Delhi Belly - From Anger to Infatuation - Pratham Adhyaya

(Edit: Given that this is a long post, I have decided to break it down into two parts. The parts are continuous and meant to be read one after the other, its just that at about 2900 words, this post was pushing the limits of long posts. Also, if something in this post doesn't seem right or seems to go against the laws of obviousness, it is probably because I am being sarcastic)

My first proper encounter with Delhi Belly was… less than ideal. It happened a few months ago, and it almost made me swear off the damn thing. I was sitting with my buddies in the Jade, the place to be in Singapore if you want to catch a Hindi movie on the big screen, and we were waiting for the intermission to end (can’t remember which movie we’d gone to see that day, but clearly, it was good enough for us not to have made a mid movie dash for freedom). While we whiled away our time (alliteration beeches!) making small talk and poking fun at Basantani, the promos for upcoming movies started playing, and while most of them were the standard ho-hum bollywood teasers, one particular promo caught my eye. It started off in a very grandiose fashion; the theme from Lagaan started as the moving pictures and somber voice over declared that the makers of Lagaan, Jaane tu ya jaane naa, Taare zameen par and Dhobi Ghat were preparing to blow our minds again. I gripped my seat in anticipation, for I had recently seen Dhobi Ghat, and had been spellbound by its subdued, at times silent and visceral portrayal of four interconnected stories in Mumbai. Mr. Khan and family had blown my mind with Dhobi Ghat, and I was ready and willing to have my mind blown by them again. As the promo reached its climax, I frantically went through every single news item and Wikipedia entry I could remember, trying to recall the name of Amir Khan’s next home production.

An overly long fart broke my reverie. No, it didn’t just break my reverie; it smashed my reverie with a hammer, jumped up and down on it wearing spiked boots, and then covered the pieces in liquid methane and set them on fire. Instead of the glorious vistas of Delhi that I had imagined, the screen showed a dimly lit toilet with a man expelling gas. I couldn’t take in any more details as my eyes had glazed over and my brain was literally blown. I remained in that state of catatonia for the next few minutes as my homunculus scrambled to hotwire my neural network and get my brain running again. When I finally regained my senses, I was filled with feelings of despair, disappointment and something not unlike WTF!

I am not, nor have I ever been a pseud. Yes I have at times entertained dreams of living like Chris Noth’s character from Sex and the City, a suave, sophisticated man whose every pore oozed refined taste, but those were never more than idle fantasies, dammit! I have prided myself on my kuntry/desi tastes. I have laughed hysterically at the bucolic and puerile jokes in Ishqiya and Omkara, and at the unintended humour and awesomeness of Gunda and Mohra. Hell, Dabangg is a part of my vocabulary now, and I have a tendency to describe myself as a jatil person. I am not someone who is above toilet humour, and yet, the promo for Delhi Belly left me shaken to the core. The poignant images Munna’s daily life from Dhobi Ghat, the humorous yet scathing scene from Peepli Live where the journalists reported on Natha’s excrement and the heartwarming finale of Taare Zameen Par, all of them were replaced by the Farting Man. The Farting Man!

Here’s the thing. I wasn’t disturbed by the image of a man in a dirty toilet farting as if his life depended on it, but from Amir Khan’s production house, I was expecting something with a little more… finesse. These are the same people who gave us the meticulously planned and detailed Lagaan, the low-fi and perfectly executed Taare Zameen Par and the slow, deliberate yet tight pacing of Dhobi Ghat. The same people who had created brilliant movies out of scenarios that others would have dismissed as boring, clichéd or too quirky to work, those very same people had put a Farting Man on the screen to advertise their next movie! The mind reeled!

With my faith in humanity shaken, I decided to not fanboy over the movie. There would be no daily visits to the Wikipedia page, no religious refreshing of Rediff’s Movies tab, no sitting awake till three in the morning, waiting for a tweet with a loose, offhand update on its status, nothing that I would normally do for an upcoming movie/video game/album that I was interested in. Instead, I decided to lock the specter of the Farting Man in the deepest recesses of my memory, the part that remains blocked forever, the part that even my subconscious dreads. And I forgot all about this movie.

Fast forward a few months later, and I was sitting… well, no, that won’t do at all. I can’t even remember when and how I made second contact with Delhi Belly, but it was that contact that turned me from an indignant “you are trying to sell what to me?” to a more docile “ooo I want more!!!” See, I can’t remember how and when I heard the song, and that is ok, but what is important is that I did listen to the song, and it was good! Someone made me watch the video on Youtube, and by the time the first chorus hit, I was hooked. Easily hummable and with a hilarious video and lyrics to boot, that song got me hooked to Delhi Belly again. That song, of course, is Bhaag DK Bose.

That song worked for me on so many different levels. And while the music is catchy and the video is funny, what really worked for me were Amitabh Bhattacharya’s lyrics. The angsty, funny and downright insane verses are matched only by the earnestness of the chorus where the singer warns DK Bose, the central character of the song, to start running, since a storm is brewing. The fact that the lyrics aren’t suggestive, that there isn’t even a hint of double meanings is also a very welcome plus in this day and age standards are dropping every second. Also, like all works of art, this song is very open to interpretations and analysis. To me, the song operates on two different levels, namely the main protagonist, who is the singer, and a secondary character called DK Bose, who is a false protagonist, a red herring who is mentioned again and again just to throw us off the track, to hide the true meaning in a much more nuanced and interpretation. The verses describe the thoughts and emotions of a young man in urban India, a dejected man who has been pushed to the edge by the burden of his father’s (symbolizing the older generation) disappointment, accusations of lacking substance (a reference to the oft repeated motto old is gold and new things suck, perhaps?) and the sheer helplessness of being a free bird, yet having to use a broken, decrepit scooter (sacrificing one’s dreams and ambitions to survive in a world that is clearly sub-optimal and functionally broken). These angry, complex thoughts are interspersed with a simple, catchy chorus, a warning to DK Bose that he should start running, for there is a storm coming.

While I had earlier thought that DK Bose is being warned by a well wisher who doesn’t want to see him come to harm, later hearings have altered my interpretations of this somewhat. It is my belief now that the tone of the warnings is more… aggressive. The singer isn’t asking DK Bose to preserve himself by running; the warning isn’t being issued in good faith. No, this is the warning a hunter issues to his prey. This is a warning tinged with menace and a clear attempt at intimidation. Clearly, the singer has a bone to pick with DK Bose, and is giving him a head start before the rampage begins. Whether this warning was a well intentioned, honourable way of giving Mr. Bose a fighting chance, or whether its purpose was to strike terror in his mind, to make the hunt more enjoyable to the hunter, that point is moot. What is important is that the DK Bose is in trouble, the singer is pursuing him, carrying a grudge and a heavy stick, and that a storm is coming. Given this perspective, re-reading the lyrics offers a slightly different interpretation.