Avakai Biryani, and The Tangy Economics of Love
It has been over a month since I saw Avakai Biryani. A lot has been written, in fact had been written about the film by the time I caught it in Hyderabad. As it happens for most first-time watches, in a new language I mean, I had a special affection for the film, and this is what I thought, of the film….
Ticket Price = Rs 35(Balcony)
The mutually agreed upon confession of eternal love, as it transcends the barriers of the screen, songs, characters.
An emotion hitertho realized in films, divine love. You see the heroine and for a moment sex doesn’t occur to you. Yes, that rare moment of trifled serendipity.
The film begins with wide village roads, that meander and wind and find their own way as the mood goes, as the structure flows.
The actors carry the same divinity, virginity, simplicity, villagicity, whatever.
The hero is almost given a noble space to begin with, he is studying, he is eating, he is changing, he casually walks out of his humble one bed one gas stove house, perches on his humble Atlas cycle, and embraces the landscapes while the soundtrack goes yeah yeah, and higher.
In this exquisite state of affairs, the heroine walks in with her (not to mention) innocent sweet Familia Nontoxica, cute dad, gentle mom, mischievous yet cute tiny brother, cribbing yet cute little sister, etc.
They inhabit a humble small house near the highway, facing the picturesque landscapes, and start their quest of livelihood and evolution, by making Avakai.
The whole Avakai manufacturing business is shown with so much love and background music, it is quite literally a treat.
Hero goes about the drudgery of his daily fiscally unfit and asking for more life, carrying sacks of something or the other, from one place to other, selling newspapers(you are late again!, morning walka?!) , and generally being nice for no extra money.
As it happens in linear love plots, our man sees the heroine in a sweet little slip of destiny, the tiny little brother drops a toy, looks out the bus window, our man picks it up, smiles at the oh-so-cute kid, but what does he see behind her! The most beautiful girl in the world in that very mini bus in that very unassuming village of all the places in the world. The beautiful face smiles back what else. Our man recoils in grace, and looks at the whole sequence as some cosmic gesture, and gushes to his not-so-humble-and-cute sidekicks about how happy it made him for no apparent reason.
The story moves on, as the heroine’s family begins to settle down in their everyday chores, travelling around to sell Avakai, and generally getting to know the place and surroundings better, we soon learn heroine ji is a B.Com honours graduate, and that explains her slight ‘angrezi‘ and ‘confident’ air around her. But that doesn’t discount her humility, mind it.
She still has that spark in her eye, which convinces you there is a song coming soon.
Hero ji is not that lucky. He has to slog his way through studying, with no support, along with earning his bread solely on the merit of muscle power and a joie-de-vivre that often accompanies young blood protagonists in films.
We do have a corrupt village scene here, and we do have a religios divide angle – a good for nothing gunda from our hero’s ‘community’ – Babbar Bhai, a local goonsman-cum-political-pimp, that add to the Hero(OK let’s call him Akbar from now on)’s worries. But he is not shown attacked directly. Until now it’s more of ‘oh god, poor Akbar, what lies in store for him’.
In the meanwhile, Akbar meets Lakshmi(heroine) quite matter of factly, and sparks fly off, and songs flow, and you smile, and she smiles, and everybody smiles. Yet no sex.
Akbar moulds himself in the auto driver mode now, being the friendly neighborhood auto waala that every villager loves, so that technically could include Lakshmi too. It should.
There is an interesting sequence where a group of foreigners land up in their village, I suspect Nagarjunasagar, and Akbar takes them around the whole place, amusing them with his broken English and a winning smile in a beautiful song montage.
Akbar & Lakshmi despite any obvious hints look like they are meant for each other, which I think, is quite a masterstroke. The way Anish has handled this subtle layering of love and its build up is a delight to watch, and not to mention some wonderful music by Manikanth Kadri and an exquisite camera only multiply the fun all the more.
Before They Die, They See - a Telugu film poster that caught my eye
The film played to some decent reviews. But to comment on the film’s box office returns, I would need to get into the limitless and trivial world of Telugu Film Industry. Many a better and more able minds have discussed the same on PFC some time back, so I wouldn’t go there.
Anish, however, shared with us deleted scenes from the film, and here is what I thought of them…
I liked the camera in the angst ridden drunk duo scene, the way it goes back and forth, and the way there is no real prominence given to any character, Akbar walking in control, and the slow building up emotion. The way the drunk guy reacts first to the saree-clad women, and then the small kid-girl, climaxing in the open-air screening scene. It would have been great to see it in the film, as it would lend weight to the political angle.
The epic kite fight scene (as Anish likes to call it) is also shot quite differently, the camera is far from the actors at beginning, soon it blends into your hero-rising-through-lending-helping-hand-to-crying-bachcha scene. The whole musical running after the kite victory though looks easy but is quite a well-pieced together sequence. I saw it 3 times to understand the fine cutting. The music also is just rightly pitched, not too loud so as to drown the subtle beauty of the sequence, which only elevates the effect when Akbar encounters Lakshmi.
Now, the film talk is over,December is over, 2008 is over, award nominations are over, and so we have also happily written films off, written about films we loved, we hated and films we loved to hate or the other way. I somehow found it hard to gather enough thoughts on something Avakai triggered – The Tangy Economics of Love.
Why some films appeal to us instantly, why do we willingly give in all our affection to them, to the love on screen, and why do we take a stand against the others. Something I never could understand.
Love on screen is the best formula for melodrama, for ensuring the success of a film. However, to decide what would work and what not is anybody’s guess. Personally, I can’t find any laws to establish this economics, you can just wait for the film to hit the screen and see and hope that the proverbial magic happens. Simple.
Here are some of my favorite ‘love’ kahaaniyaan/couples on screen(spare me the classics, these are highly random recollections):
1. Abhishek-Aishwarya : GURU
I loved this Manirathnam film. Almost to the level of an Iruvar. Reasons were many. One of them was the unforced flow, the subtle thing that hung in the air somewhere between the lead pair. Right from the first train sequence to the ‘na ja laage sang sautela’ drift to the ‘tum saath ho to duniya se lad sakta hoon’ reunion to the sweet bickering and daily arguments to the silent acceptance of a wife as her man grows from small to mostrous and endless ambition to the very penultimate sequences of her running to get assistance for her collapsed and now not-the-man-he-used-to-be husband(‘saans lete rehna’), Guru was a classic collage of love on-screen.
2. Arvind Swamy – Manisha : BOMBAY
Mani Sir again. This one I can never forget. The age of dubbed films. The first blue-filtered shot of a boat against stormy winds. The screen reads Malampur Gaaon. And we see women in black(!) and a young small town guy following the jhund, eyes meet, they meet again in Kehna hi kya, and love blossoms against the barriers of religion, and the rest…blah blah. Loved the way Mani Sir handled love from stages of aankhein milna dil dhadakna right to standing against the society to the gruesome urban realities, and the final threat of riots.
3. SRK – Manisha : DIL SE
What the hell am I drinking?! Mani Sir after Mani Sir, can’t help it. I am bouncing names from the top of my head and this is all I can come up with. Dil Se. Sweet confessional nostalgic favourite. I might never have written on this film, but it has grown up with me.
Uski shaadi nahi hui
Main tumhe chaahta hoon, dil se
Shaadi karwaane ka iraada hai?
Jaanti to hum aisi ladkiyon ko kya bolte hain? Chaalu.
Jaise Rajiv Gandhi mera bhai.
Kuchh log ret par likhe naam ki tarah hote hain, hawaa ka ek jhonka unhe udaa deta hai, udaa deta hai…
The scene at the radio station(both Ae Ajnabi sequence and the AIR station scene), the scene at the marriage-celebration-happy house(Sony Walkman), Oye!(Dil Se lovers will know it), and over and above all these – the whole sufi factor – ishq, aqueedat, ibaadat, junoon, uns, maut. Timeless stuff.
4. Sanjay – Urmila : DAUD
Yes, yes , I know, I know. But this was not to be missed. Zehreela zehreela pyaar days. Uma Parvati. Durga (Bhawani) Shankar. Love that was never established by the director. Heck, he or the film could care less about it! And it was all so cool! O Bhavre…
5. Bunty aur Babli!
Shaad Ali and some of his contemporaries upgraded the love of the yore(70’s) to a more pop avatar. His brilliant flashes could be seen in Saathiya(yaar milaade saaeeiyaan sequence), which he further exhibited with aplomb first in BnB, then with outright unabashed zeal in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom(bol na halke halke). Enough said.
6. Akshaye Khanna – Aishwarya : TAAL
How can I exclude Akshaye Khanna from a love countdown? Taal was a case of misplaced emotion, but what a memorable imperfection…
Dekho chhod ke kis raste wo jaate hain
Saare raste waapas mere dilm ko aate hain…
Tera naam maine liya hai yahaan
Mujhe yaad tune kiya hai wahaan
Mere haath mein hi tera haath hai
Bichhad ke bhi mujhse juda tu nahi
Khafaa hai magar bewafaa tu nahi
Bade zor ki aaj barsaat hai
Subhash Ghai has this knack(time-tested) of establishing the lead pair with no inhibitions(read back story or motivation) whatsoever. You see the hero heroine and you know there is a confession and song coming soon. No second thoughts about that. But it is only ironic that love ‘struck’ his cinema only in his so called ‘retired’ phase, Taal, Pardes.
More so because all his big extravaganzas were revenge dramas and there was seldom a place for heroine ji to sing paeans for hero ji. With Pardes, he gave the underdog a reason to fall in love. With Taal, he gave him a violin, and a piano, and a guitar, and every imaginable thing under the earth that you can use against a Rahman score.
This was not the self-convinced love, this was the love that just had to be there, irrespective of all logic. And for once, you wanted the pair to get back together.
7. Jimmy Shergill – Hrishita Bhatt : HAASIL
Haasil did what its predecessors could not – create a genuinely heart-in-its-place small town epic of love set against politics. And that is the reason I don’t think twice before watching it all over again any day. It can never get old, or boring(not that old is boring). This is the love we have all experienced some point or the other in our lives, a love which is seated in nostalgia, also covered beautifully in films like Main, meri patni aur wo, Sarfarosh, Main madhuri dixit.., and to an extent, Hazaaron Khwaahishen aisi(Mishra Ji’s definition of love, however, is always edgy, living on the fast lane, and very, very, aggressive, and thank god for that!).
8. Madhuri Dixit – Anil Kapoor : PUKAR
The queen finally returned(or rather her first) to form in this Raj Kumar Santoshi pleasantly confused political-revenge-drama. I must have seen this film some 5-6 times in the month it released. And just for the craze it created, in spite of all the imperfections. I knew it scene by scene, line by line, and Kismat se(tum humko mile ho) always left a lump in my throat(yes I can also use it sometimes).
9. Abhishek – Antara : NAACH
One of RGV’s finest(though it is no longer any use to talk about his cinema) hours, Naach gave us one of the few contemporary love tales, in the pop era. A remastered Abhimaan, Abhishek and Antara played this to the beat of their heart, to the rhythm of their sweat, and to every note that might go unnoticed in the films we see day in day out. RGV gave us angst-ridden love, jealousy, love that almost plays out like a thriller(I wonder why I didn’t think of the word ROMANCE before, never mind, it’s too late now), and love that disturbs(not like Yashji’s kkk-Kiran trip, that also had its hour and its moment though) and disturbs till you go and make yourself a drink to gulp it down.
10. Shridevi – Anil Kapoor : LAMHE
Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein
Khayaal aata hai…
The last scene summed it all up, literally timeless love, the finest film of Yash Chopra, and a love that was shy and poignantly confessional at times.
Kabhi main kahoon, kabhi tum kaho…
So we are done. I might have missed many of my favorites, but these were the 10 I could recollect as of now. Later.
Tags: avakai biryani, Romantic films, Telugu film industry
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Man, i so love u! Thanks for showing me srinivasa 35mm. A lot many afternoons were spent there fruitfully than in the confines of the classroom!
Mate, you made my day, my week. Did u have the 50paise samosa’s in the opp cafe? haha, the pleasures of a rupee note.
Will read the review in the office, but for now – thanks mate! You made a chum who will buy you booze forever!
Is that the interior of the theatre there? wow, so much has changed. Plush seats and all, are the front stalls gone comepletely?
Loved the review, could not hold back from reading it. decidedly good film I see, waiting waiting.
The pleasures of single screen cinemas. No rush, no condiments that fill ur breath! just chai and samosa and the stale popcorn, tickets in black and the no allure of chics! The pleasure to shout expletives and hoot like a rascal!
Thanks man. Glad I could take you back to your memories. I was with Varun, and we did spend a nice day roaming all them old streets, and Varun did give me lots of trivia on the old town and the films in general. It was some trip. I am a single screen man, man. Love that stale air.
Sahi hai…itna time laga diya…
Ahhaha..looks like you went for the Morning Sho..did they play the Suprabhatam? Awesome!!, I am still damn waiting to watch this movie..no bloody patel store is carrying the dvd!!, not sure if the dvd has released either..
What some films trigger in oneself….Nice…
@Varun, haan re, der aaye durust aaye. This one is for our nice time in Hyderabad.
@Om, yes they did play that. Even I wanna catch it again, Anish bhai se poochho where can we get it.
@Arthi, thanks.
Guys, do check out the top 10 list too!
Tushar,
Nice post..Coming to love thread, I like Mani sir more in Alai Payuthey(Sakhi) and the thread between the lead pair in Kaka kaka(Gharshana)forces me to watch the movie again and again..
Looks like Hyderabad has a decent PFC crowd..may be we can catch some movie together..
Y can’t it be Dev D..In case people are interested, we can go watch AK’s film. What better way to meet fellow PFC’ians!
Jesus Christ!
There is some one else who has noticed the Sony Walkman with the yellow in-ear over-the-head fones too! talk about deewangi! ;) ;) I have always wanted to own a pair like that:P
For me the scenes with virgin SRK and virgin Preity Zinta (burger-fries, salad on the face, “are you a ….”) and the bus scene that follows spell BREEZE. what a chemistry!! None deals urban romances the way the madras magician does.
@MindTentative, thanks. And more so for responding to the love thread. Even I like the thread in Kaka kaka. As for Hyderabad, we have few PFCites there, I am based in B’lore but I do visit there sometimes.
@Santosh, Believe you me mate! I had a similar pair of headfones, it was called the sports model of walkman or something I guess.
Dil se ki baat chalegi to I will never stop, each frame is etched in my psyche.
“None deals urban romances the way the madras magician does.”
so true man. :-)
nice list! absolutely loved dil se (including all the songs–especially satrangi re!). omg! lamhe! thorougly enjoyable film, everyone’s performance was awesome, loved the costumes and loved the songs and the rajasthan connection.
hmmm, another love kahaani worth mention would maybe be pakeezah…but yeah, u said to spare u the classics. lol!
Thanks Amanda. Lamhe is classic stuff.