REVIEW: Delhi-6 is disappointing - For all those of you who have come out with pitchforks against a certain Mr Danny Boyle, Delhi 6 is a must-watch.
Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's latest flick is set in what is now popularly perceived as 'real India'.
Unlike Jamal Malik however, Roshan (Abhishek Bachchan) is no Slumdog. He is an NRI who accompanies his grandmother (Waheeda Rehman) whose last wish is to spend the remaining days of her life in Delhi 6, a locality she was married into.
Born and brought up in America, Roshan is fascinated with everything that happens around him. Traffic jams, Ram Leela, sweetmeat shops, bylanes, lack of water in loos – all of it to him is 'kewl'.
What mesmerises Roshan the most however are the human relationships in Old Delhi. "You don't know who is family and who isn't," he says to himself in one of the scenes where all the neighbours are present with his grandmother in the hospital.
Along the way, we are introduced to everyone from this neighbourhood – a sweetmeat shop owner, two warring brothers, an evil moneylender, his much-younger wife, a lecherous photographer, a local buffoon, a goat, a pregnant cow, an ancestral radio and god knows who and what else!
Delhi 6, we are told, is full of such characters – poor perhaps but with hearts of gold. And like in every story there is a pretty girl – Bittu (Sonam Kapoor) in this case – who catches the attention of our hero.
Roshan posits an interesting case. He is born of a Hindu father and a Muslim mother – the two prominent communities in the Old Delhi area. Before you know it, Roshan becomes part of this milieu and gets embroiled in the politics of hate.
Whether he manages to break out of this and show people the light is pretty much what the movie is all about.
Perhaps the biggest problem with Delhi-6 the film is that it is like Delhi 6, the locality. There's so much happening you don't know where to look.
