The reality of Mumbai’s real estate...

A still from the drama ‘Last Man in Tower’

The irony of a film named Last Man in Tower, that released in theatres on September 11, would probably be lost on no one. The director, Ben Rekhi, is American (of Indian origin).

The film itself, set in a Mumbai housing society, of course, has nothing to do with the attack on the World Trade Centre, 2001, or its 25th anniversary.

Although one could argue, most of the world's major political events/disputes, somehow, point to the issue of real-estate, after all.

Responding to the unintended irony still, filmmaker Ben tells me, jetlagged, over a Zoom call from the US: "While the release date did play on our minds, it wasn't in our hands. And Last Man in Tower is the title of Aravind Adiga's book [that the film is based on], which couldn't be changed either."

Screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala. Pic/ Natasha Hemrajani; and director Ben Rekhi

Ben's uniformly well-performed pic is set in 2010. The book released in 2011. It's about an old, obstinate man, Yogesh Mishra (Manoj Bajpayee), standing like a dilapidated wall, getting in the way of fellow residents (such as Divya Dutta), and the builder (Boman Irani), who's offered a lottery of sorts, in return for their building's redevelopment.

Ben had been in talks with the author, Aravind, for a movie adaptation, over years.

Its timing is, however, more apt, when you consider how Mumbai, in 2026, feels like the redevelopment capital of the world - what with sounds of the jackhammer being the sprawling metropolis's jarring background score, and lunar craters simultaneously dotting its cramped, dug-up landscape.

I'd met the entertainingly erudite Aravind, once, when he was Time magazine's correspondent in Mumbai - hoping the escapades of that drunken night didn't show up in a book he was writing on the city then.

The casual fear was naturally unfounded. As with The White Tiger (2008; killer movie), he was still working on Indian fiction, including, much later, Selection Day (2016), that's a Netflix series.

Aravind wrote the evidently prescient Last Man in Tower from a Mumbai apartment that was then set for reconstruction. He'd got drawn to its negotiation process.

He asked Ben to head over to the building for research. It's still there. For privacy concerns, Ben doesn't name me the Mumbai building, but he says Vakola's "Vishram", as in the film, is a play on it.

During the homework, Ben also came across a lady, who had pledged her flat for redevelopment. As is perhaps mandatory, she was promised a temporary place for stay, until her new apartment came up.
The real-estate developer, in the meanwhile, defaulted on the loans. The "transition apartment" never materialised.

Ben recalls, "Over seven years, her old building was gone, the new building got stalled. She was homeless, penniless, crying in front of me. [You realise] these pain points are very real."

That said, with his film, he argues, the old man, from his PoV, is right, so are the residents, as is the builder: "It's what happens when several rights clash. Aravind gave me a law of physics that was perfect for the story, i.e., when an irresistible force meets an immovable object."

Last Man in Tower has been adapted for the screen by Mumbai-based writer Sooni Taraporevala (Salaam Bombay!, Such a Long Journey). She calls it a "universal story about how normal people can transform into monsters, and it's actually detailed with humour and wit in the book."

Here's what's changed in Mumbai since 2010, Sooni points out to me, "[Back then], I'm not sure the government, that is hand-in-hand with the builders, was so actively involved - making it completely easy for old buildings to come down; it's just laying out the red carpet, [often] regardless of laws and rules like the CRZ (Coastal Regulation Zone)."

I'm no legal expert. From my rudimentary understanding, Yogesh Mishra of Last Man in Tower, with a solitary veto-power in 2010, to halt redevelopment of his building, where he also built memories, would have lost his case, even before expressing dissent in 2026.

If I'm not mistaken, at present, you merely need majority approval (50 per cent plus residents) to greenlight redevelopment, upon agreed terms.

The fresh apartments, in turn, outprice original neighbourhoods to such an extent that it's hard to tell, once this Legoland is complete, if the new middleclass would ever be able to afford
Mumbai anymore.

Last Man in Tower is quasi-tightly edited at 94 minutes flat. It feels slightly stuff, though, set between two-three locations within an old-world housing complex, with a wide courtyard, that the filmmakers had a hard time zeroing-in on, since such few exist!

Ben reasons, "The external world is contained. The internal world is complex. If it feels claustrophobic, it's also why [the residents] are pushing to get out of the place."

Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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