(not a review)
Barah Aana. 12 annas. Seventy-five paise. That word is so lost in oblivion...gone from public usage! It took a film-maker to revive the words so prevalent just two decades back.
Barah Aana, the movie is a metaphor of those lost words, of lost people whose labour was given its due, of lost ethics too, in a sense.
In the din of the many releases hitting cinemas - Aloo Chaat, Firaaq, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Dhoondte Reh Jaaoge, Gulaal ...an already running Little Zizou, one jostling over the other at the theatres, even pushing others out, this film simply got lost. No surprise that our Sunday morning dash to the multiplex showed us through a hall filled to less than half its seating capacity. After all, how would 12 annas find takers when despite recession, big money is what rules the mass cinema-goer mindscape!
When the intermission lights were switched on, my husband complained, ``Those d... critics. Just because it is a low-budget flick, they give it two stars. All hung up on money...'' There was some truth to what he said. I checked the papers for the reviews too. Poor ratings. But a hunch told me I would not be disappointed. So three of us who made it to the multiplex dunked Aloo Chaat for this one.
It was touted a comedy, while it is not. It does have humour. It lacked cameo-studded aura of Luck By Chance. But it does to death those million global yells that our film-makers cannot entertain using some realism. A tight narrative. Amazing detail. A simple story. And that understated humour that hits you hard. And makes you gulp you have been guilty of insulting those below you in status or class.
Anger and revolt, vulnerability to crime, an urgency to grab it and make it big - they wait to explode someday among the humiliated masses. Barah Aana is an indication of just that.
The film is worth watching, for the sheer acting brilliance in acting, by not just Naseeruddin Shah, but Vijay Raaz, Arjun Mathur, and every other member of the ensemble cast.
Matching Naseeruddin Shah is no easy a task. But in some scenes, you gape as Vijay Raaz in suffering watchman role moves you with ease.
The film deals with that sense of humiliation and injustice eating away those at the receiving end of the money game - those living in slums, those managing to sleep in dimly lit cement boxes in the name of rooms. On the other hand, is the all pervasive corruption aided by the well-to-do, which can produce the strangest of paradoxes.
Barah Aana's focus is on three characters - a watchman, a chaffeur, and a cafe waiter, all wrestling the humiliation of class troubles. Ever watched a watchman caught in the ego-tussle and double-games of members in a housing society? Swallow a lump in your throat for that all-familiar scene, that ends up subtly victimising the securityman who should be an ideal spectator.
An ambitious waiter who desperately to woo a foreigner girl, but cannot speak English. Sit easy on the multiplex cushion till the waiter complains to his driver friend, that multiplexes charge 10 times more for basic food. Or watch that expression change when a boisterous memsaab stabs her chaffeur with her razor sharp insults. The will-never-speak driver who speaks volumes with his silence and expressions. Naseeruddin Shah can take over an entire scene with his mere expressions. By the time he actually speaks in this movie, you've given up on him only to sit up when he does.
A thin line is what keeps the lower middle-classes and the poor from revolting. From committing crimes against their oppressors. From hitting out at their own employers. What happens when one of them crosses that line, quite by chance at that? No cinematic underworld shoot-outs, but mere `affordable' extortion.
What happens when for all his honesty and perseverance, a watchman is denied money that he needs to send for his ailing child's treatment? Watch him knock at the doors of every home in his housing society, and get the usual excuses - lame and lacking creativity. And when he gets money for an unintended kidnap, the dramatic shift in his gait. After all, even an accidental abduction can fetch you money that you can send home to your wife in the village!
If it does take care of your needs for a while. So be it. The film ends with neither the watchman who entices winning the game, nor the lovelorn waiter. The driver wins it, despite being caught in the act - of claiming ransom for abducting his employer's foul-mouthed wife. Why? Because the man is `dead' as per government records. If a death certificate can ruin a living citizen's life, it can help him too!
So you can laugh it aloud when in the last scene, Vijay Raaz in all awe, asks his driver friend how much he can buy a death certificate for. His own death certificate that is.
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