<\/a><\/a>Film: <\/strong>\u201cDelhi Belly\u201d
\nDirector:<\/strong> Abhinay Deo
\nStarring: <\/strong>Imran Khan, Vir Das, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Vijay Raaz
\nIt is a cliche as old as this nation \u2013 of the many Indias that breathe under one India, Indian cinema has hardly been representative of even a few of these. Yet, one would have expected, after\u00a0globalization and the emergence of a new bold, urban India, that\u00a0at least this class would get representation in commercial cinema.
\nThough there have been successful attempts in the past, it is with \u201cDelhi Belly\u201d that the urban, money-is-everything, foul-mouthed India has been captured with aplomb. And that, depending upon your morality, is good or bad.
\nTashi (Imran Khan), a Delhi-based journalist living filthily with two roommates, winds up with a bunch of \u2018desi\u2019 goons chasing him and his mates after a mix-up. The three are forced to navigate the dark underbelly to survive, while encountering one situation after another and one idiosyncratic Indian after another.
\nThe beauty of Abhinav Deo\u2019s film is not its smooth story, loosely inspired by the type of films made famous by Guy Ritchie, \u2018Lock Stock..\u2019 and \u2018Snatch\u2019 among others, neither is it Ram Sampath\u2019s catchy music that beats to the rhythm of the film, or the slick, seamless direction, or its immaculate casting and performance or even its wickedly witty dialogues. The true beauty of the film is in all these elements together creating a madcap image of a new, unabashed, even shameless section of India.
\nThough Delhi is referred to in its title, it is not the real Delhi that Dibakar Banerjee captures with satirical reality in his films. Instead, it is the image of a Delhi populated by young, educated, newly \u2018liberated\u2019 urbanites. In that it is the splitting image of that young urban India anywhere perpetually churning like the stomach of a character in the film, a showcasing of this nations new neo-liberal underbelly.
\nHowever, the other Indias might not take kindly to the film. Hypocritical Indians okay with female infanticide and dowry would be aghast at how almost every \u2018bad\u2019 word that they know is spoken everywhere on the streets and in homes, finds a place in the usually moralistic Bollywood. Cinema purists too may cry foul that the film does not really have a soul and is not really trying to say anything. Though a legitimate accusation, in not having a soul and not really being concerned or serious about anything, the film holds a mirror to a large section of the country. And that is a big statement in itself.
\nFor decades Indian cinema has been shackled with a morality that has not kept pace with the changing morality of life around. Though the morality of the film is strictly of urban, young, middle-class India, and isn\u2019t representative, it is welcome as this is the farthest Bollywood has gone to truly representing urban life. And just for that, hats off to Aamir Khan for yet again, after \u201cPeepli Live\u201d and \u201cDhobi Ghat\u201d, believing in a different kind of cinema, even while he doles out a \u201cGhajini\u201d in the same breath.
\nThe last scene of \u201cDelly Belly\u201d is bound to become as iconic as the one in Mahesh Bhatt\u2019s 1990 musical \u2018Aashiqui\u2019. If there the lovers were so embarrassed of their surroundings that they had to kiss under a coat, here the lovers who are not even girlfriend-boyfriend are so brazen and caught in the heat of the moment that the guy kisses the girl in full view, half his body hanging out a slowly moving Maruti car symbolic of old India, unconcerned whether others are looking (which they are not). If that isn\u2019t the urban, chic, and unconcerned-about-others India that has moved away from the morality of an un-liberalized India in \u2018Aashiqui\u2019 then what is?<\/p>\n

-With bollywoodworld.com<\/span> input<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Film: \u201cDelhi Belly\u201d Director: Abhinay Deo Starring: Imran Khan, Vir Das, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Vijay Raaz It is a cliche as old as this nation \u2013 of the many Indias that breathe under one India, Indian cinema has hardly been representative of even a few of these. Yet, one would have expected, after\u00a0globalization and the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[1933,4956,896],"yoast_head":"\n