What if Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s favourite actress Sharmila Tagore was cast with Basu Chatterjee’s favourite actor Amol Palekar in one of those easy, winsome, breezy romantic comedies of the 1970s?
The result would’ve been something like Ahista Ahista — nice and slow yet fluently absorbing. For a large part of the narrative, you sincerely want to know what happens to the runaway girl Megha (Soha Ali Khan) and the working-class guy Ankush (Abhay Deol) who comes to her rescue after her groom-to-be deserts her.
A simple story, seemingly original and fresh, Ahista Ahista sweeps you gently into its arc of mint-flavoured emotions. The characters, minor or major, are utterly believable. Whether it is Ankush’s friends at the marriage registry office (and these include that wonderful child actor Ashwin Chitale from the Marathi film Shwaas as the ‘chai-wallah’) or the whole Jama Masjid Muslim locality that defines a major portion of the narrative, the proceedings are kept subdued and stress-free.
The art and camera-work are unostentatious yet eye-catching. Somehow you feel things are going to work out just fine for these two seeming losers who discover love, togetherness, and finally a wretchedly unhappy ending to their short-lived relationship.
The happy ending is denied to this utterly unaffected couple. But the brief, finally grief encounter is sweet-timbered and endearing while it lasts. Both Abhay Deol and Soha Ali Khan add considerably to the plot’s plausibility. They are natural, sincere, and endearing, though Deol needs to improve his dialogue delivery and gauche body language.
Soha has been shot (by cinematographer Prakash Kutty) like her mother Sharmila Tagore. She is heartbreakingly expressive and fragile. Among the peripheral characters, Shakeel Khan as Deol’s Muslim buddy is surprisingly effective. A sweet, sincere, tender film with enough heart to tell it apart from the pretenders which try to sweep you off your feet, Ahista Ahista keeps you rooted to reality most of the way. Even when the kind and generous hero decides to keep his sweetheart’s fiancé’s return a secret, you don’t really hate him for that bit of deception. How can you, when the couple is so absorbed in the task of living with dignity in a society that makes the middle-class answerable for all its aspirations and dreams. Writer Imtiaz Ali and debutant director Shivam Nair deserve high praise for delving into those quiet shared moments of anguished togetherness between a couple which is too busy surviving today to dare to dream about tomorrow.
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An interview with Shivum Nair
Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee seem to be your inspiration for Ahista Ahista. Aren’t they outdated?
Can emotions such as love, warmth, generosity, and sacrifice ever be outdated? I’ve always felt that in our fast-paced living we are losing hold of the most precious emotions. In Ahista Ahista I saw the simple and honest story of a simple and honest human being. I never thought about the pace and the mood. I just went by the need of the script.
Audiences rejected the honest character and film?
Well, I’m told even the films of Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee weren’t blockbusters. They got acclaim; so did my film. I guess audiences have become impatient with slow-paced films. They want to see films that are edited like ads. But if you look at Iranian cinema, they elaborate on simple situations in simple films.
It is said that you are unfamiliar with feature-film pacing because you come from TV?
Even the Ahista Ahista writer Imtiaz Ali is a product of television. I guess I was too attached to the project to know where I was going wrong. I executed the runaway girl’s (Soha Ali Khan) story exactly the way I thought it right. The other characters like Abhay Deol were supposed to pour energy into the main character’s story. I couldn’t generate forced energy. I didn’t want to make a regular drama. Simplicity is the hallmark of Ahista Ahista.
The atmosphere of the Jama Masjid area of Delhi seems to have been pushed into the plot?
It is a story set in Old Delhi and we shot on actual location. We therefore had to show the characters who actually live in the area. Ours was a small production and we did what we could within our limited budget. Both very small films and the very big films need proper marketing. No need to state which category we fell into.
Why did you select Soha and Abhay?
Firstly, it was the economics. Then it was dates and the suitability of the actors. Abhay and Soha got emotionally attached with the project. I don’t think bigger stars would’ve given so much of themselves to my project.
Why have you gone for a tragic ending when they don’t generally work?
I let the characters flow naturally. I never thought of the repercussions of what I did. I know I’ve made mistakes in Ahista Ahista. I’ll try to rectify them the next time. I don’t understand the concept of fast and slow narration. Every film has its own pace. I strongly feel that if Ahista Ahista had been marketed properly, it’d have got a larger audience. I personally feel we’ve made a decent film.
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