"Delhi Belly": Victory of Omega male.

Part Snatch, part The Big Lebowski , Delhi Belly relies on the good old formula of success: a Firangi plot and Aamir Khan in credits. Dragging an omega male, rather three of them- to the edge of desperation; traditionally known as “Loosers” in femino-feminist jargons, play main protagonist here. A clichéd Software Engineer, ‘Kanaida’ return; a dumbo-jumbo all-rounder lady Rajnikant (singing I love you (because I hate you) - again a stereotype of many potential Stars, Page 3 types; a bride-to-be stunning peanut-brain, all are part of the decorum. Tashi, played by Imran Khan, is the breakaway from a traditional Alpha male meant to subjugate everything around.

The uniqueness of the film resides in the fact that it’s Delhi seen through Mumbai prism. Geographical eponyms hardly make any difference to the screenplay. Mayank Shekhar aptly puts in his Saturday Hindustan Times review that this story could have taken place anywhere. It would be more appropriate to carry that baggage of a Mumbaikar Lens that has conceived many a beauties like Satya, Parinda and more recently Shor in the City. Novelty is damned or is sacrificed et the altar of such a resembling landscapes: Delhi-Mumbai. If yours sincerely is wrong, then let him wonder where does one find such a nice landlords (house owner in Delhi jargon), and three better-off-than-average professionals living in such dingy quarters? Mumbai lens is still suffering with the representation of a struggler’s image in the pop cinema.

The major positive aspect is the evolution of the Indian Cinema, as many would also like to make us believe- and then its acceptance by every Tom, D and H in Delhi: be it one of my moralist-vegetarian friend or a Literati down the South. One of the potent aspects of this evolution is the dumping of pre-marital sex taboo, same as ‘love only happens one’ taboo. Shekhar unjustly calls it a sex comedy. No, don’t give it the credit where it is not due. It’s a satire on a city, unlike many movies touching the human chord, this one reflects the lethargy of a city through many characters chosen randomly: a policeman, a wife-fearing baniya (Jain for surname), a Punjabi Delhi wife-beating brat, a ‘loose character’ photographer (term not borrowed from the film): he is also incidentally the most fascinating character. Yet, the problem with the film is that it fails to hurt anywhere, something unique in its genre.

Not to be ignored the Romantic aspect of the movie: realism in love. Triangles are just enlarged in order to accommodate all sentiments: hatred, jealousy, lust….The film might simply have been dubbed as a male-film à la Michel Mann and Pyar Kya Punchnama (Worth a watch too) had there been no girls like that Times of India journalist portraying more than a liberated woman à la Tarantino and Rodriguez.

Many people, it seems, are in a moral dilemma to watch or not to watch the movie because of its generosity with the amount of abuses. Aamir Khan, and previously Salman Rusdie too, have made similar voices concerning the “sentiments” concern: “there is no need to get offended by a book, just close it” said Rushdie somewhere. Aamir Khan echoes him in today’s Newspaper insinuating that one can always not watch this movie if feeling offended by the volume of abuses. These very abuses are not only meant to enhance the vulgarity quotient but form too a part of décor, as puts Suketu Mehta in his Maximum City: The abuses are “…punctuations , or emphasis, as innocuous a word as ‘shit’ or ‘damn’…”.