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Shubhra Gupta

Bollywood is still miles away from Hollywood, where movies on people with disabilities are made with an eye on the critics, the box-office and the Oscars.

(Left) Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherji at a pre-release press conference for their film `Black'

Just a day after its release, Black was being touted as a sure-shot contender for the Oscars. All kinds of other encomiums are being heaped upon Sanjay Leela Bhansali's marvellously executed movie about a profoundly disabled girl, and her teacher.

In all the hoopla, the naysayers seem to have forgotten their doubts on this expensively made film; the figure ranges between Rs 18 crore and Rs 21 crore. In the long run-up to its release, a potential distributor for Delhi-Uttar Pradesh (UP), one of the country's biggest territories, confided that he had nixed Black because of the history of commercial failure of such films. "The audience laughs at disabled people in our movies," he said.

It turns out that, yes, some people do laugh at Rani Mukherji (both the young and the older version). This writer was watching out for the titters, and the front-benchers were off and away when the eight-year-old Michelle first appears, hair in tangle, eyes upturned, making animal sounds. Soon enough, though, when her teacher, the eccentric, charismatic Debraj appears on the scene, and starts setting her on the right path, they settled down. And all of us watched the rest of the movie, deeply moved. Most people sat glued to their seats when the credits rolled, some clapped.

It also turns out that Anil Thadani, who bought the rights to Delhi-UP at Rs 1.5 crore, is now a relieved man: Black did not have too great an opening; on the first day, there were no full houses anywhere. But it picked up by word of mouth from the second day, and both the single-screen and multiplexes are running it in five shows now. "It is a champagne experience," says Aditya Khanna of New Delhi's Chanakya, one of the nicest single-screen theatres in the city. He can't stop raving about it. The same goes for the rising tide of viewers; even the most hard-headed of Bhansali's critics have been silenced.

Whether it gets to the Oscars or sweeps the National awards, as it will most likely do next year, or rakes in the money, one thing is clear. Black has restarted the debate between the community of the disabled, and the more abled, the way it happens every time a popular culture vehicle brings to notice that significant part of the population which lives beyond most of our radars.

Those whose memories go back that long, recall Koshish, Gulzar's lovely film on a deaf and dumb couple, played by Sanjiv Kumar and Jaya Bhaduri. The poignant high point of the film came when their son, who can speak and hear, refuses to marry a disabled girl. Sensitive, knowledgeable portrayals of the disabled have, however, not been a premium in our movies. The physically challenged are the butt of crass one-liners; anyone with the much more difficult-to-show brain disorder is routinely laughed out of court. How many times have you been taken to mental hospitals via our movies, and the treatment left you angry and disgusted?

We are still a million miles away from Hollywood where to make a movie on a person with a `mental' disability is sure-shot Oscar gold. The awards are littered with such characters — the slow, but wise Forrest Gump in the movie of the same name, the brilliant but deluded mathematician John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, and many more; in the last decade, particularly, there has been a swell of such movies made with an eye on the critics, the box-office, and the Oscars.

In Bollywood and other film centres in India which make commercial clap-trap 90 per cent of the time, handicaps are played for laughs. People who limp and squint are, necessarily, villainous: there hasn't been a more vicious mother-in-law than Lalita Pawar, the old-time actress whose eye was permanently damaged after a leading man slapped her on a set. Bad guys are often wheelchair-bound. And comic actors who adopt stutters while playing the hero's sidekick, or the class joker, are nearly always smash hits.

One film which one can get nostalgic about, minus any apologies, is Sai Paranjape's Sparsh. This was back in the 1970s, when Naseerudin Shah was being heralded as one of the leading lights of the so-called parallel cinema. His principal of a blind school, who forms a life-affirming relationship with the character played by Shabana Azmi, left a lasting impression. Shah upheld a very important principle that the disabled want to live independently; to be accorded the dignity and respect other sectors of society automatically demand and are granted. In a memorable moment, he responds curtly to Shabana's overtures to help him pour out the tea: "Main dekh nahin sakta ka matlab yeh nahin ki main kaam nahin kar sakta... " (The fact that I can't see doesn't mean that I can't do my work).

Black's milieu, for most viewers, is non-Indian. The family of Michelle McNally (played by Rani) is Anglo-Indian, her authoritarian father decorates the walls of his beautiful colonial bungalow in Shimla with European masters. The film's palette is predominantly black and blue (one of the main inspirations of the movie is from acclaimed Polish filmmaker Krystoff Kieslowski's Blue, apart from Francois Truffaut's Wild Child), bleak colours one doesn't associate with Indian movies.

But the alienation that comes from the way the movie looks, and the appearances of the actors (sombre gowns, boots, hats and walking sticks) melts in the face of the emotions on display, affecting without being cloying. You put past the totally distasteful action of the teacher, played by Amitabh Bachchan, of hitting his charge to `make her behave': any special educator who uses force should have been sacked on the spot. The strength of Bhansali's convictions commands a larger canvas than anything else.

You know the director is intent upon wrenching your heart, and wringing the tears; and you let him. You do not feel sorry for Michelle McNally. You urge her on as she embarks on the difficult path to self-reliance. And when she reaches her destination, you feel proud of her.

Picture by Rajeev Bhatt

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