A Suitable Boy Review
Vikram Seth’s most famous novel A Suitable Boy came out in 1993. Set in the ’50s It was a bulky read on the emergence of the new India, recently free from the yoke of the British. It narrated how the people were adjusting to the new changes. How they were being pulled by twin forces of both tradition and modernity in different directions. It showed a world populated by people who are looking both inward and outward, having one foot in the past and one in the present. The book is said to be 1500 pages long. It would have hardly been fair to summarise it as a two or even a three-hour film. So the present six-hour treatment seems just the right amount of time.
The screenplay adaptation of the novel is by Andrew Davies, who is considered the doyen of literary adaptations, having previously adapted Leo Tolstoy's War And Peace (2016) and Victor Hugo's Les Misérables (2017) for the BBC. Purists had criticised his stance of making his characters speak English and this charge was thrown at A Suitable Boy as well. It seems silly to say the actors should have spoken in Russian and French or Hindi, consider these are BBC adaptations, aimed primarily at a British audience.
The series revolves around Lata (Tanya Maniktala), a college student, whose mother wants her to marry a suitable boy. Like the black and white Hindi films of the ’50s and ’60s, she has three suitors -- Amit (Mikhail Sen), Haresh Khanna (Namit Das), and Kabir Durrani (Danesh Razvi) vying for her hand. The other strand revolves around her brother-in-law Maan (Ishaan Khatter) who has an affair with an older Muslim courtesan Saeeda (Tabu). The film makes noises about industrialisation, the capitalism vs socialism debate, caste and religion-based politics, the fall of grace of the landed gentry and other sundry concerns of a young India. One must again bear in mind that the series is produced by the BBC for largely an English audience, so the wounds of the Partition or the aftermath of the atrocities perpetrated by the British are glossed over here. While it doesn’t overtly paint India as the land full of heat, dust, strange odours and snake charmers, it’s indeed guilty of hinting towards that. Director Nair chooses to concentrate over romance rather than social commentary. Like Jane Austen’s heroines, Lata shuttles between her three suitors before finally making her mind about one. Maan isn’t sure whether what he feels is love or infatuation. He does get to become a man, in more ways than one, because of the experience.
The series is teeming with good actors. Vinay Pathak, Vijay Raaz, Vijay Varma, Ranvir Shorey, Randeep Hooda. Vivaan Shah, Vivek Gomber, Kulbhushan Kharbana, Sheeba Chadha, Shahana Goswami, Sharvari Deshpande, Rasika Dugal -- everyone thankfully gets their moment in the sun. Though to be fair, most have got blink and you miss it roles and should have gotten a bigger chunk, given their calibre. Ram Kapoor, who plays Ishaan Khatter’s father and is the ‘good’ politician who is very much concerned about the rising Hindutva wave is in fine form here. And so is Aamir Bashir as Nawab of Baitar, who plays his friend and who has second thoughts about not migrating to Pakistan like the rest of his family.
Tabu has teamed up with Mira Nair after The Namesake (2006). She had much more to do in that film than here. As a world-weary courtesan, who has secrets of her own, she’s grace personified and lends a certain gravitas to the proceedings. Ishaan Khatter, as the impulsive Maan, is a bundle of energy and his hi-jinks behaviour suits his character to a T. He finally grows up, at great cost to himself and to others and that loss of innocence is palpable indeed. The series belongs to Tanya Maniktala, who at first, is shown averse to the idea of marriage but grows to consider it after feeling the need of a companion. There is less lust and more romance to her story but she too gets a heartbreak, before finding the mandatory happy ending. She’s a natural as Lata and is certainly an actor to watch out for in the future.
Trailer : A Suitable Boy
Pallabi Dey Purkayastha, October 24, 2020, 12:16 AM IST
STORY: Based on Vikram Seth’s 1993 novel by the same name, this six-part miniseries is set in 1950-51 and centres around a bright university student Lata Mehra (Tanya Maniktala) and her three suitors – Kabir Durrani (Danesh Razvi), Amit Chatterji (Mikhail Sen) and Haresh Khanna (Namit Das).
REVIEW: When Lata questions the concept of arranged marriages at her elder sister Savita’s (Rasika Duggal) wedding, you get overambitious and think for a second, ‘a rebel among conformists… wow!’ But, then again, reality dawns on you: the setting is 1950 and India’s still getting accustomed to being free (both in spirit and on paper) and no matter what they claim at social gatherings, back in the day, women did succumb to the unrealistic demands of their folks. She is headstrong but, sadly, not an exception to the aforementioned rule.
The wide-eyed, saree-clad earthy beauty is studying English Literature at the University of Brahmpur and likes the literary works of John Donne and James Joyce. But her widowed mother Rupa Mehra (Mahira Kakkar) is always panicky and overwhelmed, and wants Lata to graduate and ‘marry the boy she will choose’. Lata’s made her own world – compromising books and buddies, charisma and curiosity – and has already found herself a dashing young boy to run off with; her Muslim classmate Kabir. After a melodramatic showdown at the Mehra household over her lover’s ‘unacceptable’ religion, Lata is parcelled off to live with her brother Arun’s (Vivek Gomber) family in Calcutta. A few alleys deep, an arrogant tanker of a king, Raja of Marh (Manoj Pahwa), is hell-bent on erecting a temple right next to an old mosque and Islamic leaders are not happy about this audacious move. A silent protest is launched, which, quite predictably, takes a violent turn when the local police open fires at the protestors and the simmering tension between these two dominant religious groups boils over; independent India becomes the hotbed for communal fanaticism.
In a parallel world, Revenue Minister of India, Mahesh Kapoor (Ram Kapoor), is livid about his younger son Maan’s (Ishaan Khatter) brazenness at the Holi party, where, in an intoxicated state, he had thrown the Home Minister of India (Vinay Pathak) in a makeshift pool. Another aspect of his life that seems to be keeping this seasoned politician under undue stress is the unfair treatment of the poor peasants in the hands of a few ruthless feudal lords. Kapoor senior is perceived as the messiah of the poor and he himself wants to be an agent of change in this class-divided society but hurdles’ aplenty. Maan, always uninhibited and seeking thrill in misadventures, pursues a courtesan notorious for her liaisons with the local men. “I am so much older than you, what do you see in me?” asks Saeeda Bai (Tabu), perplexed by his affixation with her. “No one’s ever meant anything to me till I met you,” answers Maan. To sum up this Mira Nair magnum opus, the lives of the Kapoors, Mehras, Khannas and even a Durrani are intertwined and amid all the chaos and commotion, little Lata must find her suitable boy and there are three suitors to choose from. The other two being: a plain John with a rather odd passion for shoemaking and paan, named Haresh Khanna and then we have Meenakshi’s eloquent younger poet of a brother, Amit Chatterji. One’s all heart, the other all brains and another a fine blend of both – on some level, all three sweep Lata off her feet but who does she choose as her partner-in-crime for life?
The book this adaptation is based on was some 1300 pages long – one of the lengthiest in the history of novels – and a milestone in Indian writings in English back in the 90s. And ‘A Suitable Boy’ – the series – was originally written for BBC One by Andrew Davies (of ‘War & Peace’, ‘Les Misérables’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility’ fame). Perhaps it is the eyes of the outsider that is responsible for an interfaith couple (frankly, any couple for that matter) locking lips at dawn near a temple in the 50s and a bold seductress of a wife, Mrs. Meenakshi Mehra (Shahana Goswami) displaying her heaving bosom (one plunging blouse neckline at a time) at high-tea parties and women resorting to sensuous Tango with their conservative mother-in-laws looking on. Hands down, Davies’ idea and depiction of India is for the western audience.
You and I are not familiar with Davies’ and director Mira Nair’s version of India. Maybe in the near future, not just now.
The characters have many shades to their whimsical personas – some effective and some easily forgettable – but all of them speak fluent English with an accent that *is not* Indian at all. Guess we have a long way to go, as far as curbing cultural appropriation, is concerned. To make matters worse, Hindi and Urdu are incorporated into the dialogue, to compensate for an Indian story laid out in a foreign language. If anything, the occasional conversations in these vernacular languages break the flow of the scenes. The story is presented in a condensed form and hence the hurried tone – for instance, it would have been interesting to witness the unspoken sexual tension between Nawabzaade Firoz Ali Khan (Shubham Saraf) and Maan, and to be able to understand the plight of a family torn apart by the Partition. At close to 60 minutes per episode, ‘A Suitable Boy’ had no choice but to fast-forward the narrative and touch upon the major plot points, which explains the lack of character growth and very little gravitas rendered to crucial scenes.
Newbie Tanya Maniktala has a million-dollar smile and one of the biggest hindrances is that since she flashes it so often, we do not get to see the plethora of emotions her character experiences at various crucial points in her life. Danesh Razvi is the fellow literature enthusiast and Lata’s first crazy stupid love; passionate and pretty, Razvi channels the hopeless romantic Kabir with utmost ease. Mikhail Sen takes on the role of a nature poet who writes best ‘about things that he doesn’t have an attachment with’, Sen is suave and his efforts to do justice to an artiste-in-demand shines through his performance. As Saeeda Bai Firozabaadi, Tabu is a stunner to look at and an absolute delight to watch on screen. Those big, flowly shararas, a statement nose pin and a certain kind of calmness in her character portrayal makes Saeeda the most liked amongst all. Her crackling chemistry with Ishaan Khatter is troubled, twisted but also a cinematic marvel. They are in sync as a dysfunctional couple and look absolutely drunk in love. Ishaan, too, shows immense range as an obnoxious rich brat, as a passionate partner and a friend who would take on hooligans to protect his Muslim brother Firoz. Shubham Saraf plays the blue-eyed boy Firoz Ali Khan and he is royalty personified. One should watch out for his equation with Khatter. Similarly, Ram Kapoor and Mahira Kakkar play their parts well as worked up parents, although Kakkar’s version of Mrs. Mehra seems a bit over-the-top on several occasions.
‘A Suitable Boy’ is a glamourised and Bollywood-esque rendition of its source material. While a lot has been compromised with in order to fit everything in six hours and a few more minutes, it still makes for an interesting watch… all thanks to the solid cast!
