I can still remember when we schoolboys together bought or borrowed The Matrix on VCD from a music store or the rare neighbourhood video library. We all became fanatics and as we returned to school after watching it for the umpteenth time on the weekends, we were obsessed during the lunch breaks, not with the futuristic world portrayed, but rather to imitate that iconoclast scene when Keanu Reeves' Neo dodged those bullets fired by an Agent. And we wished fervently if only our humdrum schoolboy hours could be as exciting and slick as if rendered in bullet time.
The best thing about Vasan Bala's Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota is that, at heart, it captures that heady, unabashed moment of ecstasy that we boys felt inevitably in those years, ecstasy fuelled by the flights of fancy and fists of fury that we saw on the small screens of our colour televisions in an age when tech-savvy devices and gadgets were still a generation away. Being the blissfully preposterous tale of a wet-behind-the-ears boy, rather than the mard of the schlocky title, who feels no pain and lives out all his action movie fantasies for just the fun of it, it is a whole treasure trove of nostalgia at times when we boys could ignore the approaching glimpse of the complexities of adulthood for the time being with a couple of hours of pure, guileless escapism.
And what glorious escapism it is, this deliciously nutty film that forsakes logic and rationale in favour of a knee-high, boyish approach to pulpy storytelling that feels inspired rather than just silly or ridiculous. Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota is a rollicking Boy's Own adventure, not just for our generation, but for almost every generation of young men who grew up drunk on movies that held them in heady thrall. Bala, who also co-wrote Anurag Kashyap's criminally overlooked Bombay Velvet, itself about a reckless, cocky youngster who is inspired by a gangster film to become one himself, has given us a hilariously thrilling yet heartfelt comic book story on celluloid featuring an irresistible boy hero who never really has to try and fit into the cape of machismo.
First of all, however, let me introduce to you all the girl. Named Supri, which might be shorthand for Supergirl, she is the one who packs not only the slick moves but also the spunk, literally the film's real superheroine and the one who, despite having to contend with a charming feckless boy at her side, really deserves the screen-time that the film goes out of its way, at the risk of digressing from the said hero's narrative arc, to lend her suitably. She is a positively striking and plucky lass who rarely smiles, especially when kicking ass, and while we might equate that with a hard-boiled attitude, Bala surprises us, not pleasantly, by implying adroitly that she cannot quite muster up enough courage to face the more insidiously devious men of her own life.
And my heart goes out to the writer-director for fleshing Supri's parallel narrative with such feeling, giving her first a dashing entry of daredevilry, punctuated, in a casually ingenious touch with a lovely, lovely vintage film song about an effervescent lass herself and then, some reels later, making her wonder, in her pained bewilderment, as to why she still has no idea of what she has to do with her life. And yet, assured of the infectiously childlike spirit of his material, he even gifts her a fittingly flight of fancy with her weary and easily domineered mother herself egging her to flee and follow her heart. This she does, leading to more crackerjack moments on the screen, more of which I will talk later.
Let's turn to the boy now, named Surya, like one of those handsome alpha-male men who play those larger-than-life heroes in South Indian blockbusters. Not unlike Peter Parker, he is not without his share of demons; his mother is killed in an accident when attacked by chain-snatchers and his overly protective father turns, as time goes by, into a bumbling middle-aged embarrassment. But the film portrays these plot elements lightly and broadly, as if with an airbrush, more besotted with how Surya, diagnosed with a congenital insensitivity to pain, rejoices at the very liberating, if even suicidal, thought of feeling no pain even when stabbed by school bullies with pointed dividers. Next to a deceased mother whom he imagines to kill even the Terminator, the one who shares this same knee-high boyish enthusiasm and also gets the strapling drunk on VHS tapes streaming kung-fu chop exploits of many a master, is his goofy and warm-hearted grandfather who also teaches him to say ,'Ouch' when he is supposed to.
The boy learns quite unexpectedly the harsh, inevitable truth of life that happy, cinematic endings and fists of fury are entertaining only within the space of the television screen but when he transforms into a strapping lad with swimming googles and a backpack with a water bottle, Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota impels him to rediscover his memories in a Bombay that has changed so much beyond recognition. Bala takes his hero on an impulsive, even foolhardy pursuit of his boyhood hero, a one-legged karate maverick who can take on 100 fighters in one go, and while this is all that is to the flaky plot, concerned only mildly with some sibling rivalry over a gold chain, the film also deconstructs the idyllic idea of the idols that we worship and slobber over, remarking that there is more vulnerability to them than what we watch in the small television screen.
These are things that Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota has no business to talk about and yet it does, which alone makes it a subversive film for its genre. And yet, if all this sounds serious or sardonic, trust me that the film is anything but those things. It is, in fact, such a rollicking lark with both enough down-and-dirty kung-fu daredevilry and dastardly wit to keep the thrills and laughs coming at breakneck speed.
The sight gags are brilliant. Surya, climbing up to the roof of a building belonging to his childhood, cries, nostalgically, 'Geraftaar', and automatically, as if on cue, some folks are captured. A little later, he leaps into a police station, contemplating some heroic rescue, only to find policemen befuddled and much later, meeting the said karate-chop hero, the two share stories and memories lying blissfully in the light of a beer bar out of which a drunkard stumbles. Nods to films are aplenty and used brilliantly in context, not just the climactic standoff inspired by Karate Kid or other obvious references to those martial arts classics of yore but also in the most unexpected places, like when a reference to George Lucas' first ever film is tossed ingeniously in between a seemingly stray joke on officious bureaucracy that hits closer than it should.
Newcomer Abhimanyu Dassani is quite a find as Surya, his affable and all-too-recognisable chocolate-boy-next-door essence perfect for a boy who remains worth rooting for even as he does not quite feel pain like the rest of us; the way he shyly reveals that he can nevertheless feel that special feeling is wonderfully endearing. Ably supporting him is the brilliant but usually under-utilised Mahesh Manjrekar as the said grandfather, relishing a role crafted lovingly for his warm and fuzzy charm and as for Gulshan Devaiah, well, well, well. The equally under-utilised actor is in terrific form here, given enough space to wield both a scruffy comic spontaneity as the swaggering, evil kingpin twin Jimmy and the world-weary self-pity of the karate master Mani himself. He is a ludicrous and uproarious treat, true to the film's oddball spirit.
And yet, more than these men, this film is made special by the girl. Radhika Madan, who stormed Vishal Bhardwaj's Pataakha with combustible spontaneity, is this film's soul and beating heart and its true heroine. Her Supri is a winsome and feisty blend of a tough, kickass exterior and a vulnerable and believable core that makes her character so worth rooting for her in own way and the actress aces both the sides confidently, making for a very entertainingly fiery leading lady for ages. One single scene, when she celebrates the reckless thrill of her new-found freedom, is worth the price of the ticket.
And so is much of Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota, a film, which like the VHS tape of your favourite action film at boyhood, like Enter The Dragon, Drunken Master or even our very own hard-core masala potboilers, should be treasured like a classic, even with the inevitable scratches in the print. They don't matter; rather they are a part of the charm of watching your boyhood fantasies explode fantastically on the screen. As Manjrekar's Aajoba says, let's discover our childhood again today.
My Rating: 4 and a half stars out of 5
