The good news is that Deepti Naval still retains her charming smile. No, there is no bad news.
Deepti Naval (www.deeptinaval.com)
I saw Naval briefly from a distance last evening at the inauguration of the Chicago South Asian Film Festival (CSAFF), started by my friend Ketki Parikh who has built up quite a reputation for bringing off the beaten track theater productions from India to the city.
The three-day CSAFF was inaugurated at the Chicago Cultural Center in the presence of film director Aparna Sen along with Naval whose directorial debut ‘Do Paise Ki Dhoop, Chaar Aane Ki Barish’ (‘Two pennies for sunshine, A quarter for rain’) was the opening film. I could stay only for the first ten minutes which dealt with an earnest poet and song writer (played by Rajit Kapoor) who is trying to sell his lyrics to a crass movie producer. The producer wants songs that speak of kissing and touching while the poet writes songs that speak of clouds. The poet leaves dismayed.
That the poet is gay is introduced subtly (by the standard of Hindi cinema). When he returns home he finds out that his lover has walked out on him. The poet is locked out of his own home because the landlord recognizes that it was the lover, played by Milind Soman, who used to pay the rent. There is a quick 30-second flashback where you see the poet’s bare-chested lover standing in a balcony. You also see a hand, presumably that of the poet’s, caressing the lover’s earlobe. The “auntie” sitting in the row before me shuffled uncomfortably in her chair. She seemed petrified at the thought that things might progress beyond the earlobe. Mercifully for her they did not.
It is raining hard in Mumbai and the poet has to take a cab to get around. It so happens that the same taxi is also hailed by a call girl (Manisha Koirala) on her way to a client. Her first instinct is to throw him out but then she senses a business opportunity. So she asks him to wait in the cab while she dispenses with his first client in “half an hour.” The client is a hunk who wants the encounter free of any rubber barrier between them. She drops the A bomb, saying he might get AIDS without the condom. The “auntie” in the row before me shuffles again. First gay guys and now a hooker talking trash, have I come to the right theater seemed to be the thought going through her mind. Relief returns as Naval does not dwell on this encounter either.
The first client done with Koirala returns to her cab, only to discover that Kapoor has almost no money. Whatever he has is in his bank account (he has 375 rupees), which he can withdraw only the next morning. A pissed Koirala throws him out. That’s when I left. The trajectory of the story told me that the two may eventually develop a bond. I do not know if they do.
An actor of considerable talent Naval’s career somehow gives one the sense of not having commensurately panned out. Sure, she did some excellent work in many of her 60 movies but she has also seemed to hold a lot back. That may have something to do with the fact as an artist of varied interest, she has found expression in painting, photography and writing.
Nuns by Deepti Naval
Now that she has turned a director, she may have found a platform that combines all of her passions. As for the debut film, it is not fair to extrapolate on the basis the first ten minutes, although in my private mind I already have.
