I have never ever written anything about a movie, never
having felt passionate enough for what goes on in the screen. But Queen has
made me get up from the comfort of my bed to pen this down at 12 in the night.
It has been more than a week since I watched Queen, but I
still am not over it. The songs are still playing on loop, and my heart is
still singing London Thumakda. The movie didn’t have any extraordinary
storyline, wasn’t shot in the Swiss Alps nor did it feature an exceptionally
good-looking cast. But what it did was make me extremely happy, the smile still
fresh on my face!
The scene with Rani pasting her wedding card on the wall in
an Amsterdam hostel keeps on playing in
my mind. How simple, yet so powerful. Life is never fair, never will be and you
will, at some time go through something that hammers at your shell. But why fixate
on that and make your life dejected and doleful when you could make it about
the next glorious happiness. Rani could have easily gone deep into the vicious
circle of self-pity but she decided to go out and explore Paris, the city of
Love alone, on what was supposed to be her honeymoon.
We all laughed out loud at the scene in ‘Kink-Kong : The Sex
Shop’ and smiled gleefully when Rani was discussing about breaking her
Virginity ka Vrath. We’ve seen such scenes exploiting the much hushed-up topic
of sex before, but the difference was that here our parents laughed with us, without
any awkward moment. Because Vikas Bahl knew hilarious from indecent, and the
word sex wasn’t just added for the sake of it. He treated it like it wasn’t sex
at all.
Maybe I’m partial towards it because it was at it’s core a
movie about travel. Backpacking in
Europe, living in hostels, meeting people from all over the globe, new
adventure every second. Isn’t that the dream? But what’s more to it is that how
a simple and homely girl from middle class Delhi does it. She hasn’t looked up
into Lonely Planet or made elaborate day-by-day minute-by-minute plans, instead
she goes to random clubs with her waitress friend, gets drunk, dances freestyle
on the stage and strips off her cardigan (and puts it away in her bag. Oh Rani!
). She gets the Dutch to eat extra-spicy golgappe with the help of a Japanese,
a French and an undeniably cute Russian. She shares her first kiss with a
passionate Italian chef and dances drunk in the red light district of
Amsterdam. She gets the true essence of a place so strikingly different from
anyplace she has ever known.
The most alluring part about the movie is the depth of each
character. Vijaylakshmi is fierce and a total hippie but a soft mother. Taka is tiny and comical
but has a tragedy he’s coming out from. Papaji is a typical overprotective papaji
but loosens the strings to give Rani freedom to go out on her own. Even Vijay
is first shown as a chep Delhi boy
chasing Rani. Tim is a big black ‘bouncer type’ French man but offers to sleep
in the hall so Rani can sleep in the
room. Rukhsar aka Roxette takes up prostitution for the sake of money, but isn’t
weepy or regretful about it. Rani embraces
all of them for who they are, not having her feelings ruled by any stereotypes.
She praises Rukhsar for taking up a job that is so ‘hard’, not shameful. She
lets the boys share the room, having overcome her initial fear and awkwardness.
She grows enough to not feel the need to make Vijay feel bad for leaving her
and instead thanks him for if it wasn’t for him, she would’ve have discovered
herself.
Rani reflects something in all of us. Our hopes, our
inhibitions, our baniyaness. She is
playing me on the big screen, and she is playing you.
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