Bombay Rose
(Netflix’s first animated film from India tells a nostalgic tale of antiquated love)
“The warmth still lingers today from the comfort that left me yesterday.”
As I finished watching Bombay Rose, this line from the 2018 anime anthology, “Flavors of Youth” kept running circles through my brain. I cannot help but get overwhelmed by feelings of nostalgia, affection and loss, much similar to what I felt after watching Flavors of Youth. “Maan ki andaar asuon ka sailab ho, to samundar kaun jata hain?” I am yet to figure out which element of these two very different works struck the same chord inside my heart. I do believe that both works require multiple rewatches so that a viewer can capture their ingenuity, as much as possible. For the time being, I will go forward with my review of Bombay Rose from my first watch today.
Bombay Rose, in its essence is not a new story. The protagonist is the flower seller Kamala, who toils away every day to educate her little sister, Tara. Eventually, she falls in love with a Muslim flower seller from the opposite of her road, Salim. Yes, the politics is there, the film portrays the real life farcical society of our subcontinent where child marriage, child labor, human trafficking etc. are all acceptable, established practices; yet the idea of two consensual adults being together can trigger off a war, simply because of the taboo of Hindu-Muslim love.
However, the story itself is not what made me fall in love with Bombay Rose. Like I said, it is not a new story. The winning component is the absolutely stunning aesthetic (the trailer sells itself), yes of course, but at the same time it is the sound design of the film, and the subplots of memory and imagination make Bombay Rose what it is.
From the beginning of her story, the protagonist Kamala is seen to find herself daydreaming about a life and a time much different than the poverty-stricken part of Mumbai that she lives in. Every now and then, her world transforms itself into a dreamscape resembling an age-old, royal palace. As she stepped around airily in that dream world devoid of suffering, I was reminded of the Mughal art and architecture from my visit to Jodha Bai’s Falsa in Mehrangarh. She is obviously a Mughal princess of some sort in her fantasies; fantasies that keep getting disrupted by the bringer of the bad news, the very underwhelming villain Mike. The climax to Salim’s brief courting of Kamala, where Salim dances with a baraat (wedding procession) and Kamala looks at him with wonder filled eyes, is quite a satisfactory connection between Kamala’s fantasy world and her real world. This is the only happiness we ever get to see her having. Aren’t we all princesses and ninjas and warriors in our inner world? True happiness touches us only when we find ourselves being treated the way we imagine our fantasy narratives to be. To that end, watching Kamala in her wonderful dreamscape while handling her real life in Mumbai is quite fulfilling.
Speaking of inner monologue, I will turn my attention to the sound of the film that I was raving about just now. There is only one original soundtrack running through the entire movie, “The River Rewa Lives in My Eyes”, and I am so in love with it. It is soulful, and it comes with an introspective, brilliant silence. Throughout the movie we get to experience the sound of the real hustle and bustle of Mumbai. The horns, the rains, the “clink” of the jewelry. And yet, when the laconic Kamala’s heart is experiencing emotions, this one soundtrack says everything that needs to be said in the moment. It takes us away from the real world by removing all the other sounds of the real world. With the repetition of some very well thought out lyrics, the song depicts the inner turmoil of our protagonists, without them having to use any words.
Now, let me come to my favorite part of the movie. The best bit of Bombay Rose for me was the story arc of Ms. D’Souza. Ms. D’Souza is Tara’s English tutor who used to be an actress once upon a time. She remains lost in the memories of the life she has lived; brings a single rose of the best shade of red every day to her deceased husband’s grave, and listens to age old classics like “Aayie Meharbaan” (a nod to Madhubala, maybe?). The melodies of her life follows her around to the road even after she has left her house, and as she advances towards the cemetery with Tara the world around her starts resembling like the black and white past where she must have thrived.
The particular scene of Ms. D’ Souza’s walk to the cemetery stood out the most to me in the entire film, and let me tell you why. The narrative of Bombay Rose celebrates nostalgia for the city “Bombay” in each and every layer of it. As the road started restoring itself to the black and white glory of the past, the modern shops, buildings, people started disappearing with Ms. D’Souza’s footsteps. This particular scene, tugged at the nostalgic string of my heart the most, for I was reminded of my own childhood. The Dhaka that we see today is not the Dhaka we grew up in. And in the southern part of Dhaka that I did grow up in, the go to marketplace for my family, Paltan, played a very significant part. Paltan used to be a small, two storied market with very friendly shopkeepers. Each time I would visit the tailors or the salons with my mother, the shopkeepers would greet me with smiles and get me ice-cream. The market has been demolished years ago, when I was still in school I think. There stands a very ugly high-rise in the place of the market now. I don’t know where time goes as we lose it, but till this day, I can never revisit the Paltan market road without imagining the old market with wider roads, fewer people and a much better sky.
Memory is a curious thing, impactful ones can change the way we see the world around us forever. Ms. Shirley D’Souza kept telling her stories to her deceased husband’s suit and hat, kept playing the old music box again and again. It reminded me of my favorite line from the movie “Lunchbox”- “I think we forget things if we have no one to tell them to.” I wonder how much Ms. D’ Souza forgot despite all her efforts to cling to the nostalgia for the bygones.
Speaking of movies, I absolutely love the beginning of Bombay Rose, by the way. In a theater of a live action movie, Salim watches a hero rescuing his heroine from the hands of a villain, with sheer excitement and devotion for the hero, Raja Khan, that he clearly looks up to.
Now, Salim is a Kashmiri refugee who has come to Bombay seeking opportunities, right? The similarity between his dress-up and that of his hero, Raja Khan’s makes one wonder if Salim really wanted to be a movie hero, and if that is the reason for him to come to Mumbai. I was in fact thinking of the autowala from the movie Tamasha when I saw the beginning. The subcontinental “Lakir ka Faakir” male audience have always lapped up the classic Bollywood cliché of male knights in shining armors. Salim, despite being a flower thief himself, has so much difficulty accepting Kamala’s day to day struggles. There is no doubt that in the story of Bombay Rose, the women are the heroes. In this narrative, Kamala is the knight in her shining armor. She puts in the work to save the life of her sister, Tara, to run her household. Tara helps out her sister at home, helps Ms. D’Souza, stands first in the class, also saves the deaf and mute boy Tipu’s life.
And Salim knows all of this. He knows what Kamala has been through, he knows why Kamala struggles so hard, and yet, he cannot accept Kamala’s ways as heroism, at least not without being heartbroken. Honestly speaking, this bit made me chuckle bitterly. Struggle, as Bollywood has taught crores of men around the world, is defined as mostly as physical fights, where you get to break the doors and walls and injure someone to take your woman away from them. According to ordinary men like Salim, heroism is exclusive to the men, women are supposed to be patient damsel in distress, waiting for their men to rescue them. Even being in love with Kamala did not help Salim understand or respect her struggles, and this cruel depiction of reality, along with Raja Khan’s similarity with beloved Sallu bhai, seemed simply out-of-this-world to me.
As I finish jotting down my thoughts on probably the best animated movie I have seen in quite a long while, I would request everyone to watch out for the fantastic sequence shown from the pov of a bee who hides in the rose. This is the same rose that Ms. D’ Souza brings to the cemetery. This is the same rose Salim steals everyday for to celebrate his taboo love with Kamala. I have always preferred traditional hand-drawn films over 3D animation films, and the sequence of the rose-tinted world from the bee’s eyes will tell you why. Viewers like myself, who are perpetually in love with the idea of retracing the lost India, will savor every frame of this astoundingly beautiful, every-bit- Indian masterpiece. Released on women’s day, the melancholic music, the immensely beautiful aesthetic and the overall nostalgia of Bombay Rose is being streamed on Netflix right now.