'Madhuri Dixit is back', declared the posters for her 'comeback' movie Aaja Nachle. Now, half an hour later after watching the movie and filing from a cyber café, the answer is obvious.
Madhuri Dixit never really 'left' and for once, a top actresses' post-marriage-post-kid comeback is not an embarrassment. Thanks to writers Aditya Chopra and Jaideep Sahni who gave Madhuri the right story to 'come back' with grace.
Let it be official that Madhuri can STILL rivet you to the seat and still shame those much younger to her when it comes to dancing, emoting or sheer screen presence. And lord! She does it with so much grace that I wanted to get onto the screen and kiss the Actor.
While Aaja Nachle is Bollywood in full technicolour – dance, drama, designer sets – it's more than just another movie or yet another talked about comeback vehicle. The story, though set in a fictional town and speaks about 'nach-gaana and Laila-Majnu', is contemporary.
At a time when every city in India, be it the capital or a small town, is under the shopping mall onslaught, Aaja Nachle touches upon the issue of real estate development versus 'life' of a small town and what people really want. And it's not shopping malls. Ironic that fiction should reflect what's happening in real life and unfortunate that while a movie can perhaps look at happy endings, reality will be much different…
Coming back to Aaja Nachle: One had no plans to watch the movie, till my autorickshaw passed under a huge poster of the movie; and there was Mads beaming down on people… I had to see for myself, if my Madhuri was still the same.
My first recollection of Madhuri is of the actor in a green-gold knotted blouse, a Konkani nose-pin, her curls framing her face and Mads doing a mean mix on lavni-Bollywood dance in the movie Sailaab. The song was 'Humko aajkal hai intezaar'. I remember my mother was not very happy when she had caught her rather cherubic 16-year-old standing before the mirror and trying those moves.
But the relationship had been established: Each time Madhuri danced, yours truly watched mesmerized. Whether it was a dhak-dhak or whether it was a Chane ke khet mein (Anjaam), Madhuri was always the personification of grace for me. And it takes a whole lot of grace to do bust-thrusts and NOT be labeled an item girl!
Madhuri is the star of my generation. She debuted at a time when my love affair with Hindi movies was just beginning and she quit at a time when I was old enough to witness the 'new' face of the industry. I have grown with Mads.
I have squirmed when she was wasted in pathetic movies like Yaarana (with a heavily padded blouse and a horrible under-shower wet scene that was SO not needed), have clapped when she beat Karisma Kapoor in a dance competition in a scene from Dil To Pagal Hai (preposterous thinking another can dance better, phooey!) and have wondered with the rest of the nation if I would ever get to see my favourite actress on screen again. Today am glad she is back, for however long or short.
The timing could not have been better; for Madhuri and for the industry.
From being an industry where artistes were trained from being no-actors to good performers and then forgotten simply because they had 'aged', Bollywood is slowly coming off age. Yes, it still takes the rather dramatic route to things, but hey, that's MY Bollywood. If it has no drama, it no Hindi picture!
Coming back to Madhuri and Aaja Nachle, the movie is an entertainer and somewhat different fare from either the Anurag Kashyap school of reality-movies or the Farah-Karan Johar preference for Punjabi pop. It's about relationships… those of the characters' that are unfolding on screen and the relationship that Madhuri has shared with her viewers.
On screen, it was a new chemistry between Madhuri and her costars of the new-age: Be it her scenes with I-will-BE-the-character-I-play Konkona Sen Sharma, getting-better-with-each-movie Ranvir Shorey, the luscious-tressed Kunal Kapoor or with Akshaye Khanna, who plays the suave, foreign-educated Member of Parliament with his brains and his heart in the right place with complete finesse.
It was strangely nostalgic to see Madhuri with Akshaye… A rather controversial scene between a very young Madhuri and the then-established star Vinod Khanna in Dayavaan flashed before my eyes. It was heartening too because again, it was a sign that my Hindi movie industry is not just about dhinchaak and has scope to grow, really grow.
And Madhuri? She has grown. There are the typical Madhuri moves and yet she is restrained. She is still the best dancer we have even without Saroj Khan directing her. And more than anything else, her confidence is immense: Madhuri knows she is a veteran and she seems to be completely enjoying it. Now let's hope more good scripts are written for her and there's more of Madhuri we get to see. The journey, it feels, has just begun.
Watch out for Rajeev Masand's verdict on Aaja Nachle tonight on CNN-IBN at 10.30 pm (IST). You can also read and watch the review here on IBNLive.com
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