What Lies Beneath

For years,Mumbai has compelled filmmakers to explore it through various stories — recently,Kiran Rao did that in Dhobi Ghat and,apart from Shor,is Mumbai Cutting,another ensemble piece by 11 filmmakers. However,in the coming few months,Delhi Belly will take the backdrop of the Capital whereas Dum Maaro Dum will don the colours of India’s favourite holiday destination,Goa. Despite the different cities that take on the form of characters in these films,the one thing common is that each of them is scraping at the underbelly to find their stories. “As the term suggests,the underbelly is what you can’t see at the surface. And naturally then,it becomes a source of untold stories,” explains Sridhar Raghavan,the writer of Rohan Sippy’s Dum Maaro Dum,a thriller that explores the drug mafia in Goa.

Filmmaker Ruchi Narain,who has directed the segment Jo Palti Nahin Woh Rickshaw Kya in Mumbai Cutting,feels that the lives of the unseen have more colour than the sheltered lifestyle we live. “To most of them,surviving from one day to the next is an adventure. Crime at various levels penetrates into it in ways we cannot imagine. Our drivers or maids get to meet big industrialists and stars by the day on their job but may have drug lords or murderers for neighbours when they return home. And that makes their points of view interesting. Even chronicling one day of their lives can be a story in itself,” she explains. In tandem,her segment is on the experiences of an NRI who sees life through her interactions with autorickshaw drivers.

How well does one have to know the city before one digs out a story from its lesser known side? While filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee,who used his hometown Delhi as a backdrop in his films,Khosla Ka Ghosla and Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!,feels that intimacy is essential,Raghavan points out that most filmmakers who have chronicled the city best,like Ram Gopal Varma and Anurag Kashyap,have been outsiders. “It gives you a perspective that insiders may lack,” he explains.

Nidimoru,whose Shor tells stories of an NRI,a bootlegger and a young boy who wants a career in cricket,feels that no city can be used as a character in entirety unless it is explored at all levels. “We’d be alienating a big part of Mumbai,had we focussed on only the underbelly. Be it the rich or otherwise,all lives come together at some point — there is a clash,like in Dhobi Ghat.”