For someone of my generation, it can be hard to accept that new movies set in the 1980s or even the 1990s now officially count as "period films". Take Sharat Katariya's very charming Dum Lagaa ke Haisha, which released earlier this month. Set in the mid-1990s in Haridwar, featuring a callow young protagonist who manages an audio cassette store for his father, this film has obvious nostalgic value for anyone older than a certain age. All the usual signifiers - rotary phones, red Ambassadors, rickety grey scooters, a reference to Vinod Khanna as the epitome of male hotness - are here.
But the tiny moment that left me nearly moist-eyed was the one where Prem (Ayushmann Khurana) struggles to remove a video cassette from its tight cover and then does something people like me so unconsciously did hundreds of times in the old days. He flips open the little lid at the cassette's rear and blows at the visible strip of film to clear away dust particles. (This keeps the player's "head" safe, we would tell ourselves.) Then he puts the cassette in. If he is anything like I was, he is holding his breath for the few seconds until the TV screen lights up. (Please, please let it not be covered by "snow", which could mean the VCR has packed up again and needs to be serviced.)
The scene lasts barely a few seconds but I felt sentimental because I wondered if any of the young people in the hall would even know what it meant. Would they dismiss Prem's gesture as a character quirk? ("Hey, there's a guy who likes to whisper randomly at rectangular plastic objects. It's probably a religious thing.")
There's another reason why Dum Lagaa ke Haisha took me disappearing down the foggy ruins of time. It's a story about a self-absorbed youngster who is pushed into an arranged marriage and is then indifferent to his wife because she is overweight (at least, that is what the plot seems to be about at first - it takes a right turn in the second half). It reminded me of another film that haunted my childhood. The most distinct feature of that 1986 film was a hypnotic, droning song that was so ubiquitous for a few weeks that its lyrics nestled into the minds of every little Indian boy and girl and provided us moral conditioning and direction for decades to come. They began: "Bhala hai, bura hai, jaisa bhi hai /mera pati mera devtaa hai (loosely translated as: "Good, bad, whatever / My husband is my God and I will worship him)"
It wasn't just the song, but the potency of the accompanying visuals. Displaying acres of stoical resolve was a dark-complexioned woman who didn't come close to fitting the Hindi-cinema ideal of beauty. The film did everything it could to make her look ludicrous anyway. She sticks her tongue out and makes strange expressions for no apparent reason. Following her head at a distance of several metres is an astonishing upright choti that ends in a ribbon; the sort of accessory that would have made Hanuman very envious as he set about using his tail as a wick to set Lanka afire.
Such was Naseeb Apna Apna, the basic story of which was: Kishen is forced to wed "plain" girl Chandu. He rebels, goes to the city, falls in love, marries a more suitable beauty. Wife 1 follows him and is willing to abase herself by playing maid to Wife 2, while Wife 2 is willing to sacrifice her very life if it means that her husband and Wife 1 may find happiness with each other. (All this while, the husband continues to look grouchy - look at the rough hand fate has dealt him!)
The similarities between Naseeb Apna Apna and Dum Lagaa ke Haisha are really just skin-deep though. In the new, much more politically correct film, everyone is nice and likable, and the big message - that Indian men need the right sort of education - is in plain sight. Prem's father meekly accepts his culpability when his daughter-in-law gives him a lecture about not having taught his son to respect women; later, the film makes it obvious that Prem is grappling with his own demons and making an effort to improve himself. Dum Lagaa ke Haisha is steeped in socially progressive messages and general feel-goodness; Naseeb Apna Apna wouldn't know what any of those things were if they were brought to it on a large tea-tray carried by a gharelu, pallu-covered bahu with eyes cast downward.
Jai Arjun Singh is a Delhi-based writer
