Hum Tum

This was a favorite movie of mine from a few years back.

In many countries, modernization is often equated with Westernization. For this reason, in the West, such is often considered a good thing, while in the developing world, it is seen as a negative phenomenon to be vigorously combated. Indeed, there are overlapping aspects, however these two concepts are not one and the same.

Let us briefly examine, as an example, the issue of women’s chastity. Social conservatives insist that women be virgins to marry. They often maintain, though less consistently, that men also remain chaste until marriage. But the loss of a man’s virginity is seen as a feather in his cap, whereas a woman cannot be considered for marriage if it is known that she has “a reputation”. Furthermore, although it is not unheard of, extrapolating on the same principle, marriage by a man to a widow, or worse, a divorcee, is often frowned upon. Not just feminists, but social liberals of all stripes generally see this as preposterous, as it dictates a woman’s sexuality for her, applying a double standard, and denying her sovereignty over her own body. To reject this in a socially conservative culture is without a doubt a push towards modernity, although it remains true that this view is already more commonly held in Western countries.

Returning to the sphere of culture and cinema, American domination of entertainment media across the world is without a doubt cultural imperialism. There may be aspects of the same phenomenon when Bollywood cinema takes on overtly Western traits. However, in the case of Hum Tum, no entertainment value is lost, the result is memorably enjoyable, and the social message remains poignant. The problematic aspect of the film lies elsewhere, as we shall see ahead.

True to form, Yash Chopra knows how to spin a love story. Starring the infectiously likeable Saif Ali Khan (world’s most handsome nose) and the incomparable Rani Mukerji (my favorite female lead), this is basically a curry-and-chutney version of When Harry Met Sally. Another of this film’s distinguishing characteristics is terrific animated cartoon scenes, which is a first in Hindi cinema. The animated clips are something like a choir, explaining or interpreting events. One might have thought that content-wise it would be just another inane shtick, of which, I am the first to admit, there is plenty in this cinematic genre. Surprisingly, not just the animation, but indeed the whole movie has almost plausible dialogs that draw you in and really let you identify with each of the characters.

The movie opens with Karan and Rhea at Delhi airport about to catch a flight to New York. They sit together on the plane, and Karan chats Rhea up, in the Don Juan style that marks his character. Karan gets nowhere fast, but on the layover in Amsterdam, they decide to see the sights together. It’s not a date. They split all expenses 50-50. And the on-location footage could easily be endorsed by the Dutch Ministry of Tourism.

Several months elapse and Karan and Rhea meet up again in Central Park in New York, also shot on location. These two hip, modern and Westernized Indians have a very Indian scene where Karan flirts with Rhea’s friend, without realizing who she is, and ends up with egg on his face.

Events progress, and we find ourselves back in Delhi, some years later, with Rhea preparing for her wedding. As it turns out, Karan’s mother is the wedding director, a career that apparently must pay extremely well, based on the lifestyle shown. Indeed, Karan’s mother is an interesting woman insofar as she has been separated from Karan’s father for some seventeen years, and has nonetheless brought up her son and excelled in business. Is this kind of portrayal Western or modern? Here is where the lines blur. I propound that it is an expression of social progress. Not that she is happy with this separation, which, in true Bollywood fashion, is resolved by the film’s end.

But back to the Rhea’s wedding. As it would happen, there is a staff shortage on the day of Rhea’s henna ceremony, and Karan is asked to step in to lend a hand. Still ticked off from the scene in Central Park, Rhea comes around in friendship during an engagingly amusing scene where Karan crashes the all-girls portion of the party. Karan is lounging about with half of the girlfriends, citing great lovers in history that never married, in a rather tongue-in-cheek way. “Marriage is the end of love” he declares. Romeo and Juliet never married. Neither did Adam and Eve for that matter.

Nonplussed, Rhea, over with her half of the girlfriends reminds the group that the greatest monument to romantic love was built for the Empress Mumtaz, namely the Taj Mahal. And then she breaks into song, singing of “chocolate heros” that talk a lot about love, but abscond at the wedding.

The song Gori Gori is all in good fun, with Rhea at one point ripping off Karan’s shirt, and Karan falling down in the midst of a throng of maidens, only to get his butt pinched. Definitely not standard Bollywood fare, although certainly tame in comparison to some of the low-brow stuff that American popular cinema often churns out.

Rhea marries Samir, a Muslim, in a Hindu ceremony, which is significant in and of itself, as a sop to secularism. Samir is played by Abhishek Bachchan, son of Bollywood scion Amitabh. Indeed, while Abhishek certainly gets plenty of roles, his father casts a long shadow on his career and abilities. The newlyweds part, but not before each of them expresses some wisdom and friendship to Karan.

Fast forward to a few years later. Karan goes to visit his father in Paris. In the meantime, he now writes and illustrates a syndicated cartoon, Hum Tum (hence the clever animation and the movie’s title) about a boy and a girl, and the ostensibly irreconcilable differences (and truisms) between the sexes.

By chance, he meets Rhea in the train. Alas, Samir died in an accident about a year before, and Rhea chose to be alone, save for her mother, with her loss. Struck by empathy for his friend, Karan shows a mature and caring side, making a valiant effort to cheer Rhea up. When she refuses his breakfast, lunch and dinner invitations, he appears one day at the fashion boutique she owns (no kidding) with take-out Chinese. She gently scorns what she sees as pity, explaining that for this very reason, she chose not to return to India after Samir’s demise, as there would be an expectation that she remarry, and yet a perception that since once previously wedded, she was somehow damaged goods. To this, Karan presents the bill for lunch, insisting that they divide it 50-50.

Karan’s charm of course finds a chink in Rhea’s armor, and on a subsequent outing in a park near a school, continuing in his efforts to now get her to stop feeling so sorry for herself, he expresses admiration that Rhea is conversant in French. “It’s important to know the language of the country where you live,” she says. No tinge of irony in a movie where perhaps fifteen to twenty percent of the dialog is in polished English. “Really?” he asks, incredulously. “I’ve always managed with Hindi, everywhere I go. If people don’t know it, I teach them. If I can teach those French kids over there some Hindi, will you at least do as I say?”

And with that, he breaks into song, leading a group of French kids in happy Bollywood-synchronized choreography somewhere in Paris. It’s a hilarious contrast, but done really well, and the song, Chakde Chakde, while pure pop, is decidedly catchy. “Chuck your woes away and feel the waves of ecstasy wash over you,” etc. The cast, crew and extras must have had a ball shooting it.

Karan’s cartoon series Hum Tum is taken up by the Times of India, and he returns to Mumbai. Three months later, Rhea follows for a visit. But here he makes a fatal mistake, sending his best friend Mihir, played by a startlingly pumped-up Jimmy Shergill, to fetch her at the airport, in hopes she might take a romantic interest. One memorable line in the ride from the airport is Rhea’s mother commenting on how it’s good to be back in their homeland, thereupon noticing someone defecating on the sidewalk.

At 2:00 the next morning, Karan pops in on Rhea for a late-night snack, and a pep talk. Attempting to soften her up regarding Mihir, about which she still has not connected the dots, he talks about arranged marriages. “I’m a great fan of arranged marriages,” he claims, in English no less. He insists on a role-play game for a prospective match. She resists. He counters, “it’ll be funny, and fun – do you remember fun?” to which she relents.

The ensuing conversation, set against the backdrop of Mumbai’s city lights, is the most endearing of the entire film.

But the next night out, Karan’s plot is revealed, and the inevitable fight comes. After a heartfelt apology, they are reunited, and in a burst of passion, they end up spending the night together. While the initial kiss is only shown from a distance, the fact that the occurrence is explicitly understood by the audience is also something of a departure for the genre.

When they meet up for Mihir’s wedding to Diana, another friend (there have to be happy endings all around) Rhea’s thoughts focus on how right it felt, but Karan experiences all the dissonance, and of a rather negative macho nature. And so they part, and the sense of lost opportunity is palpable.

Another year passes. Karan publishes a book on Hum Tum, and at its launching, dedicates it to the one he loves, for it is clear that he realizes his mistakes. After he steps down from the dais, who should appear, but Rhea, and after a few words of charming reconciliation, they join hands and the movie concludes.

The push towards modernity in the progressive sense strikes me as worthy, as these are values which I espouse for their self-evident liberal and liberating merit. The overt Western tone however could be construed as a subtle form of cultural imperialism, though the cinematic goal seems to be that such values are not for “people like them”, i.e. foreigners, but rather “people like us” i.e. other Indians, Westernized as they may be. Moreover, ogling the opulence in which the characters lead their lives legitimizes, on a certain if only subliminal level, rather shocking income disparities. This is a paradox insofar as the film’s overall social mission is very progressive indeed. To be sure, this technique is also common in Brazilian (and copy-catted in less effectively in other Spanish-language) telenovelas as well. Social mission notwithstanding, I reckon it is a symptom of a rather middle-class and paternalistic form of liberalism that seems to have increasingly tightened its ideological grip on many leftist intellectuals since the fall of the Berlin wall. In other words, let’s all be liberal at heart, without questioning the economic domination of the ruling classes.

By showing a very inviting lifestyle that anyone would want to aspire to, and then associating certain values with it, directors have found an effective way to break down ideological resistance. It is a workable device on the one hand, but on the other, the charge of modernism equals decadent Westernization gains currency when the legitimized überaffluence is juxtaposed with the broadminded social mission. In this sense, not only this film, but the vehicle for this message is at once a success and failure, even though it is unrealistic to expect that an entertainment genre can address social and economic issues within the same format and on the same plane. Yash Chopra is neither Arthur Miller nor Bertolt Brecht.

True, the times, audiences and contexts are different, but I do believe there is common ground with regard to the medium and the message. Having said all that, Hum Tum is a lovely film that exudes fun, entertainment and progressive attitudes.