Barah Aana - Raja Menon

Empathy, according to the dictionary, is the identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives. It is neither a common occurrence in life nor in films. Definitely much rarer than apathy. The emotion or the lack of it that make us look the other way most of the times. That is why your heart both shrinks in shame and swells up in warmth to see it in such abundance in a movie. Barah Aana by Raja Menon is a tragic-comedy about three migrants from Uttar Pradesh who share a kholi in Dharavi.

Empathy, according to the dictionary, is the identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives. It is neither a common occurrence in life nor in films. Definitely much rarer than apathy. The emotion or the lack of it that makes us look the other way most of the times. That is why your heart both shrinks in shame and swells up in warmth to see it in such abundance in a movie.

Barah Aana by Raja Menon is a tragic-comedy about three migrants from Uttar Pradesh who share a kholi in Dharavi. Shuklaji (Naseeruddin Shah) is a driver who has nothing bright in his life except his immaculately white uniform. Yadav (Vijay Raaz) is the doorman in a housing society where he is also the resident doormat. Aman (Arjun Mathur) is a waiter in a fancy coffee bar where he serves cappuccino Italiano to Kate (Violante Placido) and dreams about being with her on a regular basis. Money is always in short supply and all three have learned to live with it till one day it slaps it in their faces. Yadav's son has fallen seriously ill at the village and apparently nobody in the whole housing society can afford to pay him an advance of a couple of hundred rupees. Kate quietly shuts the door on Aman's romantic advances, saying she needs money more than a man in her life. One event leads to another and three of them chance upon kidnapping, which they decide to take up as a second profession. Meanwhile, the odds are slowly stacking up against them and when they try to pull off the biggest one, they get caught. But in a surprising turn of events, they have the last laugh. Cruel humour makes the climax genuinely gasp-worthy. What would be more cruel is to give away the ending here, so I won't.

This second feature from Raja Menon took seven years in making and the preparation shows. The script twists and turns in the most unexpected ways, yet manages to keep it real. The dialogues by Aamir director Raj Kumar Gupta rings true with ringing trite. Priya Seth's cinematography and the sync sound keep it grungy and down-to-earth. What impresses one most is the care that has been taken about casting. The script started with Naseer in mind. “If I didn't get Naseer, I would have reworked the script,” said the director. But thankfully Naseer said yes the moment he read the script. Casting for Aman proved to be a problem. "Most young actors are nowadays built like trucks. Realism has gone out.” Says Raja ruefully, till he found the promising Arjun Mathur, last seen as Abhimanyu in Luck by Chance. With Kate, played by Violante Placido, an Italian actress, came the little connection to The Godfather as her mother had played Apollonia, the Sicilian beauty Michael Corleone marries while exiled to Sicily. Even the smallest of characters jump out of the screen with realism. The casting director Nandini Shrikent assisted by Sushma Reddy, the third assistant, surely deserve a round of applause.

The performances are uniformly good. Naseeruddin Shah's character is a man of few words but his expressions speak volumes. Arjun Mathur is sweet and convincing as the bumbling young man. Vijay Raaz is over the top at times but brilliant throughout. Rani played by Tannishtha Chatterjee (Aman's neighbour who has the hots for him), the drunk man played by Ashwin Kaushal, Jayati Bhatia as the harridan malkin of Shuklaji deserve special mentions too.

Why would you want to watch this movie? Because despite the media's attempt to pigeonhole the film into a 'comedy', 'another Dharavi story', a 'masala' film, or a 'controversial' story, it manages to defy genres, bust cliches and wells up a bunch of mixed feelings inside you, just like any good film. Because it will remind you that everybody's life, no matter how rich or poor, is only three fourth or barah aanas complete, missing char aanas - unfulfilled dreams, repressed desires and depressing tedium. If nothing else, it will make you treat the almost invisible denizens of your life – the newspaperwallahs, the doodhwallahs, the watchmen, the drivers with a little more dignity. It did for me.

Aamir Khan's take on the film: