The connection. Review on Dor

Yeh Arzooo kaise rukey, Yeh hausla kaise jhuke

Dor is the story of a person who just doesn’t know how to give up. Call it stubbornness, survival or just sheer bull headedness.

Dor is also the story of unlikely friendships, the friendship of Zeenat and Meera but also the friendship of Zeenat with Behrupiya. Well, if you consider the Director’s previous record, this is something of a penchant for him.

Dor is the story of an innocent village girl, Meera (played competently by Ayesha Takia). All she knows and has in her short life is her village, a set of rather distant in-laws and the only person that even remotely looks like a friend, her husband Shankar. The fact that she can adore him, have fun with him and even wait for him when he leaves for distant shores forms the crux of her limited existence. Playing stapu with her friends, watches movies in the local village cinema and splashing the screen in her vibrant attire, the word for Meera is cute, cute and cute.

Dor is also the story of a confident sassy young woman, Zeenat (played brilliantly by Gul Panag) who knows what she wants and how to get it. An exact antithesis of Meera, she has the adoration of her husband and hardly bats an eyelid even as he leaves to work aboard. It is not just education that has made her, but an aggressiveness of the independent spirit. She may even be sometimes foolhardy, but is always sure.

Destinyspeaks unexpectedly when Meera and Zeenat in different corners of the country get news of a tragedy. It turns out that Zeenat’s husband has accidentally killed Meera’s. The only way for Zeenat to now save him is to obtain the signatures of Meera on a Maafinaama.

Will Zeenat find Meera? And will Meera sign the maafinaama? Can Zeenat help Meera escape the confines of her miserable existence?

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On the surface a simple unassuming story, the movie manages to touch such widely different aspects of the Indian life and culture.

1. The rather delightful difference between the characters of Zeenat and Meera.

   
   




2. The shocking transformation of a vividly dressed naughty girl into a white clad zombie.

   
   




3. The guilt that is heaped onto Meera’s head for being a normal, normal human with a normal desire for laughter – to eat a rasgulla, to dance again. A guilt that the frienship with Zeenat helps her kick.

   
   




4. The unexpected romance between Behrupiya(Shreyas Talpade), a cute thief who sets out to rob Zeenat and ends up falling in love with her. Though the focus of the movie is on the women, Talpade steals the show with his adorable clumsy clownishness. In the end, when Zeenat hugs him, you almost want to follow suit.

   
   




5. The irony of a society that limits the existence of its widows to save them from sin on one hand and sacrifices them on its altar of greed on the other when Meera’s father-in-law agrees to trade her in.

   
   




6. In different pockets, the movie is unexpectedly loaded with surprise goodies and subtle humour. 7. There is only one but superb song rendered by Amanat Ali Khan as far as I can remember. Nagesh Kukkoonoor, the Director himself appears in a cameo.

   
   

*I wonder to myself

*What was it that made Meera do what she did in the end? Was it that she realized that she could not blame her friend to blame for what was an accident of fate? Was it that she identified the real villain in the situation? Or was it that she could not condemn another human being to the life that she herself was leading?

I also know

The compulsion of Zeenat to hug Behrupiya, a complete stranger and then set him free – the one person who she knows has changed his ways only because he adores her. And that he is free is apparent in his song as he goes his way. The principle of friendship.

The compulsion of Zeenat to reach out to Meera in that last moment when she could have been lost forever. The principle of friendship.