Ishqiya

The plot makes no sense, but the conversation between the two crooks of eastern UP is to die for.

What are the words for  ‘tits’ and ‘ass’ in Gorakhpuri?  Ishqiya will give you a pretty graphic answer. This movie has a ‘voice’ and it speaks the dialect of small town north India. Often, irrespective of whether a Hindi film is on location at Zurich or Allahabad, film writers stick to a standardised language within easy range of an actor’s phonetic abilities. This ends up in an erasure of all local flavour.

But in Ishqiya, perfect casting solves the language problem. The conversation between Khalujaan (Naseeruddin Shah) and Babban (Arshad Warsi), two crooks in the badlands of eastern UP, is to die for. With Naseer, it is his expertise in voice modulation that allows him to speak the local idiom with  exact intonation. With Arshad, it is his responsiveness to co- actors. He picks up quickly on cues. So what you have with the two is a jugalbandi,  something that has rhythm and sounds impromptu. Indeed, language anchors the film. Even one-liners from the most minor of characters—a boy with a country-made pistol,  a wizened old lady with a timeless face—sound real and rooted.

Krishna (Vidya Balan), by comparison, is a little off-key. She looks, dresses and talks with a faintly city-bred presence. She is remarkably free-wheeling in her banter with the men. When she speaks to Khalujaan, there is a romantic lilt to her conversation. After all, he is a poetic man. He wants her to shorten his name to ‘Jaan’. But with Babban,  Krishna is earthy and sexual. Later, when the two men compare notes, the younger man is resentful. He says that ishq for Khalujaan is ishq, but for himself it appears to be ‘just sex’. 

The plot in Ishqiya makes no sense whatsoever. It’s about robbery, blackmail, kidnapping and gun fights, in no apparent order to the sequence of action. What  grounds this film is the male camaraderie and the accurate portrayal of small town life and crime. A most enjoyable film to listen to.

About The Author

Ajit Duara