This is not the Subhash Ghai that one is so used to seeing in films like Taal, Khalnayak or Ram Lakhan. Black & White is film which is shorn of the usual Subhash Ghai colourful extravaganza. In fact, for the first time, Bollywood's showman dares to get real and make a film with a social conscience. It is to his credit that even though his Black & White is not exactly a searing documentary of our times, yet the film has a strange power to move and touch you. Black & White is a film which tries to find an alternative to the rigid black and white stances about terrorism and terrorists. Thus, it is a film which needs to be made.
Ghai could not have found a better location for his film than the Chandni Chowk area of old Delhi, which has members of all religious communities living next to each other for generations, a loving testimony to the syncretic culture of our country. The film's premise does seem to have a slight resemblance to the famous case of a Delhi University professor arrested for his links to terrorists in the aftermath of the attack on Parliament. Like that professor, the character played by Anil Kapoor in the film, of Professor Rajan Mathur, an Urdu teacher in Delhi's Zakir Hussian College, unknowingly gets embroiled in a suicide bomber's (Anurag Sinha), plans to blow up the Red Fort on Independance Day.
The film's story is based on a plot by terrorists to blow up the Red Fort in Delhi. The reasons, as is usually the case with all terrorists, are as bizarre as they come. Numair Qazi (Sinha), a suicide bomber, comes all the way from Afghanistan to execute the plan. Posing as a victim of the Gujarat riots, he enters the house of an ageing poet, played by Habib Tanvir, by posing as his grandson. Playing the Gujarat riot card, he gains the sympathy of Professor Mathur and he slowly manages to inch his way into the latter's heart and hearth. It takes him longer to win the heart of the Professor's wife, Roma Mathur (Shefali Shah), but he manages that as well. The professor and his wife are an important cog in Numair's mission to blast the Red Fort, as they are the only one's who can help him gain entry into its high-security premises on Independence Day. Numair almost succeeds in his mission as he finds himself within minutes of blowing up the Red Fort.
There is much that does not work very well in this film, but it is clearly outweighed by what makes this film work. One of these is the performance by Anil Kapoor as Professor Mathur. It is a stellar performance and what makes it so is the restrain with which Kapoor enacts the character. Specially noteworthy is the scene after the murder of his wife, or even the scene when is at the Red Fort on Independence Day with Numair. In contrast, with Shefali Shah's character, Ghai falls into the trap of clichés. She is supposed to be a Bengali, hence she is supposed to be all fire and passion. But what comes across in Shah's portrayal of Roma Mathur, is a shrill woman and not so much the fire. Shah has a presence and an extremely expressive face, but she tends to play it over-the-top here, which grates at times. Veteran theatre activist Habir Tanvir puts in an extremely moving performance as the old, unsung Urdu poet, languishing in the lanes of Chandni Chowk. It is a performance, with not an iota of sentimentality in it, and thus Ghai gives us a character which has true integrity.
Much has been written about newcomer Anurag Sinha. He is quite impressive in his debut venture as the suicide bomber Numair Qazi. He has an intensity and an innocent charm which is quite captivating. Where he falters in his portrayal of the dreaded bomber, is that there are no shades to his performance. It is too straight. But it is still a performance with strength in it. Sinha is definitely an actor of great promise and one is sure of seeing a lot more of him. The romantic angle played by Aditi Sharma comes across as a little clumsy. But this young actress too holds a lot of promise.
The music of the film, composed by Sukhvinder Singh is quite captivating and is definitely one of the film's strengths. The song, "Main Chala, Main Chala' seems to grow on one. The cinematography is quite deft in the manner in which it captures the lanes of Chandni Chowk and the Red Fort. The film's fundamental weakness one feels is that Numair's change of heart is hardly registered. The final tussle and turmoil within him, catches one a little by surprise. The fact that he suddenly develops qualms about his behaviour, is expected in the course of the film, but the build-up is hardly visible, one feels.
But, as one said in the beginning, the film's strengths outweigh its weaknesses. Black & White has an innocence at its core, which cannot but help leave one moved. It best comes out in the character of the professor, who pays for harbouring and saving a terrorist, though unknowingly. And his reason as to why he saved Numair, is probably the ultimate statement from a man who can look through the black and see the white.
Black & White is a praiseworthy effort not just for what the film is trying to say, but also for the fact that a director like Ghai has shown the willingness to try and explore a subject different from any other that he has dealt with in his career. It is praiseworthy also for the manner in which it tries to present a third point of view to all the hatred and animosity in the world, a view which is neither black nor white but somewhere in between.
