‘Passenger’- A tale of trains, scams and the common man
Right from the days when I was a kid, I used to enjoy traveling by train. Whether it were the long distance journeys usually in the summer vacation or the suburban train traveling in a Mumbai or Chennai, I would always look forward to it. Over years I have gone on to notice how Indian Railways seems to have become a home away from home for a lot many people who travel by trains regularly to work. Whether you talk about the electric trains in the metro cities like Western/Central/Harbor lines of Mumbai or the Guindy-Tambaram route in Chennai, or the underground Metro rail in Kolkata and Delhi or even in places like Kerala where people travel from a Palakkad to Coimbatore (T.N) or from far off places like Thrissur and adjoining districts to Cochin/Ernakulam, this phenomena is witnessed on a daily basis. The exceptions must only be in case of Sundays and holidays. Of course in Kerala with strikes and hartals being quite common one must see a lot more exceptions to this aspect 
For all these people traveling to work, the journey by train becomes an extension of their life. They even know the train timings by heart and would have their own acquaintances/friends whom they meet on the train every day. Speaking of this reminds me of Naseeruddin Shah in A Wednesday, mourning the death of a young man, a fellow train traveler who dies in a bomb blast. When you get into a routine of seeing somebody so regularly on the train everyday, you tend to identify him/her as someone familiar to you & look forward to meeting him/her again and again.
Why am I rambling on and on about trains and train travelers? Well basically because this post is my reflections over a recent Malayalam movie that I saw- ‘Passenger’. It’s a movie that’s certainly better than some of the mediocre stuff that we have got used to seeing from Malayalam cinema these days and it makes me in its own ways also relive my days of having traveled by the suburban trains in Chennai and Mumbai. The movie is not just about train journey, it’s also about the common man and the role that he can play in today’s chaotic society. So in a way that reminded me of A Wednesday, but the comparison is slightly superficial because there are a lot of differences between the common man in both these films.
Ranjith Shankar (a former I.T professional) makes a debut as a writer-director with Passenger. The movie is a definitely more than a decent debut for Ranjith as it’s certainly not a run of the mill subject and that needs to be appreciated. When the opening credits start I was astonished to find a big thanks to the ‘fans of Dileep’ and I certainly expected this to be a way of just addressing star tantrums, but thankfully as the movie progressed, I realized the actual reason for the credit and couldn’t but afford to smile when I realized the same. I will come to that later.
Passenger is a movie that basically chronicles the events that take place in the lives of a few individuals whose paths cross due to nothing but quirk of fate. Sathyanathan
(Sreenivasan) is the common man of the story and he works for a Pharmaceutical firm in Ernakulam and travels everyday to work (and back) from his house in a village near Chalakudy by train. On the train he usually encounters a constant set of people with whom he spends time by playing cards and chit chatting. This is how life goes on for him on a regular basis. That Sathyanathan has a social activist streak is evident as he is seen running signature campaigns for cleaner toilets on trains, asking for streamlining the halts on train routes etc.
On the other hand you have a young educated couple who are equally social minded. The husband Adv.Nandan Menon ( Dileep ) and his wife TV journalist Anuradha Menon
(Mamta Mohan Das ) by way of work have locked horns with the Home Minister
(Jagathy Sreekumar ) in connection with a case pertaining to sand mining in a coastal area. One fine day Sathyanathan pesters his boss to grant him leave for the next day as he being the local temple festival’s organizer wants to be there for the same. Reluctantly his boss grants the leave when Sathyanathan volunteers to work overtime for that day.
Having worked overtime Sathyanathan has to skip his regular train and take up another train at a later time. At the same time Nandan Menon is on the same train traveling to Guruvayoor (his wife Anuradha is part of a press team covering the minister’s press meet in Kottayam). A disturbing series of events unfold and the rest of the movie is all about what happens in the course of the next 24 hours or so. The lives of all the main characters in the story get intertwined. As far as the concept goes it’s not earth shaking but certainly better than the run of the mill stuff seen regularly these days.
In terms of casting again I think Ranjith Shankar has got it fairly right. Who better than Sreenivasan to play the common man? And kudos to Dileep for having accepted a role which is more of a second fiddle ( this is why I guess the thanks was mentioned for his fans- maybe for seeking their support ) and for a change it’s good to see Mamta in a non glamorous role. Though it’s become routine to see politicians as villains in Malayalam cinema, but still it’s refreshing to see the extremely talented Jagathy Sreekumar essaying the role over here.
The movie has managed to get a lot of nuances correct as seen in Kerala on a daily basis. For example in spite of attractions like T.V and cinema you still have a lot of people craving for the temple festivals, in most Malayalee homes you would find an elderly person typically watching an ‘Idea Star Singer’ or ‘Devi Mahatmyam’ on Asianet in the primetime slots on T.V leaving the others at home with no choice if you do not have a second T.V at home. The ending of the movie again is something that leaves you with a smile. And at a running time of just less than 2 hours, the length of the movie is just about right surprisingly.
But all said and done the movie still is not a path-breaker and is nowhere close to being called a great movie. There are a lot of loopholes in the script and sometimes you even question the validity of some events in the movie. But all said and done considering that it’s the first effort of Ranjith Shankar as writer-director and for having tried something different, the effort needs to be highlighted. I only hope that Ranjith and the other film makers only look to go beyond Passenger and come up with even better movies rather than stagnating over here. Malayalam cinema needs a revival, a revival that’s long overdue. Till that happens I have to keep re-visiting some of the good films of the 80’s and 90’s or keep hoping with every ‘Passenger’ that things are about to improve.
Tags: dileep, Jagathy Sreekumar, Mamta Mohan Das, naseeruddin shah, Ranjith Shankar, Sreenivasan
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
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Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
My phobia for trains just grew worse….
Thanks.
sethu: train-travelling is a notalgic topic for almost all the Indians, whether from big city, or small town.
i remember another example of “baaton baaton mein” where the relationship blossoms thru common train timings.
.
the film sounds interesting. hmm, hv put it in my DVD’s list. thanks for the recco.
I hate to travel in suburban trains in Mumbai.
Hear about this movie, hope to catch it soon.
Big thanks to fans of Dileep???but why not fans of sreenivasan or paying audience.
bro, great observations. liked the post. reminded me of the horriblly long journeys we had to undertake from mp to karnataka. there was a bloody halt at a place called shoranur. 3 days man. at the end of it, it never seemed to end.
@ Jha-
Yes train travelling is nostalgic indeed for most of us.you are right about Baaton Baaton Mein- the movie captured human relationships and emotions against the backdrop of Mumbai trains.
another good example would be Saathiya/Alaipayuthey where the entire romance is
captured beautifully on the trains of Mumbai/Chennai.
Good that you have put it in your DVD list.In case it releases in Pune sometime soon, will let you know the same too.
@ Cinemausher-
You must be hating the train travel right now.But believe me, when you are away from Mumbai and when you do not have to travel by the local train, there would be a day when you would miss it and feel nostalgic about it.I’m saying this with my experience.do watch it when you get the chance.
@ Rusted Rick-
fear not my friend.if you are thinking that the movie is all about sabotaging a train etc, there’s nothing like that over here.
@ Magik-
I know how you felt.I used to travel for more than 2 days myself ( from Jamshedpur-Chennai and vice versa ) but thankfully used to have some friends/batchmates for company.ah!shoranur- I know the place, so that means you must have been travelling on the Konkan railway route.headed to Mangalore?
Sethuji,
Rick Sahab was being sarcastic
Jehan-
Dont I know that?
but I was trying to be extra polite purposely 
Dear Sethu
Some how liked the movie even though as you rightly said not a pathbreaking stuff. Its much better than the crap they dish out in Malayalam these days.
Have a request. would like to know your take on Amrutham Gamaya … a fabulous movie by Hari haran.
No way can suburban Mumbai local train travelling be nostalgic! Oh ok, maybe you stayed “relatively closer” to your place of work and therefore had to travel for lesser duration. I live in Bhayander and work at Worli. My grouse is not about the standing time, travel time or anything like that. There are so many people between Virar and Dahisar, and the number of people in the train itself is so much, that I have to leave many trains and then latch on literally to whichever train I can find toe-space. I have to because travel distance itself is so much that there is no choice. Given a chance, I would rather travel 2 hours a day by road (public or private). Another city, then I’ll definitely make sure that residence is closer to work place!
Travelling by local trains in Mumbai is SOMETHING! I would surely want to catch up on this movie!
Sethu – you got the ‘Idea star singer’ bit absolutely right!
My dad & me watch ‘Cinema Diary’ on Asianet on sundays @ 2:30 – and we always laugh about new malayalam movies with English titles -’Passanger’, ‘ Plus two’ and so on…
I cringe.
@ Sriram
Do watch the movie, its worth a try.
.But atleast in this movie, I think the title is justified to an extent.
Yes the kind of english titles given to malayalam films is funny.One of the most funniest in recent times is Laptop ( Suresh Gopi )
@ Vinay
Bhayander to Worli is very tough and I certainly agree with what you feel.Thankfully I didnt have such a bad time.Moreover I still feel that after a while ( when you are not travelling by the train route anymore ) there’s a chance to miss the same.
Thanks sethu.
Nice to find passenger here.
@ Ranjith Shankar-
Its an honour for all us @ PFC to read your encouraging comment.Glad you liked the post.Looking forward to more out of the box movies from you.
same here sethu.
i regularly check PFC.
its a commendable online movement.
It was the best malayalam movie released this year-surpassing 2 harihar nagar…
it started a bit slow, but then picked up mighty well.
When superstars like dileep do important but lesser roles, it does a world of good to the movie industry-something I wish bollywood do consistently. all i see are glorified cameos.
its a widely accepted system in hollywood-casting according to credibility and not image-case in point, Brad Pitt in Burn after reading. His role wasn’t long, but as long as he was there, he shined in his role.
Ranjith sir, I would like to know more about the pre-production of your movie, if you have time to write a post about it. I’m from Kerala, and although I aspire to make it I am an outsider to the movie industry. I would like all the info I can get, and I’ve read that you have had a hard time finding producers. It will be of great help if you could share how you did it.
@ Ranjith-
Jibin has a point over here. It would be great if you could write a post on how you went through the struggle of getting the film made.I’ve read your blogs and I’m quite impressed.But it would benefit a lot many people others here who would want to follow in your footsteps sometime soon.
@ Jibin-
commercially 2 Harihar Nagar is the best malayalam movie so far this year.But its no comparison to Passenger when we talk about the quality of a film.2 Harihar Nagar clicked only because the franchise is well loved and it came at a time ( around Vishu ) when people were starved of entertainment.
Sure sethu,
how can i write a post here?
Ranjith- please check your mail ( gmail).I have just sent you a mail on the same.Pls check and revert.
gr8 post sethu…
Ranjith… nice to see you here.. so nice..
Still not seen the movie… as it hasnt released in banglore….
pls do write on pfc…
just waiting to for malayalamm cinema to reach the heights of bharathan padmarajan lohi-sibi era again…
my sincere wishes
@ Ram
glad you liked the post.BTW hopefully we will soon see Ranjith writing on PFC.
He has confirmed that Passenger will be releasing in B’lore on 19th June ( thats 2 days from now ).So hope you have a good time watching it this weekend.