Maqbool

The eyes speak volumes in Vishal Bharadwaj’s Maqbool. They spar silently, they meet across a room full of people, they observe through rear view mirrors, and they convey much where words would have fallen short. The unstated assumes importance in the movie, elevating it to a masterpiece.

Pankaj Kapur, Irrfan Khan, Tabu, Om Puri and Nasseeruddin Shah all come together for what is undoubtedly the perfect casting for an adaptation of the Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Every actor’s performance is woven into a complex and rich tapestry and the sincerity of the team’s effort is unified in making it a great movie.

Maqbool (Irrfan Khan), the right hand man of Abbaji, an underworld don (Pankaj Kapur). Pandit and Purohit (Shah & Puri) are two corrupt policemen, well-versed in astrology. They predict the downfall of Abbaji and the rise of Maqbool. Maqbool gradually falls for the wiles of Nimmi, Abbaji’s mistress (Tabu). Nimmi instigates Maqbool to murder Abbaji, so she could  be liberated and he could take over the gang. Maqbool relents ultimately to her urgings and kills Abbaji. This deed sets in motion a series of events that lead to his own end. The gang disintegrates, and Maqbool alienates or kills most of the erstwhile members of the gang. Gradually, Nimmi’s and Maqbool’s guilt manifests itself as hallucinations and cracks begin to appear in their relationship. Meanwhile, the police and the other rival gangs close in on Maqbool and he has nowhere to go, no one to turn to and no time left.

The true hero is the narrative. The story by Bharadwaj and Abbas Tyrewala has been, as touted, inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Basing the story in the Mumbai underworld must have posed some challenges for the filmmaker. But ingenuity marks the way the concepts of the witches, the prophecy and the manifestations of the prophecy have been depicted. The movie has managed to capture the dark aura and the tragic quality of the original story. Even if one is not aware of the Macbeth story, it reinforces the age-old belief that destiny is inescapable, especially when it comes to crime because what goes around comes back to make it a full circle.

Tabu, as Nimmi walks the fine line between victim and instigator of much psychological violence. She plays to perfection a child-woman, and mistress to a man old enough to be her father. One moment you empathise with her, the next, you wonder how a face as beautiful as hers could have a mind so cruel. In the early part of the movie, Nimmi’s eyes silently taunt Maqbool in the midst of other people while her words taunt him when they are alone. Her corruption of Maqbool is gradual, yet complete. Abbaji’s murder also captures the ruthless meticulousness of Nimmi in the way the deed is executed. Her anguish in the second half is real, without unwarranted cliches.

Irrfan Khan as Maqbool moves from being the fiercely loyal subordinate to the aging Abbaji to ultimately taking his place after his murder, as prophesized by the Pandit and Purohit, played by Nasseruddin Shah and Om Puri. Maqbool is a complex person. He shows weakness of character sometimes, yet efficiently carries out Abbaji’s bidding. He is ambitious, yet needs the constant prodding of Nimmi to carry out the murder. 

 The pivotal scene for the transformation of Maqbool is the killing of Abbaji. What seems to be a moment of strength that Maqbool manages to muster, turns out to be, in retrospect, his moment of greatest weakness. Although he is ruthless when it comes to killing others, with Abbaji, his conscience comes to the fore. The underdog mindset is complete in that, while killing Abbaji, he keeps his eyes closed, as though it would lessen the treachery of his betrayal. Shot brilliantly, this remains one of the best sequences in the movie. After Abbaji’s murder, Maqbool seems to be transformed – he exudes a quiet confidence and self-assurance that is chilling to behold. It is only until fate catches up with him.

Pankaj Kapur plays the pot-bellied Abbaji. He is deadpan in most of the sequences, but his silences and kohl-lined eyes emanate great intensity. He assumes a reptilian demeanour and it comes in useful in the sequence where Maqbool imagines the goings-on in Abbaji and Nimmi’s bedroom.

Shah and Puri as Pandit and Purohit, play the role of Shakespeare’s witches. They play the corrupt policemen with ease, sometimes aiding the police department and sometimes aiding the underworld. One’s predictions and the other’s smooth tongue manage to unleash a series of events that bring about the fall of Maqbool.

There other performers who deserve a mention. Piyush Mishra as Kaka, who is extremely loyal to Abbaji and oblivious of Maqbool’s dark side. Ajay Gehi who plays Kaka’s son Guddu, is transformed after his father’s murder and his own narrow escape from death . Masumi Makhija as Sameera, starts out as the dreamy eyed much-doted daughter of Abbaji, and ends up as a bundle of nerves when Guddu is implicated by the very people she trusts.

The movie has violence aplenty, but sans the gore. It is a dark film in that there is no remorse for the killings. The violence is merely a backdrop and not the main story and therefore it is neither glorified nor shunned, bust presented as a context within which the psychological violence plays itself.

Vishal Bharadwaj’s haunting background score is a foreboding of what is to come in the story. It highlights the visual nuances in the film and rises to a crescendo during certain key sequences. A strong Sufi undertone runs through the music in the movie. The songs are as much part of the script as the dialogue and the resounding silence. If you keenly listen to the lyrics, you just might transcend the level of passive listening and get rewarded with nuances in a language that is inimitably Gulzar’s forte.

It is indeed laudable that Vishal Bharadwaj has made an excellent second film. It takes skill to make a good film, but great talent to make a good second film. While Makdee was extremely imaginative and entertaining, Bharadwaj has raised the bar for himself as far as Maqbool is concerned.

Pictures courtesy santabanta.com

Get Clued into Jazz - An Interview with Madhav Chari

“The idea for the Jazz Lecture Discussion series and Outreach Program, originated last year in Delhi, with a workshop I did for Spic Macay on Jazz. They were pleasantly surprised to find that the whole concept of jazz being unstructured music, was a misconception.”, says Madhav Chari, Jazz musician and composer, based in Chennai. 

Madhav Chari is no stranger to Chennai. He is an accomplished jazz pianist having performed with many jazz luminaries across cities in the US and also in Canada. He moved here a year ago, with the intent of performing here, as well as continuing his studies in Indian Classical Music and Philosophy. He has performed on various occasions over the past year in Chennai, not to mention at prestigious venues such as the NCPA in Mumbai and Jazz Yatra in Delhi and continues to perform internationally. He is now presenting India’s first jazz and modern music outreach program, right here, in Chennai. The program is two-pronged, with an outreach program for educational institutions and a Lecture Discussion series for the general audience.

Dwelling a little more on the popular misconception about jazz being an unstructured form, Madhav clarifies, “Let’s say I placed you in Senegal, and you heard people there speak Wolof. You may not understand it, and it may sound to you, with your framework of English grammar, like babble. This doesn’t mean it’s an unstructured language. The same applies to jazz. Jazz is fundamentally, fusion - a hybrid between languages of music. As a product of parent languages, it took many generations for it to become a finished product with a structure and a well-developed grammar.”

About the lecture discussions, he says, “The objective is to increase awareness about jazz and modern music in India. At a different plane, for those who have no formal background in music, I hope they learn more about music and its connection to society. When they go to a jazz concert after these discussions, their perspective towards jazz, and in general, any kind of music, would change.”

Why the Lecture-Demonstration format? “To understand jazz, or for that matter, any form of music, there are vast theoretical resources. But there’s nothing quite like experiencing it. If you listen to the Blues, you feel the emotion. No amount of written matter can replace that experience. After all, there are limitations to language when it attempts to describe something from another medium. Which is why, I’m also doing performances with my lecture discussions.” says Madhav.

Alongside the workshop for the general audience, Madhav is also attempting an outreach program among schools and colleges in Chennai. “The inspiration for the outreach program was a cute 10-year old boy at a school in Delhi. He was totally into what I was explaining about music and snapped up all that I taught, especially things like rhythmic patterns, at one go. When I asked his teacher how they were planning to nurture his talent, she mentioned that they were thinking of piano lessons. Here was this rhythmically gifted kid, who, by virtue of living in Delhi, had access to some extremely talented local resources like Tabla players from various Gharanas, and his talent was being diverted to the piano!”, says Madhav. This got Madhav thinking about a workshop for children and after a pilot at Amethyst earlier this year, he’s all set to get working at schools and colleges.

Why Chennai? “Unlike other cities, where people claim to understand jazz, in Chennai, we have an audience that is starting out with a clean slate and an inquiring mind as far as jazz is concerned. Moreover, they are attuned to the musical grammar of Carnatic Music and that makes it all the more interesting when I draw a connection between the two musical forms in terms of their structure."

Two topics of the seven planned under the Lecture Discussion series for the general audience, have taken place already. The remaining topics are: Feeling the Blues (Sep 25, Saturday, 3 PM, Amethyst), American Popular Song as Profound Artistic Statement (Oct 1, Friday, 6.30 PM, Max Mueller Bhavan) , The Movement of Africa (Oct 2, Saturday, 3 PM, Alliance Francaise), Thelonius and the Many Moods of Monk (Oct 8, Friday, 6.30 PM, Max Mueller Bhavan) and Telling a Good Story (Oct 9, Saturday, 3 PM, Alliance Francaise). No registration or tickets are required, but the venues have limited capacity. 

(edited version published on October 2, 2004 in Madras Plus, the city features supplement of The Economic Times, Chennai. Pic courtesy Third Eye, as published in magazine.)