Traffic Signal; A Personal Review

Traffic Signal; A Personal Review

Whenever I review a movie, I usually comment on how it influenced or failed to influence my own thinking and find it useful to put out a disclaimer that my views and opinions will not always agree with everybody else’s. Nonetheless I do hope that Bombay-ites read this review and at least relate to some of my views. I watched Traffic Signal last night and when the movie began I marveled at the cinematography and at some of the actors. I hope Kareena Kapoor very intently watched and took notes on Konkona Sen’s portrayal of Noori, the street-side prostitute. Ms.Sen has successfully demonstrated that walking ungracefully with a cheap sari and a dire lipstick shade is not an adequate illustration of a prostitute (now if you belong to the Kapoor family minimal efforts at acting are widely appreciated. Hint: Chameli).

Thirty minutes into the movie I was still rooting for the dialogue and the realistic portrayal. I nervously glanced at the watch after two hours of what seemed like a very in-depth coverage of the lives of people who make their living by selling goods and by begging at traffic signals. As a young girl living in Bombay I was involved in some social work. So unconsciously I was looking for some answers in the movie and was hoping to find them during the course of the story. What I didn’t understand after having watched the movie is why do some of the people at the traffic signal resort to begging or prostitution in spite of the several NGOs in Bombay that are striving to provide educational, vocational and even rehabilitation services for free.

Now I am no longer in India and my opinions are very unceremoniously dismissed as the ranting of a snobbish NRI. I have moved away from any active social work but as a Bombay citizen, watching this movie brings back the frustration I felt then at failing to understand why it is that we should feel sympathy or even empathy for people who choose to beg in spite of being given a functioning mind, limbs and good health that if put to use can do so much more. I have more sympathy for the coolies, the relentless middle class and the labor working class whose tenacious hard work has made Bombay the commercial capital.

This movie is enlightening only for those who have never looked outside their window and lamented the dearth of the city ironically juxtaposed against a backdrop of glitzy buildings and shiny cars. Being born and raised in Bombay I have not met a single person who has failed to notice that there are several hearty, healthy and able individuals who beg for no apparent reason and this movie did very little to explore why. The movie lacks culmination and does not have a story that hasn't been told before. The context might be different but corruption, bhai-giri, poverty, prostitution, meaningless assassinations of honest government officials are all ultimately plots we are familiar with. We have always known that these exist, haven't we? Repeated portrayal of these abysmal realities by filmmakers, no matter how authentic, have brought them critical acclaim but bring their viewers a sense of hopelessness when it comes to the condition their city is in. Politicians, police, lawyers even publics service workers have all let us down and the law breakers and law makers have joined hands in Bombay and we know it. The film producers might not realize this but we are the common people of Bombay; we know this life, it is right outside our windows. One can make several movies called ‘Railway Station’, ‘Bus Stop’ or even ‘Under the Flyover Bridge’ and show the same abject lives with so much as a video camera installed in a nook somewhere.

But when the common man takes his family to watch the very realistically depicted life of beggars, hawkers and prostitutes at a traffic signal, what does he do? When he realizes that the child he had been dutifully giving alms to, during his daily commute in spite of his humble salary, is just part of a flourishing industry that abuses people’s goodwill and sympathy, what should he think? Now I am not trying to suggest that moviemakers should bear the responsibility of social reform however I do sincerely believe that they should focus on an original plot and a novel storyline rather than capturing what a documentary film probably could, more effectively and without the parallel romantic angle. I think moviemakers in the Indian film industry have wrongly associated art cinema or directorial genius with gory depictions of everyday life. Harsh reality can bring a good story to life but a lack of a storyline fails to make a point no matter how convincing the backdrop is. The impact of candor, I think is evident only in its ability to bring about change. How will we ever have change by showing the public what they can already see?

Traffic Signal took me back to what my grandmother once said very simply after having watched an excessively long movie that ended quite abruptly, “If it is a movie it should have a story and if it is a story it should have some moral, shouldn’t it?”