Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro (1989)
Director: Saeed Akhtar Mirza; Writer: Saeed Akhtar Mirza; Producer: Nfdc India; Cinematographer: Virendra Saini; Editor: Javed Sayyed; Cast: Pawan Malhotra, Makarand Deshpande, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Vikram Gokhale, Surekha Sikri, Sudhir Pande, Rajendra Gupta, Ajit Vacchani, Neelima Azim, Nishigandha Wad, Naresh Suri, Hyder Ali, Achyut Potdar, Shakti Singh, Ashok Banthia, Tom Alter
Duration: 01:46:58; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 274.286; Saturation: 0.062; Lightness: 0.219; Volume: 0.257; Cuts per Minute: 5.693; Words per Minute: 55.918
Summary: Mirza’s investigation (‘My own self, split 500 times’) of what it means to be a Muslim in a working-class Bombay neighbourhood controlled by criminals. Set in Bombay’s Do Tanki area, the film features Salim, a petty thief, in a world peopled by policemen, smugglers and an assortment of crooks. Salim’s father still suffers the after-effects of Bombay’s famous textile strike (1982) and his mother earns some money as an outworker sewing, but Salim has to support both of them as well as his sister Anees. He reforms after meeting Aslam, Anees’s poor but educated suitor, but is eventually killed in a fatalistic ending. Despite the film’s technical excellence, the presentation of a doomed hero via a quasi-documentary, street-level realism makes the film a voyeuristic experience allowing viewers to feel sorry for the unfortunates in their city.
Censor Certificate
Carnac Bridge
“I received a call from one of Mr. Rushdie's friends on Friday, asking about these names,” said a senior officer of the Mumbai Police, who deals with organised crime. “I thanked him for giving me something to laugh about.”
The officer said the Mumbai Police's dossiers on organised crime figures had no reference to individuals who might be using “Altaf Batli” and “Aslam Kongo.” “We've had a Salim Langda [‘the lame'], a Salim Kutta [‘the dog'], a Salim Tempo [‘truck'] and a Javed Fawda [‘the spade'] — but no ‘Kongo.' Lots of Batlis [‘bottles'], but no Kongos.”
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2820796.ece
Masjid Bundar
SM:This particular shot had a quality to it: A man who thinks he owns the street, its an attitude. But if you listen to the soundtrack, there is a ship horn being blown. And obviously it shows that were pretty close to the docks. And at that time, a lot of the lumpen elements, a lot of the gangs operated by stealing from the docks.
Wong Karwai says of his film Chungking Express that it feels like a diary or a map and claims that if anyone goes to Hong Kong after watching Chungking Express, they will never get lost. This certainly seems to be the case with much of Bombay cinema. Saeed Mirza's films however seem almost like an archive of the city, which has been dispelled from celluloid existence, giving way to the flashier interiors of the Karan Johars and Yash Chopras.
In this delightful sequence from Saeed Mirza's Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro, the three protagonists banter about about on marine drive. Salim, a petty thief is a little tired of his precarious existence, of the harassment by the police and the unpredictable violence that seems to mark his life. He is contemplating starting a small business which allows him to go 'legit' and in this sequence discusses this with his friends.
Cinema has been described as the hidden archive of the urban, and if one were to look for the equivalent of the various figures of urban life in the 19th century documented by Benjamin, one would find them in different shades in Hindi cinema. This sequence captures an urban figure called the'Roadside Romeo', a combination of the flaneur and, the tapori. Like Benjamin and Baudelaire, Hindi cinema captures 'the fleeting, the ephemeral and the transient' in the thousands of eyes, in thousands of objects in which the city is reflected.
Do Tanki
Docklands. Shot on location.
Salim and his colleagues are contracted to steal goods from trucks lined up near the docks.
Masjid Bundar
On Dialogue, and
Bambaiya
SM: While researching, I had tape recorders. I used to record and listen to the language. It's a mix of people coming from the Konkan region of Maharashtra, or Deccan, or from Rajasthan. And in the mix a common language evolved, a Hard-core
Bambaiya . And it moves. You get a lot more Marathi words in the mix the moment you move up from Byculla to Lower Parel. Where as in the southern-eastern part of the city the
Dakkani influence in stronger. Nukkad was the originator of writing in this language. It preceded Salim...
On casting, and the influence of Nukkad.
SM: I wouldn't do screen tests, I would do more rehearsals. I had worked with Pawan in Nukkad. He also was on the production side of things in Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho. I saw a spirit in him. And then we just shot a scene together with him, Ashutosh Gowarikar and Makrand Deshpande. It was Makrand's first film).
Established in 1975, the NFDC was created to aid in the making of good films in India. Salim Langde pe mat Ro is the 44th film produced by it. NFDC is collaborating with Mumbai-based Pixion Studios for the restoration of 100 films in the next three years including Salim Langde pe Mat Ro.
Minara Masjid
Title Sequence. Filmed By Binod Pradhan.
Virender Saini (who shot most of Saeed's Films) is the cinematographer of Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro. However, this title sequence was shot by Binod Pradhan. While at FTII, Saeed Mirza, Mani Kaul, Hariharan and Kamal Swaroop along with editors, cinematographers and sound recordists formed the short-lived film co-operative called YUKT. (Union of Kinematograph Technicians) in 1976. The idea was that 4 directors, 4 camerapersons: 4 Sound recordists and 4 editors would produce films together. The 4 camerapersons were Virender Saini, Binod Pradhan, Manmohan Singh and Rajesh Joshi,
Ghashiram Kotwal, 1976 by Hariharan and Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Daastan, 1980, by Saeed Mirza were the only films produced under YUKT.
A chronicle of a death foretold
SM: It's a film about a chap called Salim langde...don't cry for him. Obviously there is going to be some tamasha about him! And also you, (the audience) in a sense are going to be a voyeur into the life of Salim and obviously, knowing the title- its not going to be a happy ending. So you are actually now going to be participating in the essay of this man, as a viewer.
It starts with first person, he's narrating. The whole film is in first person. And when I end the film, the whole point is, whose film is this? How could he narrate the film, if he is going to die? So, I leave it open, as a structure. I saw the audience as voyeurs, of the destruction of a young man called Salim. But through his journey, hopefully they can reflect on what hes really all about.
I used the Voice Over specifically for Salim. I havent used it before and i didnt use it again.
Azad Restaurant
Dongri
Sandhurst Road
Sardar Vallabhai Patel Road
SM: These guys are people of the night, moving around in the grey areas of the city. Lauding themselves in some hole in the wall hairdresser.
SM: This is the anarchism of the guys. Look at this! The Gateway of India, they are trying to bring it down. They're pushing against it. Now What does this mean?
Apollo Bundar
Gateway of India
SM: Loose, Purposeless, wandering around...
Mohammed Ali Road
Haji Ali
Heera Panna
Loose, Purposeless.
SM: Shopping malls, the arcades...the supposedly fancy areas of the city, they will roam. But in the night! And their own areas, during the day.
Air India Building
Marine Drive
Oberoi Hotel
SM: Matka Den.
Azad Restaurant
Dongri
Sandhurst Road
Sardar Vallabhai Patel Road
SM: This location comes back in the end. It's like "a chronicle of a death foretold."
JM: The downward arrow symbol is like a metaphor.
This scene is filmed on the small traffic island in front of Azad Restuarant.
SM: This location comes back in the end. It's like "a chronicle of a death foretold."
JM: The downward arrow symbol is like a metaphor.
This scene is filmed on the small traffic island in front of Azad Restuarant.
SM: This location comes back in the end. It's like "a chronicle of a death foretold."
JM: The downward arrow symbol is like a metaphor.
This scene is filmed on the small traffic island in front of Azad Restuarant.
"Clouds swirl along the blue ridges. You can sit for days watching the light play on the shadows of the mountains, which is maybe why William Burroughs, who drank the hallucinogen yagé prepared by the Indians at the foothills of the Andes at Mocoa, in the Putomayo region of Columbia in 1953, talks so much about blue throughout his life’s work … Amongst other things, he notes a blue face, a blue wall, and plants growing out of genitals."
[Michael Taussig, What Color is the Sacred? (2009.)]
On the Textile Worker Motif
SM:I constantly use the refrain of the textile worker. For me the history of the city would be incomplete if I did not reflect on the textile worker. If you look at this from a numbers point of view, 25% of the work force in the city was directly linked to the textile mills.
InAlbert Pinto I had a textile worker. (add pad.ma link) And now here i have a mill worker who has been sacked because the strike is over. He's unemployed, and I'm going to use him as my link to Albert Pinto. He represents that time, which is five years earlier where there was this incredible spirit of going on strike and taking on the world. The longest strike in the history of the world. 1982 to 1984. 2,50,000 workers on strike. It was incredible.
JM: Because he was a mill worker, out of work. What were the oppurtunities for the children? That's why he was pushed towards a lumpen profession. Mothers will not usually work in a muslim family.
SA: This is what Meena Menon writes about, but from the hindu majority point of view, that it was the decimation of the left and the retrenchment of the workers and loss of permanant employment that lead to the capture of the unemployed youth by the Right-wing (shakhas)
Film set
Natraj Studios
SM: later youll see a reference to Javed. He was a guy who was slightly educated. Perhaps gone to a techical school, he became an electrician some education. And even that like, with some kind of income, gets snapped when he dies, accidently.
Bacchu Ki Wadi
Cafe Ashrafi
Fatima Manzil
Masjid Bunder
Shayda Marg
SM: These are all characters I met when i was doing my research. At nights this is the space where all these hoodlums hang out.
Rafique Bhai - They trust him because hes a taciturn guy. he wil not intefere and not gossip. he just does his job. And they dont mind him, they discuss their plans...
JM: This Rafique Bhai character is based on Rafique Bhai from Paradise Cafe, which is on the street near the JJ hospital Junction in Byculla. Rafique used to sit there. He was all ears, but never participated in the action. But he know everything that was going on.
SM: Oh i spent a lot of time meeting with them, having tea with them. Lots of nights. We lived in Bombay Central so it made it convenient to come home late at nights.
JM: Plus, a lot of people knew my father who was a doctor (and ran the Patrao nursing home in Bombay Central), so that was an inroad.
SA: Was Nukkad ever an inroad? Had people seen it?
SM: Oh yes, it helped a lot. Thats what got me a lot of access. They had all seen Nukkad and loved it. They trusted us. It helped as a great entry point into their lives. They said, 'these guys are ok' .
JM: I don't know if we should state this, but the film was actually called Karim Langde Pe Mat Ro. And Karim Lala sent a message saying, what are you shooting? We had practially finished shooting when this happened. So if you look carefully at scenes where Pavan is dubbed, you can see that when he's saying Karim, its dubbed Salim.
SA: What did they say?
SM: Oh people came onto the shoot. The requested, there wasn't any
dadagiri
SM: Salim's aspirations. his heroes and role models. Untutored,
unpad guys who have made it. They know politicians and filmmakers...He's on this journey. And as a viewer, you are getting a bacjground check of what this guy is all about. Salim!
First appearance of Ibrahim bhai
SM: There was a chap who died, who used to hang out in Bacchu ki Wadi. They new he was a christian and he was called something hippie. They wanted to give him a christian burial, but he was a foreigner. So the story goes, that they took him to the local cemetery and when stopped, they said, "you bury him, or well bury you!" And they got a priest to say the rites.
SA: its so refreshing to not see him speak with an accent!
Natraj Studio
Set
Kotha
Bacchu Ki Wadi
Foras Road
Mumtaaz here wears a half-sari, an interesting variation of common costumes used in Kathak or Kathak-influenced dance performance.
Not far from Foras Road in Kamathipura was Pavan Pool, where an entire community of courtesans lived and worked. By day, rooms in the tiny houses are lived in; by night, they are emptied and lined with spotless white sheets for patrons. The courtesans in Pavan Pool, most prominently featured in Merchant-Ivory's 'The Courtesans of Bombay' were often trained in Kathak and music from an early age, with the intent of entering the profession as adults.
SM: See how far the voice over is extending...(and his world)
This is filmed in a real Kotha in Bacchu ki Wadi (Foras Road) Because of Rafique, we could request to film here for a night.
The actress, Neelima Azmi is Shahid Kapooor's mother
mujra
Police Station
Set
SM: Look at that touch on the shoulder...did you see that? When hes been taken out.
SM: Its an attitude,
Dande ki Jubaan Samajhte hai! And later on he will say,
tumhari jaat hi kutti hai.
Do Tanki
SM:These are real cops. our cops who were needed for bandobast (crowd control).
Mumbai
Mumbai
Cafe Ashrafi
Fatima Manzil
Masjid Bunder
Shayda Marg
Natraj Studio
Set
Salim argues with Abbu over responses and solutions
Bacchu Ki Wadi
Natraj Studio
Set
Do Tanki
Dongri
Nagpada
Bacchu Ki wadi
Outside Cafe Ashrafi
SA: Theres a line in this film,
Kutte ki Maut.. (A Dog's Death)
JM:
Kutte ki Maut.. became Satya
SM: Ya, i wanted to make
Kutte ki Maut..after this, but there was too much violence.
Masjid Bunder
Shayda Marg
Bacchu Ki Wadi
Foras Road
SM: This is at Foras Road Across. Shot from a Balcony.
Apna bhi time aayenga. After this, I needed space. How do you relavee a film? You realase some space
Mohammad Ali Road
SA: Oh this song! 1988. Pakistani pop coming to india. (Hawa Hawa, but Hassan Jahangir_
SM: It was the Kolaveri of that time! Even though we didnt have the internet to back it up.
bgm: hawa hawa (pakistani pop)
cafe?
Crowding Out Cupid (outlookindia.com)
This particular scene follows the spatial logic that rules the entire narrative-a logic of constricted space that determines how characters relate to each other and their social milieu. Between Salim and Mumtaz, this means directing their amorous rendezvous to a seedy restaurant. Mumtaz's profession as a "public woman" and Salim's status as a lumpen adds anothewr angle to this since this means that the more sanitized spaces of the city are inaccessible to them (as indicated by the scenes set in the predominantly yellow-hued restaurant).
Taj Mahal
SM: That was Sudhir Mishras voice...
Abbe!
The space of the restaurant becomes a recurrent image across the length of the film which gives us a glimpse into the influx of modernity into the lives of the people concerned. The understanding of public space, ranging from cafes to restaurants is hinted at, alongside the frequency with which one enters such a space and the informal interactions that concretize bonds. These spaces become markers which bear witness to a range of events-from the assassination attempts to heated discussions. The family room in the restaurant multiplies as the private and intimate space for the couple and in that way it rewrites the public-private binaries governing imaginations concerning conjugality. The café, possibly in a slightly affluent area, frequented by youngsters not just becomes a space looked at with askance by the lot (Salim, Peer and Abdul), primarily because of its inaccessibility and hostile aura. When Salim finally enters the same space with his lover Mumtaaz, space of restaurant reappears as he breaks into a terrain which was hitherto evaded his grasp.
JM: You have this shot in Albert Pinto also.
SA: The Taxi Driver...
SM: No! But Albert Pinto was before taxi driver. Even Arvind Desai has this shot. I use this image of the mirror to reveal a certain kind of narcisim with the male. There a problem, which I play with. It's a leit motif with me.
Natraj Studios
Set
Bacchu Ki wadi
SM: What does a Voice Over device do? It cuts off the desert of details. You cut short... Its like a diary of Salim. His story is unfolding
Natraj Studios
Set
Chor Bazaar
Do Tanki
Cafe Ashrafi
Fatima Manzi
Masjid Bunder
Shayda Marg
Natraj Studio
Set
Bandra
Bandstand
Bandra
Gazebo
Hill Road
Open House
Bacchu Ki Wadi
Salim asks Aslam some deep questions
bolega to...
popularised by Munna Bhai...
(came from nukkad)
Raju Hirani was a great fan of nukkad
deleteme
Antop Hill
Barkat Ali Dargah
Cafe Ashrafi
Masjid Bunder
Shayda Marg
JM: Unani Churan is played by Neeraj Vora. Hes a film Director now.
saeed akhtar mirza
Natraj Studio
Set
Painting of Phoenix mill by Sudhir Patwardhan, Mumbai, 2001
Lower Parel
Phoenix Mills
Haji Ali
Haji Ali
Bombay Harbour
Nariman Point
this is the seaside location in bombay where people come in to spend time and have a great time watching the waves
Natraj Studio
Set
The Documentary film on the Bhiwandi riots of 1984 screened here is by Arunabh Bhattcharjee. Voice Over by Naseruddin Shah. The character of the documentary filmmaker however is portrayed to with reference to Anand Patwardhan, who is known to screening films in large bastis and local neighbourhoods.
Even though Salim Langde...is made in 1989, Saeed predates the film and sets in against the backdrop of the Bhiwandi riots (which happended in 1984). Saeed says, that was the big one, but there were many before and many after. The anachronism is not important.
Jennifer cites MJ Akbar's Riot after Riot as a seminal book. Between 1947 and 1991, there were 45,000 riots in India. The underlying principal of the RSS was never to allow the muslim middle class to emerge.
So Bhiwandi, Muradabad, Chander, Ahmedabad, Surat, Malegaon...all the powerloom/industrial towns where Muslims ammassed some wealth to own properties and factories...riots occured.
Communal riots in Bhiwandi 1984
"In Bhiwandi, communal tension was again generated right through 1983 over the building of a massive meat processing plant-cum-abattoir on its outskirts. Though all the requsite permissions had been obtained by the firm (Al-Kabeer Exports Ltd) local BJP leader B • P. Vyas started an agitation against it on blatantly communal lines, culminating in a procession in November in which all Hindu bodies- the Mahasabha, its militant wing the Hindu Sena, the Shiv Sena, the BJP, the Patit Pawan Sanghatana participated. Congress (11members also participated in their “individual capacity”. (Dr. B P Vyas, it should be mentioned, as indicated severely by the Madon Commission Report for his provocative and dishonest role in the 1970 Bhiwandi riots),. The permission for the project was withdrawn after it was half-completed. This agitation was widely reported in the press."
From: Read the entire CPDR report;
See also Arunabh Bhattacharjee's
"Blessed by the Plague"
Bhiwandi
Bacchu ki wadi
Do Tanki
Cafe Ashrafi
Fatima Manzil
Masjid Bunder
Shayda Marg
Cafe Naaz
Video game Parlour
The arcade video games being played by Salim in this video parlour are '1942' and 'Mach Rider'.
Film set
Natraj Studio
Police Station
Natraj Studio
Set
?
This scene where a rotten, unrecognizable body of a young man is taken out from a gutter is the cinematic realization of the constant allusion of such Muslim working class neighborhoods to the wasted and discarded underbelly of the city.The cleaner's commentary puts it in context with the rhetoric of the film,however this event of police machinery taking out unidentifiable bodies from street sides and sewers is also a haunting memory embedded within the everyday life of such city spaces in India.
Bacchu Ki Wadi
This sequence deals with the issue of communalism and the notion of an ‘imagined community’ on the basis of commonly shared culture, music , language and so on. We see Salim and Aslam are having a conversation over the pressing problem of communalism and its roots. What is fascinating in this sequence is the soundtrack. The sound of a train passing evokes the memory of the partition and communal violence around it as trains carrying decomposed corpses is a vividly recognizable image in the memory of the people. The preceding section itself shows the sight of a decomposed corpse dumped during the riots being excavated from the manhole..Secondly when Aslam goes on talking about an imagined community harmonized by shared culture, music so on and so forth the sound of train works as an abiding modality that connects the ‘nation’. Thirdly thanks to Satyajit Ray’s persistent use of the train motif in his ‘Apu Trilogy’ thereby bringing to the fore the issue of modernity and development, the sound of a train passing by becomes important in this context as Dr Ira Bhaskar and Dr Richard Allen in their book Islamicate Cultures Of Bombay Cinema place the film under the rubric of ‘New Wave Muslim Socials’ that has reform at its heart.
Antop Hill
Barkat Ali Dargah
Matka Den
Natraj Studio
Set
?
laser blade ad
Bacchu Ki Wadi
Kotha
Natraj Studio
Set
Do Tanki
Air India Building
Marine Drive
Oberoi Hotel
Marine Drive
The citation to "jeete hain shaan se" and "hum kisse se kam nahin" are references to very popular songs in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Cafe Ashrafi
Masjid Bunder
Shayda Marg
Bandra
Pali Market Road
St. Johns Street
Bandra
Gazebo
Hill Road
Open House
Natraj Studios
Set
Juhu Bungalow
Bacchu Ki Wadi
Natraj Studios
Set
"Ek Do Teen", madhuri dixit, tezaab, intertextuality
Salim goes downstairs as more guests come in. He comes into the open courtyard to the tune of the hugely popular Madhuri Dixit number "Ek, Do, Teen..." being played on the music system. Salim is welcomed in a sparse crowd of dancing people by Peera and Abdul, hooting and whistling. They begin to dance. Salim is purely ecstatic. A man wearing a white and black shirt comes into view amidst the small crowd.
Ek Do Teen, Tezab, Madhuri Dixit
Bacchu Ki Wadi
He begins to follow Salim. opens his dagger, and as Salim faces him, the man stabs him twice in the stomach. In shock, Salim almost disbelievingly sees blood on his hands. He stumbles and falls to the ground. Peera and Abdul rush to his side.
Dongri
Near Azad Restaurant
Sandhurst Road
Sardar Vallabhai Patel Road
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