8/12/2019 How Vijay Was Born PDF

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COVER STORY 10MARATHON MAN THE TIMES OF INDIA

The Crest Edition

VINAY LAL

The persona of the angry young

man, a role that Amitabh

Bachchan would earmark as his

very own, is commonly thought

to have emerged in Hindi cinema in the

first half of the 1970s, in films such asZanjeer andDeewaar. The 1970s were

certainly turbulent times: early in the

decade India and Pakistan went to war,

and not long after India would attempt

to have itself partly admitted into the

club of nuclear states with a peaceful

nuclear explosion. Whatever Indira

Gandhi may have gained with these

spectacular displays of her will totriumph, she is commonly thought to

have squandered these victories with

the imposition of Emergency, the

stifling of dissent, and social policies

calculated to arouse the opposition of

the poor. However, the malaise that

afflicted the country was much deeper:

industrial production had slowed down,

the labouring classes were in a militant

mood, shortages of essential commodi-

ties were palpable, and unemployment

was rampant. Azadi had wrought little;

the dream had soured.

There is every reason, then, to think

of the 1970s as pre-eminently the decadewhen the genre of the angry young

man planted itself in Hindi cinema, a

theme taken up with considerable gusto

in Tamil films of the 1980s. But

Bachchans films of the 1970s demand

attention for another compelling trope,

namely the idea of the city. The migra-

tions from the countryside to the city,

which might be constituted into one

epic narrative of the history of India

after Independence, continued unabated

and we should recall that Vijay, in

Deewaar, flees with his mother and

brother Ravi to Bombay from the hinter-

land. Mrinal Sen and Satyajit Ray arecommonly thought of as two filmmakers

who were heavily invested in the nexus

of the city and the f ilm. Sen has

described Calcutta as his El-Dorado, his

muse: the city features prominently in

his work, perhaps nowhere more so than

in his films of the early 1970s when

young men floundered about in search

of jobs. Rays Calcutta Trilogy Pratid-

wandi(1971),Seemabaddha (1971) andJana Aranya (1974) likewise captures

with extraordinary subtlety the anomie

of city life, the dislocations the city cre-

ates in social relations, even the trans-

formations in emotions under city life.

Many of Bachchans films of the

1970s are also eminently city films.

Signs of the urban landscape are unmis-

takably present inZanjeer, even if the

city is somewhat undeveloped as a char-

acter in its own right. The city must

have its dens of vice, where Sher Khan

rules supreme before an encounter with

Inspector Vijay Khanna (Bachchan) sets

him on the path to reform. Mala, the

street performer, lives in Dongri Chawl;

at the other extreme, the mafia don Teja

lounges by the side of a luxurious swim-

ming pool. Four years later, inAmar

Akbar Anthony, the city would have

even greater visibility: many of

Bombays landmarks Nanavati Hos-

pital, Victoria Terminus, Haji Ali Dargah feature prominently in the film.

It isDeewaar, however, which carved

out the space of the urban in a wholly

distinct manner. As Vijay, Ravi, and their

mother arrive in the city, they leave

behind a social order that is simultane-

ously more intimate and more unforgiv-

ing. There is also a tacit assumption that

as the breadwinner of her family,

Sumitra Devis prospects are better in

the metropolis. Vijays adolescent years

are captured in a few, albeit critical,

scenes in the film; and then a match cut

transports us to the angry young man,

now a worker at the docks. As he takeson the mafia, one senses the explosion of

urban India; the angry young man, a

new hero emerging from the bowels of

the city, represents the anger of a gener-

ation whose dreams lie shattered.

As Vijay wrests control of the docks

from Samants men, we are tempted

into thinking that he is increasingly

embracing the urban world as his own,

refusing to be beaten into submission by

the unruliness and hurly-burly ways of

the city. The city is everywhere in

Deewaarand the film skillfully signposts

urban spaces. Newly arrived into the

city, Vijays mother finds works at a large

construction site. Sumitra and her two

sons make their home under the bridge:

it is not the overhead traffic over the

bridge that makes the city, but the tens

of thousands, indeed millions, sheltered

under it who, yet again, give birth to the

unintended city. The great migrations

into the city gave rise to the slums, with

their population of labourers, trades-

men, prostitutes, and petty criminals,

and it is from the housing tenements,

some under the bridge, that one gets

what Ashis Nandy has described as the

slums eye view of Indian politics. From

their modest home under the bridge,

the young Ravi arrives at the gate of the

nearby school.

Slowly but surely, the plot ofDee-

waardrifts into other ineluctable spaces

of the urban landscape: high-rise build-

ings, five-star hotels, night clubs, the

city streets themselves, through which

Ravi gives furious pursuit to Vijay. But

the singularity ofDeewaarresides in

something quite different. It is the first

film in Hindi cinema which establishes

a dialectic between the footpath and the

skyscraper, the two pre-eminent signs of

the films urban landscape. The ubiquity

of the footpath as home to the home-

less, migrant labourers, and myriad oth-

ers living at the margins of society is

self-evident. It is a school where lifeslessons are imbibed: while Ravi goes to

school, Vijay takes up shining shoes on

the footpath. Soon, Vijay gravitates

from the footpath to the skyscraper: he

even attempts to gift his mother one.

No sooner has he gained possession

of the skyscraper than his fall com-

mences, as if the footpath were beckon-

ing him to return to his roots and plant

his feet on the ground. The fact that his

claim on this skyscraper is ephemeral,

and ultimately undeserving, is under-

scored by the fact that the viewers

sight of the building is barred through-

out the negotiations. The skyscraperholds no intrinsic interest for Vijay,

indeed its very existence is refracted

through the footpath. The footpath is

literally that: the path where the foot

trod, where every footfall becomes a

trace of memory. At every turn of his

confrontation with Ravi, Vijay seeks,

unsuccessfully, to remind him of their

shared histories on the footpath: Ravi,

tume yaad hain bachpan mein kitni

raaten footpath pe khaali pet guzarin?

One of the dialogues on the footpath

that have now become part of Indias

cultural memory. The young Vijay,

refusing to pick up money thrown at

him as a shoeshine boy, says with digni-

ty, I polish shoes and do not beg for

money. Pick up the money and place it

in my hands. Davar, the mafia don, tells

his henchman: Yeh umar bhar boot

polish nahi karega. Jis din zindagi ki

race mein isne speed pakdi, yeh sab ko

peeche chorh jayega. Looking back at

the life of Bachchan, one has the feeling

that much in it was prefigured in the

figure of Vijay. More than anyone else in

Indias film industry, Bachchan has

proven to be the lambi race ka ghoda. Vinay Lal is the author of

Deewar: The Footpath, The City And

The Angry Young Man

SIGNS OF THE URBANLANDSCAPE AREUNMISTAKABLY

PRESENT IN ZANJEERTOO. THE CITY MUSTHAVE ITS DENS OFVICE, WHERE SHERKHAN RULES SUPREME.MALA, THE STREETPERFORMER, LIVES INDONGRI CHAWL; THEMAFIA DON TEJALOUNGES BY ALUXURIOUS POOL

In Deewar, thenew hero, an angry

young man,emerged from thebowels of the city.

The film wasunique because it

established adialectic between

the footpath andthe skyscraper

LAND MARKS: Zanjeer (above) andDeewaar (left and bottom) told the storyof a disillusioned generation

HOW VIJAYWAS BORN