Perchance to dream

With all the celebrations going on for 100 years of Indian cinema there is one very important and neglected element of the movie industry that deserves to get its due mdash the community of strugglers It is these dreamers who help build the magic of cinema the ones who fuel movie lore the ones who dare to dream Showbusiness is about success and stardom but failure has its place too mdash for there to be a top of the ladder there has to be bottom rung too Tough act Nadira Babbarrsquos new play Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan is about five strugglers and the ups and downs of their lives In Mumbai itrsquos a unique community that bands together lives in lowrent areas keeps track of casting opportunities and forms a support system for others like them who flock to Mumbai every day carrying with them a little money a contact number and the expectations of their families The rich aspirants get their parents to fund their films or at least their lavish lifestyles so they are not strugglers in the real sense of the term Nadira Zaheer Babbarrsquos new play Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan is about five such men sharing a one room flat in one of the numerous MHADA or PMGP tenements in Andheri One of them is a writer one is an aspiring music composer and three are actors who do some theatre till that big film or TV role lands their way The set design is perfect mdash a shabby flat in which they sprawl on the floor a tiny kitchen that is seldom stocked a clothesline across the room a small mirror for some quick preening and a temple Water has to be quickly filled before it runs out when the roof leaks a bucket is placed under the drip and with Mumbai practicality a dirty Tshirt and soap tossed into it mdash why waste precious water Whoever has money that day lends to the one who doesnrsquot And any clean piece of underwear is up for grabs in a hurry Their cell phone ring tones give some indication of where they come from and what they believe in mdash they havenrsquot yet reached the level of despair where they donrsquot believe in anything The Northern suburbs of Mumbai from Andheri and now creeping as far as Mira Road has these little rabbit warrens in which these strugglers live precariously on hope and prayer They have heard a long history of miracles mdash Ashok Kumar was a lab assistant Dilip Kumar was a fruitsellerrsquos son Dev Anand was a postal clerk discovered outside Filmistan Studio Akshay Kumar was a waiter when the New Wave cinema made stars of ordinary looking people the influx from the Northern hinterland shot up Earlier at least good looks were required mdash every fair and muscular Punjabi believed he could be another Dharmendra but whorsquod have imagined that Amol Palekar and Om Puri could become stars Nadira Babbar both in her capacity as the head of theatre group Ekjute and the wife of Raj Babbar has seen the struggler phenomenon up close and she says everything about the play is from her own experience of interacting with them Her observation of their life in their untidy little holeinthewall is bang on mdash the excitement when something works out the dejection with repeated failure the fake optimism conveyed to families over the phone the inability to be attend family functions how can they face people back home unless they have something to show for their time in Mumbai and the scraping for survival The landing up at friendsrsquo homes at meal times to cadge free food The keeping up pretences the ignoring of humiliation dropping portfolios at production and casting offices and waiting for luck to change Babbarrsquos buoyant five somehow keep bitterness at bay and take each day as it comes But in real life unless there is a sudden breakthrough in an audition and a good part offered the dreams slowly start crumbling From expecting to be cast as ldquoherordquo in a film and looking down on television when money and hope runs out they will accept just about anything even a bit part in a serial but always waiting for a miracle to happen Didnrsquot Shah Rukh start his career on TV And now Sushant Singh Rajput So there is still a chancehellip Every spot boy tea boy junior artiste light boy or stuntman had once come to Mumbai to become a star and then took whatever they got to stay close to the action mdash who knows when some filmmaker might discover them Her play is only about men with female strugglers itrsquos a completely different and sometimes sordid world of compromise Therersquos another play there one that many may not want to seeu00a0 Deepa Gahlot is an awardwinning film and theatre critic and an arts administratoru00a0