The place is called Lakhot. (Singh’s research team which came up with the name and found that it actually exists, somewhere in Pakistan!) But in the fictional Lakhot, sand papers over roads and dunes, and deep dark secrets which come tumbling out when a mysterious woman shows up on the doorstep of a suspended PWD engineer, and asks him to do something for him.

Manorama Six Feet Under is not a film which mainstream Bollywood has done before, except that it has a sort-of-mainstream hero essaying the role of the engineer who fancies his sleuthing chances. Satyaveer aka SV, as played by Abhay Deol, is the kind of chap who will take a bribe, and get caught while doing it — he is, in the best traditions of the non-professional private eye, an innately decent man, caught in a complex web, not of his making. He is neither very good, nor very bad, just your average joe trying to hack a life.

The director makes skilful use of all aspects of noir cinema : quirky characters, and strong atmospherics, making Manorama Six Feet Under an almost tactile experience. When SV drives down the roads, you can almost feel the dust in your nostrils; when he slithers in spilled blood in a doorway, you can feel the slippery stickiness; and you can smell the rancidness that the town is afflicted with. This movie takes a little long in getting where it does, arousing some amount of impatience, but that flaw can be laid at the door of the indulgence a fond parent has of its first offspring — hard to cut off anything, if you’ve worked so long on it.

So, has the indie (independent) film movement in Bollywood come of age? Going by the activity in that sector, it would appear that it has at least got off to a respectable start. Singh’s movie is not the only one which is fiercely indie in its intent and execution. We’ve already had this year, Sagar Bellary’s commercially successful Bheja Fry, and Kaushik Roy’s not-so-successful Apna Aasman. The former, who’s worked with Rajat Kapoor, part of the premier indie league, came up with the first bonafide hit of the year, even if the script was a rip-off from a French movie.

But Roy’s film, the story of a slow-learner (the word ‘autism’ is mentioned, along with the prefix ‘mild’) and his parents, was original.

The director distills his own experiences with his gifted, autistic son Orko, into creating the screen Buddhi. In Buddhi’s desperate-for-normalcy parents, played marvelously by Irrfan and Shobana, he borrows from the minds and hearts of parents and caregivers around the world: what if my child was not disabled?

The film is beautifully real because of the director’s deep insight into that world, and its complexities. A shopkeeper’s assistant tried to give the lad wrong change, and gets caught out, but doesn’t think anything is wrong with what he did. If people have problems, they are to be taken advantage of, right? The parents’ going after a dodgy quack and his unproven vaccine has a ring of truth — so many times, there’s nothing left but to go to the what-have-we-got-to-lose option.

In this instance, Buddhi gains the sharp mind his parents were longing for. But he also loses all nice-ness, becomes an uncaring monster, and that’s where the film switches tracks.

And loses some of its power. Sure, audiences want to see happy stories, where disability disappears, but when you stretch credulity, problems arise.

Free thinking: Gandhi, My Father

Whatever the fate of the film, the very fact that a film like this has a chance of getting made and released (the director had spoken to this writer some months ago when he was in search of distributors, finally Sony Pictures, India did the deed), has made the industry a heartening place for filmmakers who want to do offbeat work. A Shemaroo Videos can release Manorama Six Feet Under; a Sony Pix can do Apna Aasman.

And an Anil Kapoor can do Gandhi, My Father. Strictly speaking, Anil’s first home production cannot be dubbed an indie film, simply because of the actor’s involvement in it. But, at the same time, it’s not strictly mainstream either, coming from the stables of someone like Anil, who’s been such a strong mainstream star despite his occasional straying into the non-mainstream path, that’s a big thing.

So why did he choose to do Gandhi, My Father ? If you hear Anil tell it, the film chose him. Feroz Khan, the director, and he go back many years. And when Feroz, came to Anil, and said how about it, the latter leapt at it.

After all, how many chances do you get to start your production career with a film which has such an unusual subject? Making Harilal, the eldest son of the Mahatma, the focus of the film was brave: the son’s troubled life, his relationship with his father, and his death, unclaimed, unsung in a Bombay hospital a few months after the Mahatma’s death, showed a side of Gandhi’s life which hasn’t been in popular knowledge at all.

Munnabhai’s Gandhiji is a cuddly old paternal figure that we can take home to mother. In real life, the Mahatma was very different, and his idealism-and principles-above-all lifestyle which put his son on par with every other citizen of the country, put tremendous pressure on Harilal (Akshaye Khanna in a career-best performance). He couldn’t cope. He lost his wife Gulab, lost face, and lost his will to live.

Anil is not perturbed that the movie hasn’t done as well as it should have, commercially, in its theatrical run. The fact that he could do the film, the way his director wanted to, is enough, he says. It’s been one of the most enriching experiences of his life, especially because the project received Nelson Mandela’s blessings, and a world premiere in Johannesberg.

Now Anil is all set to do his second film. And if he gets more ideas in the same vein, off-the-beaten-track, he’ll lap them up.

So is big bad mainstream Bollywood gravitating towards indie ideas, too? Happy, happy thought.

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