Barfi!: A ‘My World’ Perspective Review

“….Aaj ka pyaar kaisa,

2-minutes noodle jaisa.

Pet mein gaya aur parrrrr…..

FB pe paida hua,

Car mein jawaan hua,

Court mein jaake gaya marrrr……

Apni kahaani saccha pyaar dikhlayegi,

Khawbon ki satt-rangi phuhar barsayegi.

Gyaan na baateinge,

Na ‘Hug’, na danteinge

Gudgudi thodi karenge….

Picture shuru, hogayi picture shuru.”

And with those words set to tunes warmer than the January Sun, even before the first frame is slid across, ‘Barfi!’ manages to deliver to you a boxfull of milky, soft and sweet, well, barfi. A kind in which when you once bite in, the succulence endures for the entire munch-period only to leave behind a soothing after-taste. I give out that opening bit secure in my knowledge that the fresh coolness of an experience which this said unique opening will splash over you will tide over and hold firm despite this harmless, measly spoiler. And how true this poetic announcement turns out in the end! The story doesn’t reward, doesn’t punish, neither does it try to climb upon a moral high-horse. It just remains as it was intended to be.

Barfi! – written and directed by Anurag Basu (of Life in a...metro fame and Kites, er, de-fame) – is a story set majorly in Darjeeling, West Bengal of 70s. Hence, given is the steam engine on narrow gauges skirting snaky road, misty mornings and bear-hug-y noons and dewy evenings and balmy nights. And racing through these delicious environs is a humble bicycle. Saddled on which is a man who would hear people scream at him post his antics, only that he can’t…On which, is a man who would whistle through his days and nights as he sings tunes-e-melody nonstop, only that he can’t…

That paragraph above, with its three period-esque stroke for eliciting an emotional emphasis is perhaps greater in intensity when seeking sympathy is concerned than this entire film. Right from the sequence – amidst the happiest song of the times – explaining how Barfi ended up so to the end credits montage showing Barfi charm a pool of kids, the film doesn’t dwell around you waiting for you to yield and submit to it crying in pity for the protagonist. No. Instead, it establishes something entirely different. As the title song suggests, here comes Barfi the naughty one, the big ulcer of the foot, the light of the night. Barfi’s so full of all things swift and cheery that every now and then the narrative has to remind the viewer that he can’t speak and listen. Bringing to life this effervescent character is Ranbir Kapoor, who, by his mere presence in a shot, flames up even the fringes of the screen. The brilliance of his acting skills is not a glaring spotlight, rather, it’s a poignant backlit glow. In this magical outing, he has yet again spoken out (without speaking, at that) that he, solely, is his own competition.

Barfi has two companions in the story. Shruti Ghosh (Ileana D’Cruz), the first one, is a daughter of a well-off family, is engaged to her college-mate, is ready to enter a secure wedlock with ‘right’ man, and also, is the one who brings to Barfi his first set stomach-butterflies – the one’s which take shelter in your belly when you experience love for the very first time. Promising to be just friends and nothing further, both conveniently break their set verbal contract and fall for each other nevertheless. With her big, admiring and admirable eyes she speaks quite deftly to this man who can’t listen to her, conventionally speaking. Jhilmil Chatterjee (Priyanka Chopra), the second one, is an autistic child of an alcoholic mother and a gambler father, is a childhood friend of Barfi, is the one who comes back to her Darjeeling home after spending quite some time at a ‘special home’ – Muskaan, at her grandfather’s request who desires to be with her as his last wish. This is when Barfi’s and Jhilmil’s paths cross again only to get further intertwined cutely like their pinky fingers do as the plot catches up. D’Cruz registers an affecting performance as a right girl caught in wrong decisions. The moist of her eyes when she is, in a certain scene, introduced to Jhilmil by Barfi makes you too gulp that throat-lump back in (A lot of credit for that goes to the song playing in background at the point in time too). And not once caricature-esque is the way Priyanka Chopra roles. The hardest role in the movie was hers, I feel, and she has managed to swim through it neatly displaying the professional insight of an established actor. Saurabh Shukla stands out as the potily cop whose incessant chasing has made his waist size go from 52” to 42”. 

And as good are the folks working behind the lens. Especially the one ‘behind’ the lens! Ravi Varman’s cinematography is a character in its own right. The fluidity, with which each frame has led to another, with just-perfect lights and aura, is tantamount to watching birth of a life take place. Something felt so new about the filming that as I searched on more for Ravi Varman’s work, I was not at all surprised to find that he is not an over-used cinematographer in Bollywood. And matching this enchanting visual display was the product of the sounds department. Pritam’s OST and background score are like a walk back to incorruptibility, where even the vices of a soul are condoned as just childish, undisruptive mischief. Blended with it are Swanand Kirkire’s words. Some pure lyrical gems await you in garb of six well written ditties. The film adopts a non-linear narrative which, I feel, could have been done away with. The cleanness of the story is its beauty which is, at times, marred by time-scale jumping. But, this is a minor flaw when compared with the level of achievement of the entire product.

Each scene is stamped with director’s thought-imprint and dusted with the director’s sugary, bucolic visions. Right from laugh-ability of life-altering conditions to the light-hearted acceptance of all things human and awkward. Anurag Basu, a cancer survivor himself, knows what approaching an un-timely death is like. Only a person with that skill-set could have imagined life this way. The more said, the less it seems, when speaking about this aspect of the film.

And look at what the take-home point has been after the experience – Yes, Barfi (Murphy, actually) is disabled, but is bloke of a kind who would make the phrase ‘specially abled’ sound more than just a politically correct expression. What’s that special ability, you ask? The ability to make others feel disabled in their feet as they chase him down narrow streets and broad fields. The ability to evoke such a soft corner in ‘normal’ people which will make them forsake their existence of convenience and comfort and come running back to him only to let him go to where he is actually destined to. The ability to unconditionally embrace people, in the blanket of one’s being, who need not a whirlwind romance but a sought after creed of patient affection and, above all, the ability to cruise through days of one’s life with cheek, vigor, movement, color, risk, love, laughter and smiles. When this registers in firmly you will ask yourself in all earnestness: ‘Were words required at all?’ No, I feel, words fail here.

Watch this one to see how something so sad can turn out something so reassuring just by the way of conceiving it, of feeling it. Watch this one to enable yourself in inching towards a purer you.  Watch this one and come out feeling closer to people you love. That’s it – watch this one.