Column | Chhapaak and Uyare: Acid test of making a survival story sans melodrama

I am not a fan of melodrama and message pieces. I would not even go close if I sense a sob story. However, catching Chhapaak on the first day was a no-brainer for me, thanks to glimpses of Deepika Padukone’s bold makeover that I had come across and the organised smear campaign on the Internet against the actress for taking a stand in favour of the students of the country who were attacked. Having watched a couple of other pot-boilers about acid attack survivors, I was also curious how the director Meghna Gulzar, who had given us gems such as Raazi, would handle the real-life story of the brave acid attack survivor and rights campaigner Laxmi Agarwal with the superstar Deepika as the lead.

"I always ask the society, ‘what is our fault’? People accept those born blind or those who are physically challenged, but we are shunned. I feel our condition is worse than the rape victims because with disfigured faces we even lose our identities." These were the words that the real-life Laxmi Agarwal used to describe her suffering after eight years of life in isolation. Much like the acid survivor Pallavi played by Parvathy Thiruvothu in Uyare who dreams to become a pilot, as a teenager, Laxmi’s dream was to become a TV anchor. That dream was shattered when her neighbour who was obsessed with her splashed acid on her face for ignoring his overtures and for being friends with another boy. The title Chhapaak denotes the sound of the fateful acid splash that Nadeem Khan along with his friend did on her face and body that permanently disfigured her. After six years of life in isolation, Malti (Deepika) picks up life from the point where she gave up and fights for the acid attack victims, ultimately securing a harsher provision in the law for the acid attackers and a ban on the free sale of acid.

We have seen many exploitative and survival stories of women on screen, biographical and fictional. Despite its many triumphs as a story of true grit, what we see in Uyare is an aesthetically sanitised and prosthetic version of a brutally disfigured acid victim’s face. As a fiction, Uyare had the creative liberty to have that perfect half moon face comprised of beautified and debeautified parts. Making a biography, however, has its own limitations, unless of course, the makers want to take too many cinematic liberties to trade off the ‘cinema verite’ experience for melodrama. Thanks to the Chhapaak’s makeup artist and prosthetics expert Clover Wootton, the looks of Deepika in the film closely resembles that of the person the character it’s inspired from. Wooton has been a Bollywood regular for quite sometime now, with notable works such as Haider and Sanju.

Dangal and Ennu Ninte Moideen are two recent examples in which creative liberties triumphed in box office despite the real-life characters’ dissent over the half-truths and slander in the narrative. Meghna Gulzar seemed to have decided to go for authenticity for the most part and the result is mind blowing. The acid attack and its aftermath portions in the film are not an easy watch for those conditioned to movies made in typical Bollywood templates. It succeeds in capturing the moments of trauma in their full horror and devastation, thanks to Deepika who took a giant leap from being a superstar and beauty diva to millions of fans to a debeautified character that does not even remotely resemble her on screen. However, towards the end, I was perplexed to see the real-life, flesh-and-blood story of Laxmi Agarwal being altered or abruptly ended to present an optimistic, happy ending. Laxmi had live-in with the temperamental Alok, the scribe-turned-social-worker with whom she had worked in his NGO dedicated to acid attack survivors (brilliantly played by Vikrant Massey in the film), but they are no longer together and Laxmi’s struggles have turned even bigger without a stable career and a child that she has to take care of.

In their overzealousness to make a credible biopic with realistic optics, the writers have diluted the dramatic elements in the script to the point that you do not have much to look forward to, other than Deepika’s performance. How could the director of the incredible Talvar and Raazi go so bland in her storytelling! Malti’s quirky responses that underline her attitude are splashed all around. “Acid aap pe nahin, mujh pe phinka hai. Aur mujhe party karni hai (Acid was thrown at me, not you. And I want to party),” and “Wo sarkar thodi hain jo unse darein (He is not the government that we should be scared of)”. I was reminded of Laila played by Kalki Koechlin in Shonali Bose’s brilliant Margarita With a Straw. There were a couple of missed opportunities too. Take for example, the beauty parlour scene in which she is asked to leave with the advice that persons with disabilities can find other jobs, which could have been used to differentiate the mental trauma and suffering of acid victims from the differently abled.

Acid attackers are mostly criminal elements or juveniles in the family or neighbourhood without a strong motive for the crime. In Uyare, the possessive lover played by Asif Ali is given a motive - he starts believing that his lover is moving further away from him in the pursuit of her career. The acid attacker of Chhapaak hardly gets any screen presence because he, as a person, was not an important character in Malti’s life. Asif Ali’s antagonist act as the insecure lover, however, was one of the key takeaways from Uyare. Parvathy being the superstar pulling off an extension of the other bold characters that she had played before, including the one in Take Off, did not throw a surprise. The minimalist dialogues and austerity help both the films. The attitudes of the two lead characters, however, are in sharp contrast, Pallavi’s rage is visible in every frame whereas Malti, despite her struggles, comes across as a cool customer who has come to terms with her reality, wears an infectious smile, dances, celebrates her victories, taunts her boss and even proposes to him. Her romantic gazes and the few scenes that show their closeness are the gems of the film. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s composition of Gulzar sahab’s soulful poetry, rendered from the heart by Arijit Singh, places you right in the middle of Malti’s struggles.

“Koi chehra mita ke, aur aankh se hata ke, chand cheetein udaake jo gaya, chhappak se pehchaan le gaya…”(someone erased her face, made her invisible, with a splatter in the air; and took her identity away.).

(Dress Circle is a weekly column on films. The author is a communication professional and film enthusiast. Read his past works here.)