Just a little tenderness

ldquoLook at me I donrsquot even know how to laugh at myself Irsquove not spoken to a woman for 12 years Whenever I talk to men itrsquos just swearing complaining taunting They never talk abouthellip mankind health music gossip happiness dance justhellip this and thatrdquoSo says Jackie Shroff in the middle of Mast Mein Rehne Ka Prime Video This is not a perfect film But I would say it is a heroic film saturated with something deeply missing in our times tenderness Itrsquos also very funnySet in an older central Mumbai Mast Mein Rehen Ka MMRK follows four protagonistsmdashsome migrants some longtime dwellers Each is a little lonely and somewhat alone Or are theyJackie Shroff is Kamath a widower Like the decaying artdeco building he lives in he too is decrepit his body a faded memory of beauty isolated among the impending highrises just like the news in newspapers is lost among the marketing flyers He lives his days with the particular discipline of the elderly concluding with a strong beer until he passes out When a burglar breaks in one night he wakes up and insists the burglar kill him terrorising the burglar This sets off a chain of events which lead to his friendship with Mrs Handa Neena Gupta also widowed also a victim of the same bumbling burglar We know the burglar also as a tailor foolish but beset by poverty navigating a rickety path between debt and desire Everyone has many realitiesMMRK is not a film about lovemdashwhich is what makes it so great It is a film about how people learn to connect with others and what that requires in a world increasingly trained to disconnect Connecting means crossing some boundaries revealing some desires and spending time together Finally it means learning to see yourself with a little tenderness being able to receive it from others as much as giving itIt is not disbelief but cynicism you must suspend while watching MMRK The realist turn of the last two decades means mainstream films have been studded with smart observational detail about quirky characters MMRK is different because humorous detail is never divorced from empathy never used to aggrandize the directorrsquos cleverness While cognisant of the cityrsquos violent power dynamics MMRK has amused affection and acceptance of its denizensmdashbeer drinking chicken lollipop eating faral sharing pickle coveting pottyproblem solving precarious and preposterous bumblers all And best of all It has Rakhi Sawant who actually says BoreMatKarYaar in one scenemdashwho is filmed with the greatest tenderness of all and intimate awareness of her quintessential Bombay legacies A rare film quite at ease with womenIn an unstated but evident way Mast Mein Rehne Ka is a film about masculinity Yaniki with quiet selfconfidence it takes on the masculinist worldview where domination is touted as the only truth a crushing inevitability It reveals the loneliness at the core of this worldview and asserts that intimacy and connectionmdashthe refusal of lonelinessmdashis an emotional and political counter to this world view And intimacy it reminds us is not only about sharing pain but sharing enjoyment of each other with our differences In a time obsessed with size MMRK might seem like a small film just like this small column But it holds a big idea waiting patiently for us to claim itParomita Vohra is an awardwinning Mumbaibased filmmaker writer and curator working with fiction and nonfiction Reach her at paromitavohramiddaycom