Life in a…Metro (2007)

There were a few reasons for watching this movie. Actors that I have revered all my life including Konkona Sen, Irrfan Khan, KayKay and Shiney Ahuja have played a part in this flick. Anurag Basu has helmed the role of a director, whose Gangster (2006) was critically acclaimed and loved by the masses. The music by Pritam and the songs (lyricists Sayeed Quadri, Amitabh Varma, and Sandeep Shrivastava) are so contemporary and funky, I listened to it almost everyday in Europe, visualizing the tale against the urban backdrop of Mumbai. The question I begged to ask now was – when is Life in a…Metro releasing?

I have no clue when and why the name change happened but Metro (as I love to call it) is a hard hitting drama of 7 roles, set in the city of metropolitan Mumbai. Each one has a life which is more depressing then the other but connected in some way. Rahul (Sharman Joshi) is a call-centre employee in love with his colleague Neha (Kangana Ranaut). He’s hard-working and ambitious and has fixed goals to achieve in life for which he’s willing to sacrifice his principles. So while he slogs in the night taking calls from the US, his apartment is being used by his office seniors to get laid with the female associates. On the other hand, Neha’s flirtation with her boss Ranjeet (KayKay) is not known to many in the office, but unknowingly Rahul has to hand over the keys of his apartment to his boss to help him get a promotion as a Junior Manager. By the way, Rahul loves Neha the most.

Completely sidetracked and ignored by her husband Ranjeet and immersed in her duties for the family, Shikha (Shilpa Shetty) is searching for love to fill the vast vacuum left in her life. She spends her time visiting her old Bharatnatyam teacher Mrs. Shivani (Nafisa Ali Sodhi). On a rainy day therefore, she meets Akash (Shiney Ahuja) at a bus stop. The stranger in her life is a theater actor who she falls in love slowly. Meanwhile, Mrs. Shivani has a torrid past as well. An old lover called Amol (Dharmendra) left her for good to make a career for himself and is coming back to India to meet her sweetheart for one last time. This is the happiest moment, a gray-haired woman dumped in a old peoples home could experience.

28 year old Shruti (Konkona Sen Sharma) has a problem with no easy solution. Like every parent of an Indian girl child, Shruti’s have been pestering her to get married soon. The search for a valid partner, leads her to 38 year old “virgin” Debu a.k.a. Monty (Irrfan Khan) through a wedding website called Shaadi.com. The meeting disappointingly winds up quickly because Monty has a disgusting way of looking at a female’s anatomy. And Shruti is Shikha’s sister.

Each character has been beautifully crafted in the script written by Anurag Basu himself. Basu presents the dark truths of urban lifestyle in its most concrete form ever. Seemingly I would observe, he’s encroached upon Madhur Bhandarkar’s (Chandni Bar, Corporate, Page 3, Traffic Signal)territory which deals with similar hardcore concepts in all his films but Metro has more entertainment value in terms of the star cast, the ambiance it provides and obviously the composition and lyrics. Shilpa Shetty’s performance, as the neglected house wife compromising for her family’s sake is path breaking. This comes after her a forgotteble role in a dud called Shaadi Karke Phas Gaye Yaar with Govinda. KayKay as the uncompromising husband has a unique style of emoting through his eyes which is a special treat to watch. But one must give a standing ovation to Irrfan Khan’s talent in Metro. His comic capers are interspersed with the harsh realities of life, that provide ludicrous moments to the grave and sensitive narrative. Sharman as the young guy and Kangana, portray their crestfallen images quite convincingly. Both have been shown to become slaves of their own aspirations and inner desires and their bitter past which eventually leads them to concede their morals to find success in life. Hereafter they must find true love on their own or risk getting lost in time forever, like Amol says in the movie – if only he had listened to his heart and not his mind when the hour of reckoning had come.

Metro leaves you with some haunting melodies from Pritam. He had earlier composed music for Anurag’s Gangster (Bheegi Bheegi, Ya Ali, Tu Hi Meri Shab) . The noteworthy factor about this album are not just the songs, but the effort in bringing in a few singers to sing the same versions in their own styles. Baatein Kuch Ankaheen Si (Adnan Sami & Suhail), Alvida (KK and James) and O Meri Jaan (KK and Suhail). In going with the commercial demands of the markets, a few remix versions have also been included in this album. My favorites are In Dino sung by new found talent Soham reminds us of a lover who has found his love at last and is motivating her to live life lovingly. The song Rishtey by James talks about the tribulations of a relationship and the final moments nearing its end. A music video on this song was being currently aired on TV. Alvida is the final goodbye to a wonderful alliance of love, which is sung by James with such immense gusto. Suhail sings ‘O Meri Jaan’ which describes the moment a person loses his heart to someone. A truly madly lovable song in the movie and Suhail is a promising voice to look forward in the future. There is another version of the same song sung by KK but does not appear in the movie. A band comprising Pritam, James and Suhail was formed especially for this movie called the Metro Band and using them in filming all the six tracks in the movie.

Its this precise filming of the songs with the band members, where I thought the director completely lost his magical creativity which I was so proud of. In the backdrop of the narrative, singers Pritam, James and Suhail (the Metro Band), dressed in black, strum guitar in the movie, with the characters enacting the story nonchalantly. James with his pierced eye-brows, loose hair and wicked expressions, looks uncomfortable like his other colleagues (Pritam can’t help smiling non-stop). An occasional appearance is not objectionable, but the trio keep popping every place in the movie which makes the situation completely hysterical and takes away the charm of the running story. But the director Anurag Basu has explained the old theater concept of using a sutradhar and using the Metro band for this – “Similar to Bhavari and Banwani form of drama where singers are used as sutradhaar’s to narrate the story and take it further, I have moulded the concept to contemporary scenario and fitted into my screenplay,” he explains (Read More) . Towards the end of the movie, the Metro Band sings ‘Kar Salaam’, one of my other favorite songs and an appearance I thought just made sense only at that point of time. Don’t let the Metro Band discourage you from going to the theater though. Metro is rocking.