Manoj Bajpayee in a still of Bhonsle . (Image courtesy: Youtube)
Throw: Manoj Bajpayee, Santosh Juvekar, Ipshita Chakraborty Singh, Abhishek Banerjee
Director: Devashish Makhija
Evaluation: 3.5 stars
A villain, a damsel in distress and an unlikely avenger: at first glance, the key characters of Bhonsle resemble the types of characters that abound in conventional Hindi cinema. But the third narrative feature from director Devashish Makhija, the kind of film that won’t let sleeping dogs lie, doesn’t share much with Bollywood’s revenge dramas in terms of tone, texture and treatment.
The main actor (and co-producer) Manoj Bajpayee keeps Bhonsle, both the film and the character, on a tight leash with a performance of surprising restraint and spectacular strength. He articulates the interior anguish through silences and engraves a fragile and sick man at the end of a fraying rope.
Manoj Bajpayee in a photo from the film.
Anger spreads through the slow-burning film. His subversive approach to a simple plot – Bhonsle speaks of a Mumbai policeman who has a heroic tee shot in him – is clearly indicated from the first moment and transported to a shocking end.
The story takes place in the recent past, when the metropolis was shaken by a wave of hatred against the “foreigners” of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The release of the film on Sony Live coincides with another flash point: the perilous plight of Indian migrant workers triggered by a flawed anti-pandemic strategy. It always takes place before our eyes.
Bhonsle is a timely take not only on the thriving policy on alteration and victimization of communities, but, obliquely, also on how the informal workforce in our big cities is treated. Like he did in Ajji, where an aging woman takes revenge for the rape of her granddaughter, the director presents a grim portrait of a lawless system that allows the weak and vulnerable to be ducks for dangerous deviants and mean (but extremely powerful) politicians.
The writers (Mirat Trivedi, Makhija and Sharanya Rajgopal) build a microcosm in a lower middle-class chawl where a foxy taxi driver, Vilas Dhavle (Santosh Juvekar), hopes to stir up feelings against non-natives to pursue his political ambitions . This troublemaker has the same name as the child rapist in Ajji. This Vilas Dhavle may not be as psychopathic as the politician’s son in the previous film. But it is just as despicable.
Ganpat Bhonsle (Bajpayee) lives alone in a dark, damp kholi (one room) in the chawl. It is named after the deity who presides over the city. The elephant god, revered for his power to remove obstacles in the way of his devotees, left the tired Bhonsle of the world to himself.
The film begins on the eve of Ganesh Chaturthi. Ganpati idols get the finishing touches. It is also Bhonsle’s last day in the police force. As Mumbai prepares with ritual fervor for its biggest religious celebration, the unsmiling and lethargic 60-year-old man takes off his cap, belt and case, changes into civilian clothes and returns his police uniform and accessories to the output.
The man carried by the skin returns to his routine of solitary robotics. He has little to hope for, except perhaps a career extension. It is a weak hope. But as is obvious, he has no hope in hell of a bullet in his arm. He goes about his chores. He lights a lamp in front of a small Ganpati figurine, cleans the house, washes clothes, chops onions, makes tea for himself (and for some police officers on duty who sometimes stop) and prepares a curry that he will have with a dry bun. He went through the motions several times. Bhonsle’s life is a tedious task.
But as the vanquished man seeks to close the world and hide in his bubble, rejoicing in the streets encroaches on the surroundings. At the same time, the tension peaks in the chawl as a guy from the Hindu belt with a burnt head Rajendra (Abhishek Banerjee in a cameo) decides to set up a pandal rival Ganpati in the enclosure.
Ganesh Chaturthi is only for marathi manoos, Vilas declares and requests the support of the other residents for his arbitrary injunction. When Rajendra is prevented from making his way, not only does he resist, but he also adopts offensive measures which have disastrous consequences.
The acrimony between the two groups is made evident in order to prepare the ground for the greatest battle ahead. A little subtlety at this stage of the film would have been more in line with Bhonsle’s sober tone.
Taken in disorderly son of the ground against the heckling of migrants, and without fault on his part, is a nurse of the hospital of 23 years, Sita (Ipshita Chakraborty Singh) who has just moved into the kholi next to Bhonsle with a preteen brother Lalu (Virat Vaibhav). Their accent is a gift. They come from Bihar.
Ipshita Chakraborty Singh in a film photo.
The two new residents are instantly in the crosshairs of Vilas. The rabbi-rouser takes it for granted that Bhonsle is on his side. He supposedly asks the reluctant ex-cop: You are the Bhonsle of Shivaji Maharaj, if you don’t stand with us, who will? As long as we are not in the film, the audience does not hear Bhonsle’s voice but as Vilas continues to provoke him, an explosion is precipitated.
Jigmet Wangchuk’s camera focuses on the harsh reality of the chawl that Bhonsle shares with others like him that the so-called City of Dreams left by the wayside. In one scene, the old-fashioned cop points to a leaky drain that cuts the court of chawl in half and says to the self-appointed keeper of the indigenous people of Mumbai: “Sideboard din se khula hai, kuch kar“These are the first words Bhonsle says in the film and they have great meaning.
The gutters overflow metaphorically. Can a man as angry and demoralized as Bhonsle clean up before it’s too late? In a breathtaking sequence, Bhonsle, returning home after a disappointing trip to police headquarters, is lost in a Ganpati immersion procession, his face swaying in and out of concentration as he is invaded by teeming revelers . Bhonsle is an unimportant face in the crowd of a heartless city.
In fact, it’s probably not even that. He is faceless. The crab-eating crow on the windowsill and a stray dog that he sometimes feeds seem to be his only friends until Sita and Lalu arrive next door. The brother-sister duo is worse. They don’t even belong to the city.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pslnRwn1Kvk
Bhonsle is, in a way, a commentary on Mumbai itself, and by extension on each big city, where for every dream that comes true, there are tens of thousands who are thwarted. Even Vilas, whose nervousness and feeling of frustration is highlighted by Santosh Juvekar, has his life sorted out. The politician he relies on for some support and a little push has no time for him.
Bhonsle is a burning and heartbreaking statement about lives engulfed in the darkness of a bright and lively city.
(Bhonsle broadcasts on SonyLiv from June 26)
