From Howrah Bridge to Kahaani: Changes in the cinematic representation of the city of Calcutta in two Bollywood films (1958 -2012)

From Howrah Bridge to Kahaani: Changes in the cinematic representation of the city of Calcutta in two Bollywood films (1958 -2012)

A careful revisiting of the two films Howrah Bridge and Kahaani seems to reveal that certain tropes are used in both the films (despite them being separated by so many years and hence embodying so many changes) albeit imbued with different set of meanings. Stereotypes, both colonial and post colonial, surrounding the city have been subverted through the genre of mystery. This is presumably seen here in the unabashed acceptance of the so called tag of being an ‘unplanned city’ by the British and that of an urban squalor feeding off a cultural heritage as commented upon by various writers, politicians who left the city in the face of economic decline and better prospects elsewhere.

Below I have delineated certain key points around which I shall compare the two films and their representations of the city.

1. Mysterious City

In both Howrah Bridge (1958) and in Kahaani (2012), the city of Calcutta is seen as mysterious.

A dialogue from the former between Prem Kumar and Edna is a case in point. On being asked by Edna, “Apko kaisa laga Calcutta”, Prem says, “Pasand aya par bahut bada hai, aur kuch ajeeb, mysterious, tumhare mafik….Par mujhe seher se koi umeed nahin, par tumse hai”

Again in Kahaani (2012) the song goes on to describe Calcutta as “Dil ka bazar hai, par thoda sa bizarre hai/…..Aisa sheher hai jiska double role ha/Chalte rehta phir bhi jata kahin nahin/ are baba kuch to gondogol hai”. Vidya Bagchi, says that every person has two names, two faces, just like the city.  Yet again Bob Biswas performs a hysterical act in a public place to scare Vidya by saying, “Madam, Kolkata dangerous city. Yahan kabhi bhi kisi ko bhi kuch bhi ho sakta hai. Bojhaan, bhlaor jonne. Laut jaiye”. This accentuation of the city mysterious, almost to the point of seeming ludicrous, is a trope to subvert the dominant image to one’s own advantage. In this case to literally force a perceived enemy to pack their bags and flee the city.

Moreover, right at the outset, both the films have been described as belonging to mystery-suspense/thriller genre

2. First Contact:

In Howrah Bridge, an immigrant businessman Madan Kumar from Rangoon gets killed in Calcutta. Prem Kumar, his brother goes to Calcutta for business (but in reality to search for his brother’s killers). His first encounter with the city shows him being pushed into a luxurious Calcutta hotel, with a beautiful dancing girl seducing him. As if the city was personified as the seductive dancing girl.

In Kahaani too the protagonist of the film, Vidya Bagchi, is a Bengali residing in London. On arriving at the Calcutta airport (again a transit space like the hotel) she is surrounded by taxi drivers and rental car drivers with the hope of catching a ‘prospective buyer/passenger’. Vidya is bewildered and finally agrees to be with a person whom she seems to connect with intuitively. The city is here being shown as one that still has her heart in place, despite degeneration on other levels.

3. Spatial Politics

In Howrah Bridge, all the action takes place in the north of the city where the Chang Hotel is situated in Chinabazar and Barabazar is spoken of as the hub of jewelery making and buying. Only the first scene begins with the Dock near the Writers Building.

In Kahaani, the south of the city like Kalighat, Triangular Park, Park Street, Camac Street, Monalisa Guest House (although imbued with a certain class politics in the film) is under the spotlight. These are the areas where the upholders and makers of law, order and culture reside. Whereas as soon as the question of the secret hideout of Milan Damji ( the killer ) arrives, the images shift to the North of the city with its  Nakhoda Masjid, the teeming millions jostling with each other on the busy, cramped streets, teasing us into the small bylanes of Barabazar and Iqbalpur.

Besides, Satyaki (Parambrata) who is a police officer, is shown to work and not live in South Calcutta Kalighat, making his trips across his workplace and home using the tram (a hint possibly to the bari/basha dichotomy of 19^th century). So the south of the city, is seen as a workplace and not residence for certain sections of the service class.

These spatial references besides taking into account the particular historical moment also reek of the colonial division of the city into black and white towns which again were contained within certain power relationships. In the films, though the division remains, it is however imbued with new kinds of meanings. Moreover the spatial expansion of the city and its growth into suburban areas is also reflected in the new areas/localities included in Kahaani that were not so present in Howrah Bridge.

4. Using the songs in the films to understand streets and culture of Calcutta

A song from Howrah Bridge reveals not just the streets and their social function but also the people who reside in it

“ it ki dukki paan kaa ikkaa, kahi jokar kahi sattaa hai

suno ji ye kalakattaa hai

taali gaj ki jhil pe baabu aae rup ke daas, jhil kinaare badhati jaae matavaalo ki pyaas

naa pocket me maal hai baabu, naa kapadaa naa lattaa hai

suno ji ye kalakattaa hai

chauragi ke chauk me dekho matavaale bangaali, rasagulle si mithi baate inaki shaan niraali

kahi benarji kahi mukarji, kahi ghosh kahi dattaa hai

suno ji ye kalakattaa

ye basti hai aag kaa dariyaa isame howrah pul hai, apani jaan bachaa lo baabu varanaa dibbaa gul hai

sar par paanv rakh kar bhaago katane vaalaa pattaa hai

suno ji ye kalakattaa hai”

Again the streets are described in the 1984 movie Tinmurti in the following ways, revealing the mystery of the city (though this film does not form part of my comparison, I decided to include a song from it, to reveal the continuity of the idea of the city mysterious even in an 1984 bollywood film, marking a continuity with the two films already spoken of)

“ Emon Majar shohor, Bujhli Bondhu

Kolkata ek bodo Golokdhandha

Bhul korbe boubazar e, bou kinte gele

Dekbe na to ekta seyal , sealdah e ele

Hatibagan e nei to hathi

Bagbazar e rosogolla jogotjora naam

Phoolbagan ne nei to bagan, o phool

Shyambazar e baje na to shyamer bashi bhai

Ballygunge e bali nei

Tallygunge e tali

Sudhu thaken kalighat e ma kali….”

In Kahani (2012) the songs ascribe certain traits to the city, instead of describing it only in terms of its streets and material culture. A mixture of both Bengali, hindi and English is used in the song to make it relatable as a city to different groups of people and different parts of the country who consume and who imagine the city.

“Kolkata khwaishon armaano ka achaar hai
Jitne bhi door jaao, Dil se na far hai
Kolkata dekho toh baaqi duniya bekaar hai
Strong hai powerful hai phir bhi lachar hai
Bilkul naya hai
Phir bhi Beete kal mein ye raftaar hai
Aami shotti bolchi….”

5. Dopplegangers?

In both the films, nearing their climax, the maze of streets of Calcutta and its labyrinth like nature is being used as a tool to show the chase between two opposing forces (Bob Biswas/ Shreekanth vs Police or Vidya vs Milan Damji in case of Kahaani ; and between Edna and Chang’s men in howrah Bridge) The confusing bylanes of the city and its so called imagery of lack of any planning is being subverted in this game of good versus evil which takes centre stage in literary and cultural concerns of the times.

It is uncanny that both have a certain shot of the river right below the Howrah Bridge, dividing the river and the ghats into two halves. The similarities in the scenes around the Reception desk in both the movies lingers like a ‘spectre’.

The climax in both is also eerily similar. Deception is used to reveal the truth. However, the implied meanings in both seems to be of a different kind.

6. Changes in the Image of Calcutta as the embodiment of feminine virtue and of progress

In Howrah there is a sense of optimism to what the city’s future might be. The city is also yet not so sure of itself. It has multi communities and classes of people residing within it from the Sikhs to the Chinese to immigrants from Rangoon. Each of them flirts with the ‘female’ personified city in their own ways (city personified as the figure of Madhubala/Edna ). Some bribe it with money, some with love. Ultimately the city chooses love but has also learnt the tricks of deception to reach the truth. The city is shown to be young, full of possibilities, rich in economic activities, trade networks with Singapore, Hong Kong albeit in illegal goods like Opium, stolen dragon masks etc. The city pulls people into its vortex. Yet at the same time deception is taken as natural and used as a tool to fool people for rightful means. Crime and violence are corollaries to prosperous places and the city of Calcutta is no exception to this, in the film. Cultural representations like the song “Mera Nam Chin Chin Chu” with Helen dressed as a Chinese young lady, and the Sikh taxi drivers celebrating their workplace through Punjabi dance/songs shows the variety of cultural practices co-existing in the city.

In Kahaani however, a sense of disappointment with what the city has become is evident in the fact that the city is trying to speak through a voice of understanding its limits but also positing a replacement to its economic-political displacement by seeking a uniqueness in its emotional rhetoric of city with a heart, a place where truth still resides. Here again the city is personified as a woman, albeit one which is fairly strong in her position and can fight for and win her rights despite being vulnerable. (As against in Howrah Bridge where the city personified as a woman was not so sure of her position and weighing her options).

Moreover, culturally the city in Kahaani is representing itself through the festival of Durga Puja. The city has taken a definite economic and its corresponding cultural position. It has created this homogenous cultural symbol that would subsume and incorporate all the varying cultural strands, unlike in Howrah Bridge where the economic variety and activities replicates itself in representation of the cultural diversity of the city.

7. Deception, selfishness, class, gender in the urban Calcutta

There are layers of deception and truth in both the films, where one is left wondering till the end what is what and who is who and for what and for whom. This game of hide and seek to describe the city and its people is a trope in both the films.  

In both the films, the protagonist seeking justice is seen to get help from the so called dregs of society. A dancer in a hotel, a ‘tanga’ driver in the case of Howarah Bridge and the young policeman and the child in the case of Kahani. They seem to find solidarity with the so called ‘other’ protagonist, both seeking justice in a mysterious/selfish city.

The movie starts with a person of the lower class using the Howrah Bridge as a resting point to smoke up ‘chillam’ whereas it is used as a point to throw a murdered individual by the upper classes. There is also this sense of aspiration to acquire the status higher than oneself through the acquisition of money, goods by the rural folk in the film, however this aspiration is constantly questioning the idea of morality and loss of innocence in the face of it. One of the film’s characters is unabashedly selfish and asks for his commission in every job that he facilitates. Money is seen as a ‘masculine’ space constantly teaching and being overpowered by the ‘feminine’ essence of the city which is pure, innocent, vulnerable yet moral.

Immigrants like Chinese do not have allegiance to the city, they are just there for making money and leave the second they feel threatened. Class boundaries are self constituted as a device to one’s ends in Howrah Bridge, undergirded by class solidarities. The image of the Howrah Bridge as one where 10,000 people travel to and fro the bridge is seen as a powerful symbol of its prosperity.

8. Commodity Festishism and aural-visual culture

In Kahaani ‘power ridden symbols’ are questioned through humor - Vidya Bagchi, for example, questions her husband “Lal par shada sari – Kolkata mein sab log pehente hain. Sab? Mard bhi?”  Again the “lal pad sada sari” is used to confuse the police in the end. Wherein the lal pad is politically imbued with different meanings, subverting its essence and reinstating the voice of the subaltern.

Songs used in the film, like those of, Sob koro prem koro na, Amaro porano jaha chay, jane kahan mera jigar gaya ji’s Bengali version, uses the very trope of Calcutta as a city of art, dance and music, to entertain and to commercialise the film to reach a wider audience.

The city is made to come alive through the sounds such as those of hawkers shouting, chants of pandits, food cooked, bus honks along with the visual images of lassi, puri, tea, chow cooked in the bazar and streets. This emphasizes, the informal nature of the city.

The typical tea glasses with embossed vertical lines –  again a familiar image to describe the city is being used in the film as a clue in the plot to finally find the whereabouts of the killer.

LIC officer also a  part time killer, a pregnant woman but actually a seeker of justice, creation of the myth of similar identities of Milan and Arnab, are used as plot tools, playing upon the idea of the city that deceives and also revealing Marxist idea that the apparent can be deceptive. The very tools to unravel the plot seems a practical extension of the apparent as fiction in Marx.

Further the very lanes of the city (which define the city) and where Durga Puja comes alive, is used for a very different purpose in the movie - for the purpose of tracking down deceptive people. The streets almost stand for a ritual cleansing of the soul and a removal of evil/rotten people from the city and the world.

9. Material Reality

The material reality and the historical context of the period in which Howrah Bridge and Kahaani were made also guided their production, reception and ideological positions: Through the 1950s and 1960s, Calcutta was arguably India’s most important city, ahead of Bombay and Delhi. In 1950, the city had a population of over 4.5 million. Bombay’s population stood at 2.6 million and Delhi’s at 1.4 million. Bangalore had just 0.8 million people. The population growth of a city is a reasonable indicator of its standing –as human capital flows to cities that deliver economic opportunity. Those who lived through those decades recall the cleanliness—all streets were washed every morning—and the efficiency of the civic administration. Calcutta was the base of India’s largest business groups, and had thriving heavy industry nearby.

In 2012, Calcutta Calcutta’s population had reduced beyond belief, residents were migrating outside of it rather than inside as a result of lack of economic activities and a lack of industrial growth. Issues of globalization, terrorism, IT became issues conjoining the global with the local. In pop culture the global fetish of certain images to describe Calcutta such as those of Durga Puja, intellectualism, scrumptious food, a city still with a soul have established their presence.

10. The title of the films

The city is represented through its infrastructural and transport facilities in the form of Howrah Bridge. In Kahani, the city is seen as a site of appropriating individual likes and dislikes, where questions of identities and communities takes centre stage.

Through the above key images and tropes of Calcutta as a mysterious city, bewildering one in the first instance, with a hierarchy between the north and south of the city, certain aural-visual representation, the personification of the city as female and the gender, race, culture, class politics surrounding it, commodity fetishism, I have tried to unpack the changing politics of the representation/location of the city of Calcutta in the two films Howrah Bridge and Kahani.

- DEVINA GUPTA