7 Khoon Maaf Book

[Brittany Bhadd]

After I have seen the film and going over the reviews of people like Masand, Raja Sen and Khalid Mohammad convinces me that they dont understand a thing about abstraction. ( Masand gave No Smoking 0 stars and Dev D 2 stars.) Not surprising in a film world where Chak De is thought of as the height of creative achievement.

In terms of pure entertainment I enjoyed it more than the earlier three Bhardwaj films which seemed laboured and trying too hard to be good cinema or just cool. This one to me appeared more personal, more evolved, more well-rounded.

Then again, its possible that the cracked glass is a metaphor of the shattering of illusion that Susanna will ever come back to Vivaan in love- he has waited patiently for every other husband to pop off, but its hard to beat Jesus, eh?
Ok..thats my final thought on this film ?

I think one of the biggest missteps that Vishal took in this movie was leaving the audience bereft of any emotional hook with the leading character. The moment I saw her luring her husband to his grave to bury him alive, I stopped caring about her. Her suffering and emotional plight had no effect on me after that point.

The 7 love stories with not so happy endings are narrated episodically, but in spite of knowing that each husband will die, the film is not predictable. Each death is constructed ingeniously and even though you know that Sussana has enough reason to want the man dead, it is difficult to find evidence that might implicate her. In fact, you feel sorry for the romance-seeking Sussana, who starts each new relationship with hope and innocence, trying her best make a success of the marriage. Sadly, each husband lets her down; some by breaking her trust and others by obsessing over her, leaving her with another shattered dream.

Of the seven husbands, Irrfan Khan makes the strongest impression. His story, set in Kashmir, sees him playing a sensitive poet by day who appears fully smitten by his muse, Sussana. But by night, another personality emerges from his shadow, one that knows only cruelty and violence as a way to love his woman. The other two actors who play their parts brilliantly are Annu Kapoor, as the love lorn Inpector Keemat Lal who cant seem to string a coherent sentence when talking to Sussana and Neil Nitin Mukesh, who surprises with an excellent portrayal of husband number one. The one-legged Major Edwin Rodriques is suspicious and frightening, and Mukesh controls his sinister expressions and body language with precision.

I have the very opposite conclusions. Susanna is not the Bharat Mata, but that the death of which will keep alive the Indian state. Susanna is the undoer of the Indian state. I have argued this out in detail here:
-deaths-in-7-khoon-maaf.html

7 Khoon Maaf worked for me. This is not a film which can be understood with a linear interpretation. This is surprising that film critics did not like the film. This is more surprising to see you, Mr Bhardwaj Rangan, not getting the film in its right perspective. This is surprising in your case because normally you take a different route than other film critics but this time, perhaps you were not watching this film with an open mind.
IICRC, you had gone to a great length in searching meanings in a meaningless film Raavan but this time you turn your back to a meaningfull film which provides a lots of meanings.

The heroine herself is an inert murderous entity (like a snake in its own little snake-uh..anthill) the events that happen to her as subject reflect more on the perpetrators of the event than they do on her, the donkey(to keep the analogy alive)

i dont think it was intended to be a serious realistic film. I think it would be a great piece to adapt as a Broadway musical. I found it quite entertaining even though some more toning down in scenes for contrast to the colorful fantasy (a la Gabriel Garcia Marquez) would have been appreciated. Would recommend.

Two films. One by a master, one by his protege. Both about the spirit of childhood, about keeping the child in us alive. About creative investment required to keep the child inside us alive. About how enjoyable life itself proves to be if we keep the child inside us alive.

Gulzar, the master, made Kitaab , which released in 1977 while Vishal Bharadwaj, his protege got The Blue Umbrella released in 2007, 30 years later. The two have collaborated on quite a few child-centric projects - both for the big screen and for the small screen. How can we forget the evergreen jungle-jungle pataa chalaa hai from the animated adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle book or guchcha hai bhai guchcha hai from guchche? Or for that matter, the title song of Sinbad adaptation - one which showed Sinbad as a nine-year-old - agar magar dole naiyaa ?

Though that is what happens, had circumstances forced Baabla to stay away, he would perhaps have grown up to be someone like Nandakishore Khatri (Pankaj Kapur), the shopkeeper in The blue umbrella . An irritable, penniless old man living in a nondescript but scenic town of Himachal Pradesh, he is one who knows how to keep himself happy. One who is content in his own little universe of tea, biscuits, toffees, cycle, trinkets and computer astrology which predicts, with unfailing nonchalance, that he would, one day, become a Bill Gates.

If Kitaab is about a child trying to assume the role of an adult by running away, The blue umbrella is about an adult. in his 60s, otherwise not having much to make out of life, making an earnest attempt to connect with his child ego. And in both cases, after extreme turbulence, they succeed in keeping their child ego untarnished.

He sits cuddled on the train floor in a sleeper-class compartment, competing for space with the heavy baggage around. He has two plump middle-aged passengers, sleeping, for company on the lower berths on either side. The train is about to be greeted by the morning sun

At this point, the first scene effortlessly segues into the second one, with Kitaab (a notebook) as the connecting joint. The second scene is that of a fourth/fifth standard classroom. The child is reminded of his past, his clasroom experiences.

The movie, as a whole, is told through the eyes of Baabla. One almost feels that Gulzar, with the help of some magic potion, has transformed himself into a nine-year old and studied fourth standard with the students for one whole year before failing in the annual exams!

Baabla shows lack of interest in studies, trying to escape going to school. His weakness in geography shows when he gets lost while searching for his mother while on the run. However, the experience he obtains - from the likes of train drivers, beggars, even from the dead body of an old woman - proves to give him a mini-epiphany for him, teaching him the meaning of life.

In The Blue Umbrella , a good example of how to make an unassuming movie out of a novella - something Vishal Bharadwaj could not repeat with Saat khoon maaf - Nandkishore Khatri (Pankaj Kapur), though feared and loathed in the village, is a delightful aesthete. He sets his eyes on the delectable blue umbrella, one the young lady Bindiya (Shreya Sharma in a role reminiscent of Shweta Pandit in Makdee ) has acquired from some Japanese tourists. She finds it abandoned, picks it up but returns it when the tourists come back to claim it. However, later, as one tourist craves for the clawchain on her neck, she sympathises with her and trades it for the umbrella.

Khatri wants it, not because of its monetary value - though he realises it might be priced at as much as Rs. 2,500, a princely sum - but because of the aesthetic pleasure it would bring him. He is an artist, not an auctioner. Just like Bindiya is shown spending some joyful moments wearing the umbrella on her head - with the song neelee aasmaani chatree endearing the viewer as much as it endears her - Khatri, once he gets it, is shown not taking the umbrella off for a moment, so much so that he never even closes it.

In many ways, he proves to be more childlike than Bindiya and her friends. His love for aam ka achaar (mango pickle) is perhaps even stronger than the liking he takes toward the umbrella. The way he savours the achaar with a gentle stroke of self appreciation to his half-bald head and a slight cow-like tilt of head is a pleasure to watch.

Later, when Bindiya is shown subtly gifting him the umbrella, he attempts to - in a gesture displaying naivete more than frustration - burn it. Here, we see the kind of empathy in them that perhaps only a delicate childhood, uncorrupted by city air and adult connivances, can bring.

A book and an umbrella, the most delectable motifs to use to gain a sepia-tinted glimpse into the psyche of a child. Both bring out the truant in the schoolchild in us. A schoolbook gives a child reason to skip classes while an umbrella gives him reason to get wet. In both cases, truancies bring a certain pleasure, which perhaps the bubble reputation (to quote Shakespeare) of an adult ego cannot fathom.

Talking of childhood motifs, there couldn't be better ones than the ones mentioned in that Jagjit Singh song: "vo kaagaz ki kashti, vo baarish ka paani" [a little paperboat, some tiny droplets of rain].

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