(This is the 2nd part of my post of Delhi Belly and how my initial WTF turned into excitement about the movie. Etc. If this post doesn't make sense, it probably is because you haven't read the first part. For maximum enjoyment, please read the first part first. Etc.)
To me, the singer is a voice of the disenchanted youth of our nation, a man whose dreams and aspirations could not survive contact with the harsh reality of the fast paced rat race our urban life is. He is beset by disillusionment and despair after his realization that the three things in life most important to him (roti, kapda & ladki), the three cornerstones of his world as he had envisioned it, all three are out of his reach, and its going to take both hard work and sheer dumb luck to get them. Our singer has realized this, and it has sunk in that this is a world he was not prepared for.
The disdain of his seniors, his mistaking of an abyss for a small, harmless pot, the constant tension he faces in what was supposed to be his paradise (paradise actually means garden in one language or the other), all of this, all of his misery, it is simply because he is a product of the society, of his seniors and their morals and conventions, and that is where he has decided to place all blame. He has taken all of his frustration and anger, and has decided to channel it against the society, and DK Bose is just a metaphor for that society. Whether the protagonist’s anger is justified or not, whether, his shortcomings are his own fault or the fault of the world at large are merely academic discussions. What is important is that the singer is hunting down Mr. Bose, he is asking DK Bose to run, for the protagonist knows that a storm is coming after him.
And what of the storm? This question is perhaps the easiest to answer. The storm represents the turbulence that comes with great social change. The protagonist is using his anger, his issues, his frustration, and he is expressing them via his rage, a rage that takes the form of a storm and sweeps over the society, uprooting deeply held traditions and outdated modes of thinking which are holding the protagonist back. What is interesting is that the protagonist’s elders have also lived through something similar. Their generation had Amitabh, the angry young man who inspired them, who was an outlet for their frustrations, in whose onscreen wrath could they find the release needed to deal with their misery. And yet, this same generation whose struggles are forever immortalized in the saga of the Angry Young Man, this same generation created a world that in turn created our protagonist. Therefore, the lyrics of this song are also a deeper commentary on the cyclical nature of things, and signal that perhaps, one day the protagonist himself would take on the role of DK Bose while his progeny rages against him.
Anyway, suffice to say that I was hooked onto this song, but even though Bhaag DK Bose had exorcised most of the ghosts of Delhi Belly’s first promos, I still had small tendrils of doubt in the back of my head, trains of thought that kept sending me back to the Farting Man. What if this fine offering, this song that perfectly captures the zeitgeist, the sense of frustration and anger that consumes today’s youth, and is issued as a warning to the society in general that a storm is coming; what if this gem of a song was a fluke. What if the entire movie was based around Farting Man and his adventures, and the song, this microcosm of the young urban Indian experience crystallized into music and words, what if this song was just a lure, a bait to get us, the unsuspecting audiences into the theaters so that we would have to experience The Adventures of Farting Man instead.
Rest assured, these thoughts were most assuredly laid to rest (repetition beeches!) by the second song that I heard, Nakkadwaale Disco…
Interestingly, for me, this song isn’t so much about the lyrics, as it is about the video. Before I saw the video, I wasn’t sure of the intentions of the producers. I wasn’t sure if Bhaag DK Bose was a one off thing, a Sheela ki Jawani for a lackluster Tees Maar Khan, or was it really an indication of how funny, goofy and irreverent the movie was planning to be. See, that’s the thing about the special promo songs, at times, they promise you things that the final movie just doesn’t have. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Dum Maaro Dum, but that’s a whole other argument.
So, coming back to Nakkadwaale Disco… the opening shots sealed the deal for me. The three characters sitting on the stage with their instruments and dresses, the gaudy banner hanging behind them, the flowers, the stage and the microphones… who amongst us hasn’t been to one of these gigs? You know what I am talking about, the low production local gigs with a few local artists doing cover songs. As a kid, I dreaded those outings, since these events were Cultural, and therefore, if I was bored to tears, I should suck it up and take it as a man. Yes, it was styled after one of those gigs and when I saw the three guys doing soundchecks, I nearly fell off my chair laughing. It wasn’t just the setting, it wasn’t just the music, it wasn’t just the lyrics, it was the serious, dead pan, intense and earnest expression that the characters had as they sang the song.
The sheer absurdity of the entire situation was overbearing. At one point Imran Khan went into a vocal solo and he absolutely nailed it. Not the solo itself, but the actions and the expressions as he acknowledged a job well done. The video is hilarious and I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the smaller touches that you only noticed for a fleeting second, but nevertheless they completed the picture. For instance, you see Imran Khan’s golden watch and rings for maybe all of fifteen seconds in the entire video, but they were exactly the kind of flashy jewelry you expected those performers to wear. And it wasn’t just limited to dresses or props, but even the mannerisms of the characters made the whole thing pop. The seriousness with which the singer starts, how he becomes more relaxed as the song goes on, the sheer earnestness in his eyes… it was like a mountain of absurdities piled upon a plateau of awesomeness dumped upon a… well, it was bloody funny is what I’, trying to say. And like I said, it wasn’t just the set design or the lyrics; it was little things like those that helped ground this video into reality and made it so much more fun. It is this attention to even the smallest details that makes these kind of movies (I Am, Peepli Live, Dhobi Ghat, Dev D etc) so much fun to watch, for it’s a sign of commitment, a covenant that the makers have signed that they will pay attention to all the little details as well, that they will make even the small things count and tell a story. It is this kind of an attitude I expected from Amir Khan productions, the cutting edge, irreverent, refreshing and balls out insane approach to cinema and storytelling, and they hadn’t disappointed in both the songs from Delhi Belly. Perhaps I was wrong, and perhaps I should give Delhi Belly a chance. It was then that the thought struck me. What if I had been wrong about the Farting Man as well?
See, I had judged the Farting Man without any context. What if he had had an excellent reason for the amount of noise he was making. Maybe he was providing another character with an alibi! Maybe he had just been dosed with enough laxatives to make an elephant cry out in anguish! Maybe it was a very crude attempt at chemical warfare! Maybe he was trying to gross out the goon so that he would leave! Maybe he just had an actual case of Delhi Belly! The possible interpretations were endless!
Anyway, so the point is, Bhaag DK Bose could have been a bone thrown to the target audience, saying look, I am edgy and creative, I push the envelope and break the mould, so won’t you please love me? But when its two songs doing the same thing, and it seems like the magic of Bhaag DK Bose was not a happy coincidence, that the makers do have a plan to cover this thing in awesome, that there exists a vision for the movie and that all the small parts are logical extensions of this vision, well then, movie-makers, I will take a risk on you. When I saw the Farting Man for the first time, I was surprised, confused and slightly disgusted, but when I saw Bhaag DK Bose and Nakkadwaale Disco… I knew Delhi Belly would be a fun movie, and that in hindsight, the Farting Man was bloody hilarious!
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