Voices of Murad: Unpacking Gully Boy

Vikram JaiSingh and Murad Ahmad seem like denizens of two different galaxies. In the cinematic vision of Zoya Akhtar however both embody a junoon, a passion to climb the insurmountable. They are the protagonists of her first release Luck By Chance (2009) and the most recent Gully Boy(February 2019) respectively and the similarities apparently end there.Here the two films are not juxtaposed against each other but somewhere Vikram and Murad’s paths cross multiple times in the creative journey of the director—both being her protagonists and voices of ambition.The films stretch across seemingly familiar terrains of ambitions and unrealized aspirationsthough Vikram and Murad share nothing in common except for their burning desire to break the glass ceiling, their respective roads to ‘success’ being very different. The director displays cinematic maturity by teasing us with certain apparent structural similarities between the narratives while at the same time curving out a very distinctive space for her latest creation.  On walking out of the multiplex, what stayed with me the most was a rhythm of continuity, a sense of being able to simultaneously crossover to the various worlds of wealth and want depicted on screen.

The film refrains from essentializing the slums or Dharavi by using certain trademark frames showcasing the alleys or the unseemly assemblage in front of the municipality water taps in the locality. Therefore there is not a single longshot of the serpentine lanes. It’s as if the Dharavi or slums do not have a separate existence outside Murad and they are present in his lyrics, his rap music and his being. Their existence is not essentialized but naturalized. The subtext of poverty is subtle though it does lurk around like a shadow in the film, coming out more forcefully in the life choices of Moin—a friend of Murad, who earns through dubious ways and ends up in jail once or in the plight of Murad when he looses his shelter overnight.  Vijay Verma plays Moin and he owns the character. Slum life per se does not however seem to bother Murad except on occasions when other rappers humiliate his background and he turns the table byshowcasing it unapologetically as his batch of honour. He does not attempt to be someone else; there is no hint of identity crisis and the film emphasizes on his secure state of being. Murad knows who he is, whom he loves, what he wants, whom he should protect and here he is remarkably different from Vikram JaySingh who was on a quest to find his ambition and also himself. The act of embodying a secure mind and persona while living amidst surroundings that are uncertain, insecure and ever changeable might be critiqued but as the film unfolds, a secure, unruffled nature becomes recognizable as a characteristic trait of Murad’s persona.Poverty or the limited skies of the Dharavi arguably come down and unsettle him only when there is acrimony in his family, when his mother is in pain when his father marries a second time. The second fiddle that his mother has to play to the new wife of his father, starts disrupting Murad’s seamless existence, making it edgy. Thus despite not having any particular discourse woven around it, povertydoes feature in the creations, the present and the aspirations of Gully Boy.

The protagonist does not personify aggression, there is no jehad against the unequal system, though remaining true to the undulating times it is conceived in, the film does feature lines mouthed byfellow rappers like “Zingoistan” and “2018 to khatra hain”etc.  Murad’s poetry refrains from such allusions. The manner in which he steps in and rescues his mother from domestic abuse, leaves his father’s house with her and his younger brother, turns to Moin and dubious paths to earn, does not symbolizeaggression or angst. Such incidents on retrospect seem likemomentary ripplesthatsucceed in disrupting his engrossed state of being,albeitfor a short span, till he finds his rhythm again. Murad Ahmad aka Gully Boy appears to be a thoughtful, reticent artist who is in constant engagement with his creative self, absorbed in etching out his creations and giving them shape through lyrics and music.Ranveer Singh as Murad, needed to tread a thin line between self-obsessed behavior and self-absorbed behavior and he succeeds in establishing the contours of the latter thus foregrounding the passions of an artist. What marks out the rap artist Gully Boy in this eponymous film is his gentleness which in such génre of movies is a rare trait embodied by the protagonist. Yet Singh continues to portray a gentle demeanor throughout the film as his facial expressions, eyes or body movement, not even in a single shot, betray belligerence. It seems his deportment, his powerful “Apna bhi time ayega” one liner do not tremble with angst, are not born from feelings of alienation or deprivation but from a quiet conviction. He is not a rebel but an artist and that is something that marks out Murad from Vikram JaySingh.

The counterfoil of his gentleness is the firebrand Safeena, ably played by Alia Bhatt.Akhtar’s women in this film are strong and resolute and in charge of their own destinies, be it Safeena or Sky. Unlike her previous celluloid portrayals, this is a comparatively non-layered characterization for Alia where Safeena is the rebellious medical student, deeply in love with Murad ever since they were 13and therefore fiercely possessive of him. She might also be perceived as an alter ego of Murad. Safeena batters up girls who express romantic interest towards Murad, smashes beer bottles on their heads, ends up in medical clinics and yet the intimate sequences between the two,portraya sense of familial proprietorship rather than  lovers’ passion. She is everything that Murad could have been—volatile, passionate, headstrong and short-tempered but is not and the film read at different levels is perhaps never actually about the sole journey of Murad or the lone voice of Murad as Gully Boybut about the voices of both Murad and Safeena as they complete each other through their complementariness and shared childhood.  It is their shared identity that perhaps weaves an invisible net of oneness that holds them together even when they are estranged.  This wholeness comes across in sequences even where Safeena is absent. A particular sequence between Kalki and Singh corroborates. Thus when Koechlin aka Sky during a collaborative jamming session, expresses strong affinity towards Gully Boy, accepts him in her fold and refuses to judge him by his depressed background and only through his art, Murad does not reciprocate. He holds back, refuses to commit on a rebound, post his breakup with Safeena and almost apologetically admits his inability to love anyone but Safeena as without her he would loose part of his bachpan or childhood. This is a realm where Vikram Jaysingh and his maneuveringsdiffer starkly from that of Murad. The protagonist of Luck By Chancedid not spare any route to success,shifted affection from Sona( portrayed beautifully by Kankana SenSharma) who had stood by him in his days of struggle and was quick to bond with the female lead of his debut movie.Murad Ahmad by contrast refused to let go of his childhood love and by default his identity, intrinsically woven with Safeena, even when he had the opportunity to be accepted by Sky, a music scholar from the hallowed Berkley School of Music, collaborations with whom could have opened multiple doors of success for him. His refusal of Kalki’s affections however appears spontaneous and organic and follows the main tenor of the script. While this can be read in many ways and the latter might be critiqued for portraying simplistic emotions, Singh’s simplicity in such shots remains endearing.

Focusing on the parental ties between Safeena’s and Murad’s families respectively, the film also perhaps tries to problematize the linear reading of “Muslim households”. The depiction of Safeena’s father as a doctor who is gentle and ever lenient towards Safeena whom he allows to study medicine and that of Murad’s father who is a driver and believes that his son should only nurture dreams that fit in with his realityis a study in contrast. It is the socio-economic background that interjects and defines the treatment of their respective children where religion plays little or no role.Issues like freedom and liberty and constriction by default also come up in the palette of the film as we find Alia despite being a ‘brilliant’ medical student and in her final year of graduation faces the bleak prospect of getting married off, albeit to a person of her choice only because she was found out lying. Though her sympathetic father allows her to continue her medical studies thus rescuing her ambitions from being buried, it is conditional based on her consent to meet prospective grooms and evidently, the net of constriction, however relaxed, remains. When Safeenaonce expresses that had her parents allowed her to interact with boys as normal people, allowed them entry at her home like her non-Muslim friends, allowed her to apply lipstick etc, she would not have felt the urge to lie; she gets beaten up by her mother as her father watches helplessly. It is infact interesting how Akhtar tries to bring out different facets of her character that are self-contradictory.  Thus Safeena, who fears no one and is feisty and determined, seems helpless in front of the societal constriction that apparently comes with the religious constriction on her gender. The vulnerabilities of being a woman strike the audience in other occasions too especially in the context of Murad’s mother. That particular scene where she goes on banging her husband’s door, provoking him, announcing that if he can think of a new partner for himself, she should also follow suit—is loaded with deep emotional undertones.

It is also significant how the film neither exoticizesnor banishes poverty. While Murad and hispeer group comes from Dharavi or Mumbai 17—their identity as slum-dwellers is not foregrounded in the film. There are not many dialogues about the banes of living in the gutter (though there is one particular sequence where a group of foreign tourists visit Dharavi to take photographs) nor does religion feature in any remarkable way. As he does namaz, visits the masjid with his father, studies for his graduation, writes lyrics and waits for Safeena in the busstop—Murad Ahmad is not characterized as a rebellious Muslim youth with simmering anger who has set out to change the world through his music. Instead what this film charters is a gradual and collaborative making of identities of Murad and all those associated with him as he in many ways emerges as the signifier in this discourse of identity building. There might be criticisms of simplistic portrayal of relations for instance between M.C Sher and Gullyboy who remain on the best of terms despite a change of fortunes when Murad tastes greater success than Sher;yet such bonhomie might make sense if contextualized against similar fringe background of the two. Akhtar portrays Murad and Srikant aka M.C Sher as two young men trying to find their niche, their voice, through making music; trying to find answers to their abysmal existences through acceptance in the world of rap where they are compatriots, not competitors. Such portrayal again strikes a different chord from that of ‘Luck by Chance’ where in the world of educated aspirants, Vikram Jaysingh did not have friends who could have his back and vice versa.

In Gully Boy, want and scarcity perhaps made the two rappers stick together through thick and thin. The debutante Siddhant Chaturvedi as M.C Sher manages to impress through sheer ease and confidence of performance thus matching frames with seasoned performers like Singh and Kalki. The characterization of Murad’s father played ably by Vijay Raj as a man trapped in the system, who accepts its limitations as his destiny, appears simplistic in places. So does the relation between Murad and his father.  Non-conflictual or over simplistic portrayal of the father-son relationship might however be analysed against a common tenor of emotional continuity.  The film perhaps voluntarily  situates the screenplay against strands of emotional continuity and not disjuncture—be that between Murad and Safeena, the father and son or within his peer group.  Refusing to draw firm binaries, the director argueably takes the screenplay closer to life. And finally what comes out is the journey of an artist, a kalakar who gives akar (shape) to kal(future). The music and lyrics refrain from being poetic and strengthens the realism.Nuanced cinematography simultaneously strengthens story-telling especially in sequences which harp on the distinctiveness and the wide gulf between the worlds of wealth and want through a unique use of light.

Dr. Somdatta Chakraborty

Senior Adjunct Researcher

AGA

15/03/2019