Mumbai Sab Ki Jaan. Review on Mumbai Meri Jaan

Yesterday being a Sunday, I was getting bored because of the meagre attendance on MS and hence turned on the idiot box to see if there was anything interesting to watch and I landed on the colors channel and saw the initial titles of the movie “Mumbai Meri Jaan” running on the screen and boy I was glad because I had wanted to see this movie for a very long time.

This movie depicts the aftermath of the July 11, 2006 local train blasts which shattered Mumbai and its residents. The director of this movie Nishikant Kamath had earlier proved his prowess in his earlier directed Marathi movie “Dombivli Fast” which too was based on the topic of local trains of Mumbai. Here he comes up with a keenly distressing tale of some of the protagonists of the movie. The portrayal of the characters is very convincing. He has relevantly showed the physical and mental adversities faced by the people who were affected in the aftermath of the blasts.

The story revolves mainly around the five characters as below: -

1) R. Madhavan plays the character of Ajay who is an executive of a multinational company who was traveling on the train on that fateful day and is thrown out due to the impact of the blast .He escapes unharmed physically but is disturbed mentally thereafter. The agony that follows in his life is very nicely enacted by him. The mental distress that he has to go through, his blind eye towards the system, his fear of boarding the local train again after the incident and his patriotism for the country are nicely portrayed.

2) Paresh Rawal plays the character of Police constable Tukaram Patil who is just to retire from his service.In his whole career he has to accept bribes unwillingly for his seniors and the dilemma that he faces in various situations, the submissiveness of his and the support that he lends to a new recruited constable is very well played by Paresh Rawal.He surely excels in some scenes.

3) Soha Ali Khan plays the character of T.V Journalist Rupali Joshi who once used to do gritty coverage of the mishaps without any emotions until she herself becomes an indirect victim of these train blasts as she loses her fiancé in the blasts and her life is shattered because of losing him. The emotional scenes are very well enacted by Soha.

4) Kay Kay Menon plays the character of Suresh, a debt ridden computer guy who is a Hindu fanatic with the crazy belief that every Muslim is responsible for the blasts. His anger, frustration and then his transformation to again imposing faith in Muslims and befriending one of them is brilliantly enacted by Kay Kay Menon.

5) Irfan Khan plays the role of Thomas, a south Indian small time coffee vendor who is a simpleton who is once insulted by an employee of a store in a mall and he in return becomes vindictive by way of making hoax calls to the police informing them wrongly about bombs being planted in different malls in the city but then mends his ways after seeing an old man suffer a heart attack due to his hoax calls. This role is very nicely played by Irfan Khan.

All the above characters are not associated with each other in the movie. Every character has its own individual story. There is only one song in the movie which is passable but the screenplay, cinematography, dialogues, background music, acting and above all the direction is just brilliant. The intensity of the characters is worthwhile and the skillful direction is clearly visible in many scenes depicting fundamentalism, racism, religion, hypocrisy, poverty and terrorism.

If you are a lover of good and meaningful cinema, “Mumbai Meri Jaan” is a must watch for you.