Kinaara

Pooja Sudhir is a postgraduate in English Literature and a huge film enthusiast. She is currently working as a facilitator at the Aditya Birla World Academy, Mumbai, and has dabbled in journalism and publishing before that.

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Cinema often takes the lead in the portrayal of human nature. The celluloid role-plays different aspects of each of us; both determining as well as shaping our constitutive nature. This expression and representation occurs at multiple levels – the political, the social, the economical as well as the personal. And amidst this gamut of emulative renditions, one aspect reigns supreme and elicits the most engaging response from the audience – conflict. Conflict on multiple axes of causes and circumstances has always been an alluring subject for creative artists. And in a contemporary world where the fins of globalization constantly keep conflicts afloat, the glorified global village becomes a ripe ground for artists to mould their creative assets. Kabir Khan and Aditya Chopra have attempted to do precisely this in their latest Bollywood offering, New York.

The premises of conflict in New York are issues that cuts across all national and linguistic boundaries – terrorism and racial discrimination. Each character in the film is enmeshed in a conflict of his or her own. While Omar (Neil Nitin Mukesh) is a helpless victim of circumstances struggling to be true to his heart, Sameer’s (John Abraham) is a story of changed consciousness abused by circumstances and attempting to restructure his personal identity. Maya (Katrina Kaif), on the other hand, is a witness to injustice that she tries to set right in her own way and find her own truce; and Roshan (Irrfan Khan) is a cog in a larger system that is inherently unjust and flawed. Through the process of dealing with their own conflicts, these characters become metaphors for the larger socio-political nexus of conflict.

Omar represents hundreds of aspiring students dreaming of a superior education in the so-called “promised lands” of Europe or America. And like many of them, he fails to shed his regional and religious identity that eventually proved more determining than his dreams. New York portrays the post-9/11 investigations as having taken place on a highly discriminatory ground, which at times even defies rationality and basic human dignity. The kind of gruelling mental torture and the constant shadow of suspicion that surrounds Omar is reminiscent of the film Aamir where the protagonist reels under the consequences of merely belonging to his religion – a religion, one must not forget, which was passed down to him from his family and not determined by personal choice; a religion whose extremist and fanatic sections regularly earn the worst sort of discrimination upon the innocent majority of their fellow followers.

The case of Sameer introduces yet another strand of conflict which immediately draws to mind the film Khuda Kay Liye, where a phenomenal musician finds himself stranded in the web of discriminatory justice and blind suspicion. It is a prime example of how the most educated and talented of people can be stripped of all individuality and converted into a mere poster boy of a particular sect or religion. Sameer in New York is arrested as a terrorist suspect on the account of a few photographs taken as a student of architecture. The real basis for his arrest, as he rightly points out in the film, is his religion. Herein lies the greatest irony: a young man brought up in America, as an absolute American, believing firmly “American dream” and entrenched in the American values of individual persuasion and the right to lead and succeed, is nevertheless reduced to nothing but a stereotype of religion and genetic genesis in the hour of doubt. The question that arises in case of both these men is the same: Is it my individual genius or the religion I practise that determines the curve of circumstances in my life?

New York has a highly character-driven plot and therefore, two prerogatives become important for the success of the film – well sketched-out characters and convincing performances. As far as the former is concerned, the scriptwriter has done a complete job. Among the actors, Irrfan Khan has been on his subtle best throughout the movie, with his deadpan look lending his character both its impassive as well as its human face. John Abraham, on the other hand, was lent a huge opportunity upon which he failed to render that could have been his best yet. One must acknowledge that in a few parts like the scene where Sameer incites Omar to shoot and the entire sequence during his detention, Abraham performs marvellously for an actor who has till now been primarily cashed in on for his looks. And yet, the tenacity, the angst and the vicious undertones of a terrorist are practically missing. Abraham lends his character a face too human, too smooth to be convincing.

As for Neil Nitin Mukesh, the actor who bagged awards for his debut in Johnny Gaddar, this is a marked progress and a sureshot promise of talent to the industry. The silent stupefaction at the sight of Maya after seven years, the faked fear and apprehension of a Muslim in post-9/11 America and the fortifying disappointment when he realises that Maya does not love him are moments Mukesh manages to make immensely poignant. Katrina Kaif too lends justice to the limited periphery of her character sketch.

The spot where New York remains wanting, however, is on the ideological ground of its narrative. There is a vague and quite unnecessary attempt to justify either the Islam-driven fabric of terrorism or the state-sponsored torture cells of America. Omar and Roshan become the spokespersons for the debate between these two binaries, the two of them managing to offer only an unidimensional and simplistic reduction of a complex global issue.

The situation of Roshan presents the idea that the biggest culprit for injustice is the circumstance, which leads individuals as well as nations (read America) to take wrong decisions, and there individual or nation should be entirely free from blame for this. Roshan’s perspective pronounces America liberal, secular and true to its promise of integrating immigrants by the virtue of putting a Muslim cop in charge of a terrorism case. However, the flaw in this argument is that a nation cannot get away with injustice based on racial discrimination inflicted on many in return for its gift of liberal and equal opportunities to a few.  One cannot overlook the discirmination faced by Indians and other Asians on an individual level in their daily lives, almost forcing them to create miniature Indian cities within the American city strongholds.

Omar’s perspective, on the other hand, seems to say that the atrocious treatment meted out to Muslims by the American authorities leaves them with no option but to turn to terrorism, as the ones who choose to co-operate with the government are nevertheless pushed into the jaws of death. This argument is equally unacceptable, because American atrocities and discrimination are not and cannot be the sole reason for the establishment of terrorism. Those who are conscious of history will readily recall that the current face of terrorism was invented by American intelligence to achieve ulterior political and economic motives. It is highly unbecoming of sensible cinema and evolved storytelling to keep propagating this black-and-white picture of Islamic countries vis-à-vis America. The glorification of Barack Obama and open criticism of George Bush through researched facts at the end of New York only went ahead to reflect the filmmakers’ unclear vision of the current global situation.

All said and done, New York is one of the rare Bollywood attempts to flirt with a political and social issue of global significance and that too, in an entertaining manner. It is definitely an attempt that requires encouragement and will hopefully evoke inspiration among its peers.

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