ON DHOBI GHAT

Flamboyance is not quite the thing for this one, so Bard will quit his Third Person for once.

***

I have found it difficult to shut up once I have witnessed something I have never seen before. So it happens that I believe that, perhaps, this film has been more. Maybe I am still too much inside it, or maybe I have so let it devour me that I cannot bring myself to speak? Or maybe it is just my silent phase today?

I cannot say.

What I can describe with surety is the fact that there was nothing so special about the film (in the way most 'special' goes) but that it surpassed anything out of the Indian stock. This film was not a wonderful watch (like Udaan, let us say). It was not a beautiful piece of art (like Dev-D, let us say). Nor was it a joyous ride despite its many tragedies (like Ishqiya, let us say).

Dhobi Ghat was an experience. Honestly, I am still in it.

I personally would not like writing about my opinion or my perception of a film, or a book, or a story, or an artwork. Being an artist myself, I find it difficult to criticize or comment upon another artist's work, since his is not my vision, not my art.

(And, just to be sure, make note that I do not count people behind Guzaarish, No One Killed Jessica, Jab We Met, Ayesha, I Hate Love Stories and Maadhyam among artists. No, they might be good marketeers, but calling them artists would almost be a paradoxical insult. In a comic fashion.) 

So, as I was saying, publishing my opinion or comments on an artist's work is not my usual way of praising it. Unless, of course, it serves my professional interests, or gets me a worthy academic score.

Today, however, I am making an exception to that rule.

Here is a film that makes me think, really takes me through lives from paper that seem so real that I almost feel as if they are mine. I have always said that nothing is definite, that you cannot give a start or put an end to something, that things are not even circular, but transient. This film is one of those experiences that prove it. It puts you in the flow of the lives it talks about, takes you places, then leaves you at a place strangely similar to where it picked you. 

Of course, one can always do scrutiny, find little little convenient faults, but that is not my wish here. Today, the Bard has been moved enough to quit his flamboyant ways. As to the rest, I gather silence talks for itself.

PS: A review, in The Bard's professional interests, shall come later.