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Saturday, September 23, 2017

The Blue Umbrella: A Cinematic Fable


A distinctive simplicity surrounding the idyllic nature of a small village located somewhere underneath the mammoth mountains of Himachal Pradesh, forms the scenery of Vishal Bhardwaj’s “The Blue Umbrella”, an adaptation of Ruskin Bond’s novella of the same name. 

The film’s opening scene has Nandkishore Khatri (played by the brilliant Pankaj Kapur), owner of Khatri tea stall, lying on a charpoy, taking pleasure of a warm sunny morning, sucking his favorite lemon pickle. He is busy listening to the predictions about his future via a robot; the pre-recorded voice tells him delusional talks, which are contradictory to the realistic persona of Nandu. He is a shrewd shopkeeper, who gives credit to kids; in order to swindle them of their prized possession. 

Biniya (Played fluently by Shreya Sharma), a nine-year-old girl, residing in the same village is well aware of the tricks played by Nandu and always prefers to keep up a safe distance. One day, while tending her two cows, her eyes spots something on the blue horizon, it is a dreamlike moment in the film, an artistic blue colored umbrella slowly lands right in front of her, its beauty awes her, she had never seen something such a stunning and artistically designed umbrella before. For Biniya, it is nothing short of a star that has fallen on to her feet. Vishal Bhardwaj presents the scene in such a way, that it is love at first sight for Biniya. She slowly places her hands on the umbrella, delighted by its presence; she makes it a part of her life, even going on the verge of exchanging a bear claw to a group of Japanese tourist to whom the umbrella originally belonged. She has felt the coldness under its soft paper like canopy, its opulent bamboos, and wants to experience its delicate ruffles. 

Everyone in the village, astonished by the visual of little Biniya holding a blue umbrella under the snowy skies of Himalayas, but Nandu, who is not merely stunned, but rather fascinated over the umbrella, he doesn’t like the pendulum of attention swinging towards Biniya’s way. He approaches Biniya, and offers her candies, sweets, and pulls out many more lucrative proposals to exchange the umbrella, but always ends up getting a clear “NO” in response. There is a marvelous scene in the film, where Nandu carrying colorful balloons, approaches Biniya and offers less than 1/10th of the price of the umbrella (He got the actual price from a city store, but didn’t had the required amount), assuming he would defraud her. Nandu receives yet another rejection, leading to a point where the balloons flutter away leaving Nandu all alone, simple yet a deep metaphor of Nandu’s dreams to hold the umbrella getting beyond his reach.  



At this point, Nandu’s assistant asks him “is the oversized umbrella worth it?” Nandu replies with some extraordinary references to clear his motive, which for me forms the crux of the story, because there are certain moments in our lives where our fixation over any person, book, movie, city, food, TV Series or a non-living object empowers any rationalization, and we are not even bothered about any second opinions, till the point its aura surrounds us.
“Is seeing a rainbow on a sky worth it?”
“Is making a paper boat float in the water worth it?”
“Of what worth is watching Sun set behind the hills?”

“One cannot put a price tag on the peace that the soul is in constant search of” He explains, and claims that he and umbrella are soul mates from some earlier birth. 

There is a deep attachment, which Nandu over the time has grown for the blue umbrella, which has become a symbol of pride and paradoxically according to his subconscious mind, a catalyst of peace. He is resolved in his quest to conquer the blue umbrella.   

Soon after all the failed efforts on Nandu’s part to get the guardianship of the umbrella, Biniya lose her most valued possession, she is heartbroken, devastated and the same village who stood in awe upon seeing Biniya walk into the village like a queen with the umbrella see her walking through rains without it. Biniya is totally lost, she has nothing on her mind but the blue umbrella, she suspects Nandu’s involvement, but fails to prove it. Meanwhile, the suspicion has hurt Nandu’s ego, and he swear to get a similar umbrella, and till then will not taste his favorite lemon pickle.   

Nandu finally gets his hands on a similar red color umbrella; everyone in the village is yet again in awe by its sheer magnificence. I wonder there is something alluring about the umbrella that caught everyone’s attention yet there are only two people, who takes a step ahead and make it an important part of their life, the difference being that while Biniya applauds the delicate nature of the umbrella, Nandu makes it an issue of ego satisfaction to have it under his ownership. The pendulum of attention swings towards Nandu; he has now become a center of attraction for the villagers. However, Nandu does not acknowledge the gracefulness of the umbrella; he is too preoccupied to massage his self-esteem.  

There is an astute scene in the film, which portrays the dichotomy between Biniya and Nandu’s attachment with the umbrella. Nandu is to travel via a bus, unable to close the umbrella and get inside the bus; he makes a turmoil scene out of the situation. It leads to him trying various awkward ways to close the umbrella, suddenly comes Biniya to his rescue, tells him “It doesn’t shut like this”, and takes the umbrella from Nandu, feel the touch of the bamboos, and effortlessly close it. Nandu holds the umbrella close to him and Biniya watch him leave, it is an emotional moment, and tells you how much the umbrella means to both of them. While Nandu holds the umbrella close to his heart like how a mother would keep her newborn baby, Biniya, on the other side simply gaze at them going further away from her. A momentarily separation epitomizing the nature of both the lead characters and their affection for an inanimate object. 


The decisive moment occurs; Nandu’s ploy is finally out in the open, the red color embedded in the umbrella leaks out under rain. Panchayat order boycott of Nandu, and returns the umbrella to Biniya. The winter arrives soon afterwards, snow descends like pearls from the sky, the entire village sprinkles with silence, as if mourning for Nandu’s embarrassing act of stealing an umbrella from a little girl. He is lonely, broken, and probably guilty of his act, but there is no one to notice that, and the kids he once conned, now mock him as “NandKishore Chatri Chor”. Supposedly, a Himalayan Bear walks through his shops roof, scared for his life, and yet no one to ask, Nandu terrifyingly resorts to a corner in his small room. Nandu is resolute to not leave the village, despite all the insults and loathe thrown at him from the villagers.

Biniya feels the regret floating inside the abandoned Nandu. She goes to his shop, and buys candies, without mocking him or making him realize of his acts, she leaves, and moments later Nandu realizes she has left her umbrella. He takes the opportunity and takes the umbrella inside his tiny room, Nandu gets a personal moment of solace with the umbrella, he is not in atoned with the situation though, he blames the umbrella for transforming him as a person, he’s fed up of the umbrella, which once was a catalyst to his peace of soul. 

The thing about “The Blue Umbrella” which made me really love the film, in the first place is an innocent appeal of the story along with the atmosphere that Vishal Bhardwaj creates with his distinctive narration. A tricky genre in literature that he picks; Fable, which could have easily resulted into a one-dimensional children’s film, but it turns out into a film that has a universal appeal. Ruskin Bond’s short stories, novella’s, novels always has a certain kind of earthiness, charm, straightforwardness, utmost honesty, real characters with a moral dilemma, realistic situations and to Vishal Bhardwaj’s credit, he never dilutes those characteristics in his adaptation. More so, Vishal Bhardwaj gives Ruskin Bond’s fable a deeper perspective with an intelligent use of the umbrella as a metaphor, which is very subjective in its nature; it could be a figure of desire, love, greed, status, attention-triggering object. The story might seem too rural in nature, but even if placed under urban settings, it would make viewer smile, because it is more about the emotions of the characters, and their transformation as individuals.

I wish Vishal Bhardwaj would complete his trilogy with another film in this genre, where he places a young actor with a veteran, like in case of the scheming “Makdee” (Shweta Prasad along with Shabana Azmi). During “The Blue Umbrella”, it was Shreya Sharma, who shared screen time with Pankaj Kapur, hopefully in the third film; we might see a young kid with Naseerudin Shah. 


Only if we could discover happiness in small events of our life like Biniya does when she holds the blue umbrella. 


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