friday morning — traditionally, the day when new Bollywood movies are released! Are new flicks so bad that people still prefer DDLJ? Be that as it may.

Little did I realise that Mumbai had another surprise in store for me the next day. The Saturday afternoon saw no more than 100 book-lovers at the celebrated annual Strand book sale near Churchgate. Just a few days earlier, a colleague wrote how hordes of frantic shoppers descended on Spanish high street fashion retailer Zara’s discount sale as soon as it opened at Lower Parel.

And a few weeks before, Mumbaikars gave the cold shoulder (or a lukewarm response, if you will) to Anna Hazare whose efforts to slay corruption had been attracting worldwide recognition.

Has Mumbai become a mega-village of zombie-like denizens, awake but not fully conscious, on auto-pilot, in denial? Or, are they wise enough not to even think about, leave alone protest against, the deplorable, chaotic and primitive state of their beloved (?) metro? And smart enough to escape into time-tested, mood-elevating fantasy from the mind-numbing reality of the ‘maximum metro’?

In Mumbai, time seems to stand still. To an outsider, it would appear as if people here have developed a cosy relationship with the state of changelessness.

Four key aspects of Mumbai have not changed at all since the time DDLJ was released 15 years back. One, absence of clean, odour-free, dust-free air. Two, absence of litter- and garbage-free streets and public spaces. (It is as if no one here is aware that the rest of the world has moved on to concepts like  rubbish bins, garbage disposal and waste management.) Three, absence of pothole-free, smooth roads with proper signboards and lane markings, with sensible, lane-bound, horn-averse vehicle drivers.

And four, absence of civil people with civic sense who don’t spit, urinate, litter, abuse, jostle, fart… in public spaces, people who don’t routinely violate city rules and laws. These four key aspects — of course, there are many others as well, like the quality of suburban commutes — have remained constants, like DDLJ at the Maratha Mandir.

That Mumbai is caught up in a time warp is stating the obvious. That in itself is not a cause for concern though. Not just individuals, cities and nations that live perpetually in a state of denial abound on this planet. For instance, British citizens living in interior cities and towns still believe that the Empire is alive, a force to reckon with in the global scheme of things (even though reality is that within Europe, France and Germany have long upstaged their traditional economic rival).

But what definitely appears to be a cause for concern is the attitude of both natural and naturalised middle-class Mumbaikars (the former being the sons and daughters of the soil while the latter are the immigrants from other states who have made Mumbai their second home and seem to embody the mythical ‘Mumbai spirit’ more than long-time Mumbaikars themselves).

Having lived ten of the last 11 years abroad, my mind is given to matter-of-factly statements, in the form of comparisons and contrasts relating to the sub-optimal state of civic amenities, living conditions, people and infrastructure here. But for some reason that I can’t still fathom, this seems to elicit a quick and robust response from middle class Mumbaikars (as distinguished from both mega-millionaires living in sea-facing flats in modern skyscrapers and the chawl-and slumdwelling underclass) that this is India, that one ought not to expect anything better here, never mind the India-is-shining-and-the-next-superpower hype.

It is the preponderance of this middle-class segment on a sunny Friday morning at the Maratha Mandir that set me thinking. I am not willing to buy facile
explanations that the dirt-cheap tickets (Rs15 and Rs17 for stalls and Rs20 for balcony) offer easy respite from the dirty, ugly city that Mumbai has become; that young lovers find in the cinema a simple, accessible, affordable getaway for some private, intimate moments; that the movie itself continues to mesmerise scores nearly 15 years after its release…. All of that could well be true, but that does not tell the entire story.

In commercial capitals of developed countries and would-be superpowers, people probably wouldn't put up with the kind of primitive state of affairs you see in Mumbai today; they might contemplate direct action. But in Mumbai, people continue to happily watch DDLJ in its 850th week, never mind the state of decay all around. Would New Yorkers go watch in hundreds every day a Ben-Hur or a Top Gun if it were screened non-stop at a Manhattan cinema while Michael Bloomberg’s administration presides over utter chaos? I doubt. Wouldn’t they find Mumbai’s obsession with Bollywood, and its utter indifference to / acceptance of its own decay, fantasylike? Is this then a sign that Mumbaikars would much rather live in the past because the present is just too much to bear? If yes, then is this regressive attitude itself reinforcing and perpetuating the state of changelessness? Maybe yes. Perhaps not. I don't know. That’s for
sociologists, psychologists and psychiatrists to figure perhaps.

One thing is for sure. Maratha Mandir is now a metaphor for Mumbai: as Shah Rukh’s Raj and Kajol’s Simran cast their melodious spell on the audience for the nth time, time stands still here, in some perverse way. I wouldn’t want to ascribe the notion of timelessness though. For, it’s not just the matinee that gives you a terrible sense of déjà vu. Step out of the cinema, and you may be forgiven if you think Mumbai, in terms of the quality of life as experienced by the ‘Common Man’, is still where it was 850 (or may be 1700) weeks ago.

The four aspects of a decent city lifestyle discussed above are a given in any major city outside India. Yet, millions of middle-class Mumbaikars who have not travelled much nor lived abroad for long, seem to think these prerequisites of 21st century urban living are the stuff that fantasy is made of, and hence almost impossible to achieve. They — people who will make or mar the metro ultimately — appear quite proud that Mumbai already has rising modern skyscrapers,
proliferating malls and multiplexes, ubiquitous flyovers, the Bandra-Worli sea bridge, a wide range of automobiles (and cabs), brand new cricket stadia, internet, laptops, iPads, mobile phones, and, what’s more, will soon also have world-class overhead ring railway system.

But, if a slum-dwelling youngster starts his adult life selling T-Series and Tips audio music tapes on the Mumbai pavements, and grows up to graduate to selling video tapes, CDs, DVDs, Blurays, and then grows old selling 2G, 3G, 4G accessories and eventually dies a slum-dweller selling 100G gadgets (and in between manages to watch DDLJ at the Dolby-enabled Maratha Mandir for 1,032 times), can we still say that Mumbai, or India for that matter, has  developed and progressed in the technology-driven age of globalisation?

It appears as though this city and those who administer it have no clear vision of the way forward. How to take Mumbai from point A to point B — that challenge requires both a clear and honest appreciation of what A is and how B should be, particularly in terms of standards and systems.

Stuck as Mumbai is in the negative comfort zone symbolised by DDLJ@MM, and given the disquieting, mismatching glitzy vertical expansion, the challenge appears to be too big an ask.

What’s with DDLJ in its 850th week?
As the matinee screening enters a record 850th week, Siva Sankar files some snippets from the Maratha Mandir cinema

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It appears DDLJ, like Sholay in the late ’70s, has attained iconic status, at least among the Facebook generation. If Sholay enjoyed diehard fans who would recite the entire dialogue simultaneously – remember how the audience would answer Gabbar’s angry query ‘Kitne aadmi thay?’ with a lusty ‘Sardar, dho aadmi thay’? — DDLJ boasts similar audience indulgence. ‘Kya tum mujhse pyaar karthi ho?’ asks a fervent Shah Rukh’s Raj. And half of the 300-odd crowd, including “boys”, drowns Kajol’s Simran’s answer in its chorus: ‘Sabse zyaada!’ And then: ‘Mujh par bharosa hai?’‘Khudh se zyaada’.

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This is a purely subjective view, of course. I think DDLJ became a super-duper hit not because of Shah Rukh Khan but Kajol. (Of course, popular music is a sine qua non for any modern Bollywood romance to be commercially successful.) Throughout the movie, she appears radiant, life-affirmative, stunningly lovely and as someone who deserves better than Shah Rukh. Any romantic storyline that has the female lead pining for the ‘hero’, reciprocates the intense
fondness for the male lead (as against just the hero pataoing the heroine and winning her over eventually), if backed up with lilting song-and-dance sequences, should be a superhit, if new insights into DDLJ are anything to go by.

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Contrary to the popular notion, the Maratha Mandir premises, including the canteen, toilets and the stalls, are extremely neat. Its spanking clean marble floor, comfortable seating, clear sound system, bright screen image quality, breezy ceiling fans and largely well-behaved (but dialogueuttering, whistling) audience — all for Rs 20 — make amends for the filthy, noisy neighbourhood.