Up in Smoke: On Rustom's folly of follies

You have, in all probability, read about K.M. Nanavati v. State of Maharashtra. The 1959 case once had Bombay in its thrall and inspired, to varying degrees, RK Nayyar's Yeh Rastey Hain Pyar Ke, Gulzar's Achanak, and most recently, Tinu Suresh Desai's Rustom. In the run-up to Rustom's release, reams were written on the triangle between naval commander Kawas Manekshaw Nanavati, wife Sylvia, and her paramour Prem Ahuja, who Nanavati murdered.

That K.M. Nanavati v. State of Maharashtra was India's first media trial thanks to Russi Karanjia's Blitz is known. What should be, but isn't written about as much, is the gripping realpolitik that preceded Nanavati's acquittal after a three-year prison term. A trial that pitted Bombay's most illustrious communities – the Parsis, who canvassed for Nanavati, and the Sindhis, who buttressed the prosecution – reached a conclusion when Nanavati was pardoned by then-Maharashtra Governor Vijayalakshmi Pandit on condition that Sindhi freedom fighter Bhai Pratap, jailed for a minor offence, be pardoned too. And so it was that Nanavati and Bhai Pratap were released on the same day.

This would not have been had prosecution witness and Prem Ahuja's sister Mamie (reportedly goaded by Ram Jethmalani) not signed the undertaking for Nanavati's release. Which makes Mamie Ahuja one of the most interesting dramatis personae in Bombay's trial of the century.

There's a reason for providing this backdrop. Rustom, like all Hindi period dramas now, is prefaced with the 'fictitious events and characters' disclaimer. What one makes of creative licence is a debate for another day, but the least is to do the subject and characters justice. Here is where Tinu Desai fails.

Rustom is a Matryoshka doll of caricatures. As if Akshay Kumar's Rustom Pavri isn't quixotic enough, there's pigeonholing in Erach Billimoria (played by Kumud Mishra, modelled on Russi Karanjia) and the Nanavatis' house help Jamnabai (poor Usha Nadkarni). But the worst is saved for Preeti Makhija (Esha Gupta), Rustom's Mamie Ahuja.

In less than 30 minutes, dubiety is established in the form of a chain-smoking woman. Her thigh-high slit dresses with plunging necklines and perennial-smirk-or-glare is par for the course, but it's the cigarette holder that takes centre stage.

If Hindi cinema's representation of women comfortable in their own being could be distilled into a meme, this would be it:

Cigarettes have been go-to character devices in both Hollywood and Indian cinema for decades. Is the character an editor? Have him smoke a stogy. Beleaguered cop or melancholic writer-poet-artist type? Cigarette. A Big Kahuna? Cigar. A woman who's sexy/confident/powerful/ "one of the guys"/morally ambiguous/not a doormat? Cigarette (cigarette holder in period films).

What is it about nicotine that screams transgression if a woman takes to it, but masculine reinforcement when a man does so? Why are directors unable to give female characters with strong sense of selves little more than nicotine to cement said trait? We saw it in Now, Voyager (1942), where Bette Davis' character Charlotte Vale goes from being 'unwanted' to a sought-after siren with the help of cigarettes (think Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Lauren Bacall). But when this template made its way into Hindi films it metamorphosed into 'Western excess' faster than Don Draper could say "It's toasted." Nadira, Helen and Bindu were default cigarette-smoking coquettes from the 1950s-70s, with Saira Banu (Purab Aur Paschim) Sharmila Tagore (Mausam, Charitraheen) and Parveen Babi (Deewar) filling in if their characters fell outside the bharatiya naari mould.

In the years sandwiched between then and now, we've also had nincompoop filmmakers who insist on making characters' professions (and only the women, mind you) synonymous with smoking: Cigarettewaali Priyanka Chopra and cigarettewaali Kangana Ranaut in Fashion, cigarettewaali Kareena in Heroine and cigarettewaali Rani Mukherji in No One Killed Jessica, to name a few.

News flash: dear Indian men, an Indian woman smoking is not a big deal (stop ogling at her when she smokes on the street). But using the habit to differentiate her from your idea of an 'ideal woman' (whatever the hell that is) or to underline greyness, rebellion, independence, and strength – when you don't do so with male characters – is. It tells one a lot more about a filmmaker than it does about the character.

It certainly tells one a lot about Tinu Suresh Desai, who whittled Mamie Ahuja down to a cigarette holder and little else.