Genre : Drama
Year : 2010
Running time : 1 hour 40 minutes
Director : Kiran Rao
Cast : Amir Khan, Kriti Malhotra, Prateik Babbar, Monica Dogra, Kitu Gidwani
Kid rating : PG-13
Dhobi Ghat is Kiran Rao’s portrayal of Mumbai and it’s people. She does it by telling us the story of 4 people, tenuously linked. There is Arun, a painter, who is distant and aloof even to Shai, whom he has a one-night stand with. Shai, is an American banker taking a sabbatical from work to indulge in her passion for photography. She walks around Bombay photographing what she finds interesting. Shai meets Munna, the local dhobi (washerman) and coaxes him to guide her through the innards of Mumbai. She is particularly intrigued by the Dhobi Ghat where hundreds of dhobis gather to wash their loads of laundry. Munna has aspirations of becoming a movie star and is very happy to find that Shai can shoot a portfolio for him.
Meanwhile Arun moves into a new flat to discover that the previous resident of the apartment has left behind some video-cassettes. Arun tries to find her to return her belongings, but failing to do so, plays them to find that they are video-diaries or video-letters really, in which the woman, Yasmin, catalogues her new married life in Mumbai to her (younger) brother back home.
These 4 characters come from different walks of life, religions, social and class backgrounds. Shai is a wealthy American, quite an outsider to India’s social mores, and sees nothing wrong in socializing with Munna – they go out to eat, see a movie together. Munna is from the impoverished lower class; he has a second job at night – that of rat-killer. When Shai, with her American upbringing, begins to see him as a “friend”, Munna dreams of equality, of being at par, a social equal to Shai. Arun is a Hindu artist, and by the nature of his work is a member of the privileged class. He finds his muse in Yasmin, a middle-class Muslim housewife he hasn’t met.
Rao explores these 4 different worlds in a very nuanced fashion. We see the social boundaries that divide Shai and Munna – he lives in a ramshackle room, and she in a posh Mumbai flat where he isn’t even offered a seat. His just as impoverished friends rib him about the memsaheb. Arun is curious about Yasmin – where did she go, what happened to her ? He finds himself drawn to Yasmin’s predicament. Yasmin, a character we only see through the lens of her video camera, (which her husband has bought her and she is quite excited about) is captivated by Mumbai, and her life in a big city. As Arun progresses through her video diaries though we find her spirits drooping. And then the videos end; we know no more. Shai, after the one-night stand, tries to find Arun again but he has moved. And Munna is half in love with Shai, a woman who does not return the favor.
This film is a little depressing and slow, but it is one I remembered and thought about long after I’d finished watching it. Quite fascinating, really. Worth a watch.
Kidwise : Fairly clean, some love-making and references to adult situations.
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