Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Om Puri, Waheeda Rahman, Divya Dutta, Rishi Kapoor 

My first introduction to Delhi 6 was the music, but it wasn’t long before the trailers caught my eye. There were panoramic views of prayers at a mosque, charmingly crowded Chandni Chowk alleys, and a potentially intriguing storyline. I had high hopes for an insightful film, which I thought the audience could realistically expect from Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra of Rang De Basanti fame.

And then I watched the movie.

In all fairness, the first half of the movie was promising. Roshan (Abhishek Bachhan) is an American-born Hindu-Muslim who travels to Delhi with his ailing grandmother. At first flummoxed by the novelties of Old Delhi, Roshan begins to appreciate its culture and the peaceful coexistence of the Hindus and Muslims in his neighborhood. A romance develops between him and Bittu, the neighbor’s daughter who aspires to something other than a marriage. In the meantime, Chandni Chowk has become the target of a sinister kala bandar (black monkey), and calls in a “priest” to exorcise it. When the priest claims that the kala bandar has arrived because the local mosque was built over a temple, religious riots destroy the neighborhood, and Roshan becomes dangerously embroiled in them.

Mehra shot to fame with the timeliness and realism that made Rang De Basanti such an influential movie, and he attempts to repeat that feat in Delhi 6. But despite his good intentions, nearly every aspect of Delhi 6 is marred in one way or another.

Take, for instance, the main themes of the movie. As an American-born visiting India for the first time, there is, as always, the clash of values that Roshan experiences. No matter how “awesome” the colorful chaos can be, this is still a country where caste dictates social interactions. Being a Hindu-Muslim as well, Roshan happily immerses himself in the comfortable interactions between the two communities, and is horrified when religious fanaticism engulfs the community, sweeping away decades of friendship. His love interest Bittu originally despises Roshan for his “Americanism”, which I interpreted as the perception that there’s a sort of unconscious arrogance to Roshan’s distanced appreciation of India.

All these ideas are important; indeed, for Indians born and brought up outside India, they are probably crucial when trying to make sense of this country. But Mehra’s treatment of these ideas is incomplete at best, and melodramatic at worst. These themes distract from one another and not enough time is devoted to each.

For starters, there is the idea of religious extremism I thought Mehra’s portrayal of the violence was excellent: it was an illustration of how hatred can be stirred up through politics and a herd mindset. The suddenness of the riots, the shock of seeing familiar, harmless characters morph into goons, and the sorrow of the aftermath all come together very well. Mamdu’s grief at having not lost not only his livelihood, but also his closest companions, is genuinely touching. The theme of religious extremism also gets introduced rather cleverly with the idea of the kaala bandar; it is the evil living within everyone that perverts religion into blind zealotry. But as the kaala bandar character stretched out through the movie and gained presence, I began to wonder if it had a more concrete form. What should have existed merely as a metaphor is built on so much that its final explanation leaves the audience confused and annoyed.

Then there’s the idea of Roshan’s American-Indian dilemma. Viewing the unsavory bits of India through the lens of a foreign-born Indian is a great idea, but at the end of the movie I couldn’t make out what, if anything, had been accomplished by this perspective. While everybody deals with the crisis, caste and religious barriers melt a little. But this is certainly not the result of Roshan’s ineffectual idealism, which is vastly out of place in the middle of a burning temple and destroyed property.

Mehra also attempts to explore the disdain shown by Bittu towards Roshan, but I think he fares equally badly. She dislikes him because she thinks he shows a rather naive arrogance towards the traditions of India; he confirms that belief by telling her father that Bittu doesn’t want to get married, and getting slapped in return. But Roshan just doesn’t seem to do anything else during the movie to prove that his way of thinking is worth considering (at least), except for perhaps a highly cliché speech about religious harmony. This clash of mentalities is something certainly worth examining, but in Delhi 6, it goes nowhere.

If I could list just one thing salvaging the movie, however, it would have to be the supporting cast. In settling his audience into the everyday charms and troubles of Delhi 6, Mehra had assembled an excellent group of actors – especially Om Puri as Bittu’s grouchy father, Madangopal; Deepak Dobriyal as Mamdu, the Muslim sweet-shop owner whose world is destroyed by the violence; Divya Dutta, who does a superb job as the cleaning woman Jalebi; and Vijay Raaz as the self-important Inspector Ranvijay.

These wonderful actors also create the excellent humor that keeps the movie watchable. It is spot on and entirely unselfconscious; still memorable is the scene where Jaigopal and Madangopal argue over the best way to kill the Kala Bandar. When Jaigopal insists that it can be killed with water because it runs on electricity, Madangopal bellows that rain doesn’t short-circuit lightning. It was genius, and the audience roared with laughter.

Unfortunately, the great acting isn’t enhanced by the two main leads – on the contrary, Abhishek Bacchan and Sonam Kapoor are nearly devoid of character. For an American-born Indian, Abhishek’s English accent is atrocious, and his Hindi highly erratic. This would have been forgivable if his personality had been noteworthy, but besides a sort of tepid idealism and a tendency to play with small children, there doesn’t seem to be much to him. Sonam’s character, though slightly more consistent, is nevertheless unoriginal, and her heart isn’t really in it. Worst of all, there’s next to no chemistry between these two. My guess is that, despite the actors’ best efforts, Mehra simply spent so much time creating the atmosphere of Delhi that he forgot about his main leads.  

Mehra also doesn’t seem to be able to deal with the seriousness that the second half requires. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry at the melodrama he interjects. I don’t intend to reveal any spoilers, but suffice it to say that Amitabh (inevitably) makes a cameo, Abhishek flatlines, and Sonam wails over her beloved. I think the audience was as stunned as I was to see a genuinely promising movie degenerate into the kind of drama usually reserved for Indian soap operas – and from Mehra, at that.

This, eventually, is what I found the most disappointing about Delhi 6. The Indian movie audience has come to expect something of consistent quality from an intelligent, novel director like Mehra. While the cinematography, the use of Rahman’s excellent tracks, and the sympathy with which Mehra captures Chandni Chowk are all laudable, the faults of the movie nearly obliterate its accomplishments. After all the hype, it is a pity that Delhi 6 will be remembered only as the movie that might have been. 

Photo Courtesy: delhi6.co.in

Related Articles:

• Delhi 6: Music Review
• Missing the Mark
• Bad Enough For Bollywood
• Ghajini - In Depth
• Drona - A Review