Coolie (1983)

            I’ve been meaning to write a review of this movie these past few days, but somehow, I kept deterring myself from it. For reasons unknown to me, or perhaps, for reasons consciously ignored by me, I have seemingly avoided the movie by focusing on the movies that surrounded it, or mentioning incidents that were a direct result of this infamous movie. But! It seems that fate has brought you, my sparse readers, and I to this day, August 2^nd, to speak of this movie.

            1983’s Coolie, directed by Manmohan Desi, starring Amitabh Bachchan, Waheeda Rehma and Rishi Kapoor. I think anyone who is at all familiar with Mr. Bachchan knows and understands the significance of this particular Manmohan Desi masterpiece.

            The lore that surrounds this movie has to be addressed before I can get to the movie, plot and music itself. Mr. Bachchan was very seriously injured during the shooting of this movie. An accident occurred during one of the fight scenes, a misplaced punch that, as far as I’ve been able to gather, punctured Mr. Bachchan’s stomach, causing long-lasting internal damage, and immediate danger. He was rushed to the hospital that night, with very little hope being given to anyone about his survival. I remember reading somewhere, perhaps on Mr. Bachchan’s own blog about the incident, he had clinically died for a few moments. And when the doctors had given up hope, Mrs. Bachchan had noticed his toes had moved. Mr. Bachchan spent six months in the hospital due to this accident, with fans from all over India and the world praying for him, and making pilgrimages to the hospital.

            He eventually made it back to the studios and picked up the movie where it had been left off, and the movie was completed and became a blockbuster. But the accident had long-lasting effects, its aftermath very recently having manifested itself, resulting in Mr. Bachchan being hospitalized recently. I don’t want to go into detail about the illness, I don’t want to speculate and I’m too scrupulous to state something without citing my information. There have been better writers, more informed and better equipped writers who have reported on this incident. In fact, Mr. Bachchan was kind enough to write about the Coolie accident on his blog. Here is the link to the day he wrote about the accident: http://srbachchan.tumblr.com/post/25089103363

            I write about the movie, about the accident in this movie as a fan of Mr. Bachchan. I was born in 1990 (the day Agneepath was released in fact) in a country not too far away from India. When the country of India was in a state of prayer for Mr. Bachchan, I wasn’t even an idea in my parents plans for the future. So I can’t say I was affected, I can’t say I prayed for him like the thousands that had gathered outside Breech Candy Hospital in Mumbai. I can, however, say that as a fan in 2012, slowly discovering the golden movies throughout Mr. Bachchan’s expansive career, Coolie always sends chills down my spine. In respect to the incident, the scene where Mr. Bachchan is injured in the movie is paused, and script appears on the screen in Hindi, Urdu and English, stating “"This is the shot in which AMITABH BACHCHAN was seriously injured". 

            Now you all have gotten to know me.

            You know that before watching any movie, I read up on it. I read the plot overviews, I go on imdb.com and read the “did you knows” that include trivia. When I read about the incident, around the time that news was pouring out through Mr. Bachchan’s own twitter and blog about his hospitalization and abdominal surgery, I became terrified of watching this movie that almost deprived me of Mr. Bachchan. I would be born seven years after the accident, yet I always feel chilled at the “what ifs” that flow through my mind, thoughts I dare not utter or write.

            But I finally got over it. Finally found an immaculate copy of Coolie with English subtitles and settled down to watch it with dread in my heart.

            And when I found myself laughing, found myself downloading the songs on to my ipod, found myself texting my sister and telling her “you need to see this movie, it’s awesome!”, it’s suffice to say I was shocked. I watched Coolie expecting myself to hate it, to cringe the entire time and never want to watch it again for fear of that scene, and found myself wanting to watch the movie again.

            And watching the scene of the accident with thoughts that God really was watching over Mr. Bachchan that day…perhaps in a sense, God was watching over every Bachchan fan in the universe.

            The plot focuses around the character of Iqbal, a porter, who’s parents were ripped away from him due to the actions of a cruelly evil man named Zafar Khan (fittingly portrayed by the equally evil Kader Khan). The story is about Iqbal seeking justice for the porters, demanding fair treatment by the railway company, and praying for the mother who’s memory has been erased from the traumatic events that separated her from her husband and son. It’s a masterpiece Manmohan Desi “lost and found” story. Rishi Kapoor, one of my favorite actors to watch, has a very interesting part in this movie as a drunkard newspaper man, who befriends Iqbal.

            I love any movie that has songs that end up on my iPod, and this movie had plenty of songs for me to love and dance to. The best being Iqbal (Mr. Bachchan) and Sunny’s (Mr. Kapoor) “lumbuji tinguji” (sung by Shabbir Kumar and Shailender Singh) where they fight over who gets the reward for returning a runaway girl to her colorful father (Mukri). I’m 6’1, my sister who is like my best friend is 5’4. This song involves the two characters referring to each other as “tinguji” (shorty) and “lumbuji” (tall-y…basically). So, it’s become our theme now. Other wonderful songs like “Sari duniya ka bhoj hum uthate hain” where Iqbal sings of the life of a porter, sun by Shabbir Kumar. And the song “accident ho gaya”, sung by Shabbir Kumar and Asha Bhosle, which is either the perfect song for this movie considering what happened to Mr. Bachchan, or the worst song choice possible. Either way, I love the song.

            The amount of comedy in this movie is amazing as well, and unexpected as far as I was concerned the first time I found my courage and watched it. The cooking/radio scene, of course, is a classic that had me rolling on the floor laughing. Another comedic scene is one where the porters, in protest to their mistreatment, take over the boss’s house, claiming it as theirs until their housing is arranged properly. The entire scene is of Iqbal hilariously abusing the boss, while Sunny the reporter takes pictures and asks obnoxious questions. I laugh every time the boss Om Puri (Om Shivpuri) tells Sunny to “shut up”…it is a style with which I have taken to tell people to shut up. 

I think many people who love Mr. Bachchan consider August 2^nd to be his second birthday. It is the day where God gave him back to us, a day that has become celebrated.

            In the scheme of things, I am nobody. Just a college student, working now, going through enough emotional turmoil to dedicate an entire summer to watching Mr. Bachchan’s movies. I have no money, no fame, no name. Just another faceless fan of Mr. Bachchan’s with a story to tell and nobody to read it.

            But I must say the following:

            Whenever I read Mr. Bachchan’s blog or tweets, I always hear his constant confusion, his inability to understand why so many people are vying for his attention on Twitter or through his blog. His confusion at this need for people to get his attention confuses me to a certain degree as well. So, as one of the fans who is shamelessly vying for Mr. Bachchan’s attentions, I have take it upon myself to attempt to explain why I am here.

            I speak for myself of course, but perhaps, someone out there shares my reasoning as well, maybe someone else out there has had a life experience similar to mine and found a distraction, and subsequently inspiration, through Mr. Amitabh Bachchan. I have faced death, I have faced grave illnesses, I have hidden truths to protect my loved ones and found myself rotting inside as a consequence. I have traveled long distances, down dark alleyways with no light at the end and so many snaking twists and turns that no cartographer in the world can map them. And I have done it all alone, for the sake of my family. But I lost myself in those winding, twisted, dark roads. One day I looked and my soul was gone, yet I breathed.

History nerd got excited at the symbolism of the hammer and sickle

            Then I saw Agneepath and learned that life was a path of fire that needed to be walked with a lion’s heart. I watched Khuda Gawah and learned that life was nothing without the honor of keeping ones promises. I loved Deewar and found myself burrowing deep into a soul I thought was forgotten for some answer to the questions the movie raised within me. I watched Sharaabi and learned that money was of no value.

            I read about the Coolie accident and watched Department, and found out that you can fight life, and win.

          

So Mr. Bachchan, that’s why I vie for your attention. It’s because through your movies, you’ve forced me to look for something, for someone, I had assumed I lost long ago in those dark dark alleyways.  

Love and respect,

Ishtar