मेट्रो... इन दिनों: Much like the Delhi "metro": problem with last mile connectivity

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If you can spare some time do listen to the podcast of Samdhish Bhatia with Anurag Basu (the link is here so you don’t need to work hard, searching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkeUWYeDweA) you read through the mind of a gemmologist like Anurag Basu who gave us further gems like Life in a Metro, Jagga Jasoos (one of his most underrated work but stands head and shoulder), Barfi, Ludo to name a few. Also, Anurag has had a long stint on Television too which is what makes him versatile and resplendent in his work profile.

His latest, मेट्रो... इन दिनों, somewhere fails to connect and takes a tad long time to build itself. In the pre interval stage it nearly takes about 30-40 minutes to build the plot around four main characters much like his previous anthology (Life in a Metro). Aditya Roy Kapoor- Soha Ali Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma - Pankaj Tripathi, Fatima Sana Shaikh - Ali Fazal and Anupam Kher with Neena Gupta. Post interval too, the plot disintegrates and is unable to connect the pieces once the strings are spread out just before interval (the last 20 minutes were a drag).

While Life in Metro shone bright for the brilliant chemistry of Irrfan and Konkona (remember the hilarious scene and the line at the end “petticoat blouse toh uske naam pe silwa liya, itna late kyu bol rahi ho” by Irrfan). The relationship intensity of Shiney Ahuja and Shilpa Shetty, the tumultuous relationship between KK and Kangana and finally the effervescent Sharman Joshi (in a striking similarity with Jack Lemmon from the Apartment). The anthology could bind the plot and pretty much brings out the harsh and hard life in a metro. And yes, the balmy and soothing effect of Manoj Pahwa as the neighbour to Sharman. The narrative further got augmented with the way music (Pritam and his band) interspersed into the plot and scenes. Imagine the song Alvida (see/listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlBX5YKuanI) and the brilliance of KK with the raw energy and the scale in which it was sung was pure bliss. If you have had a chance of watching the cult and iconic series Breaking Bad, similar treatment was given to scenes were songs added to the intensity or heightened the drama. When the character of Heisenberg had introduced itself and was settling down (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ykOTpzuZN0) and as titled as The Ballad of Heisenberg by Los Cuates de Sinaloa essentially tried to heighten the characterisation. It worked well here in the first movie, Life in a Metro too. Pity, it failed flat on the face with मेट्रो... इन दिनों. Perhaps the choice of songs was misplaced and the closing credits song somehow was able to salvage itself.

With Ludo and now with मेट्रो... इन दिनों Anurag seems to be losing his Midas touch and connect. In his podcast too he says he envies Raju Hirani who has been doing work which is mainstream and connects better with the masses. With the last two of his outing, Anurag fails to connect with the masses and takes a long time to establish oneself. Audience today being fed a daily dose of OTT and some quality content of web series, Hindi Cinema would need to refurbish the content and make it more mainstream. Some of the scenes (especially where Pankaj Tripathi and Konkona’s daughter trying to discover her sexual orientation looked naïve and too trivialised in the way it was handled).

Yet, मेट्रो... इन दिनों   the movie stands out for three reasons for which it needs a cinema hall dekko; first the amazing cinematography (shot at Barog station, Calcutta and Delhi), second the closing credit with the amazing number (Qayde se sung by the mercurial Arijit Singh) and finally, the fleeting and occasional glimpse of comedy between Konkona and Pankaj Tripathi. Yes, the last mile connectivity fails, making it an amiss about something does not seem right with मेट्रो... इन दिनों.     


Location: Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, Delhi, India

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