You gotta hit this Highway. Review on Highway

Years ago I happened to embark on a journey in a small rickety bus from Jaipur to Delhi to Chandigarh to Kufri. Those were the days spent out of limited means. Austerity measures were factored in.not out of some saintly thought of shunning the luxury but due to the fact that whatever meager pocket-money I was carrying  was not earned by me. I was not an earner then.

I was just a student. That journey  followed a simple routine – travel over-night to save on the hotel charges, take a shower under the road-side hydrants along with the truckers, find some Gurdwara so as to a manage a free breakfast in the langar, hit the road before halting for lunch or dinner in some dhaba and then hit the road again to take on what seemed to be a never-ending journey in a cramped vehicle where jostling for space with the co-passengers was a way of life through the hot and sultry nights of August.

In the years that followed by, whenever I read and re-read ‘The Room on the Roof’ and its follow-up novel, ‘Vagrants in the Valley’ by Ruskin Bond, I was only reminded of the bonding I had once developed with the highways during that ‘don’t-know-where-the-road-will-take me’ journey across the rustic hinterland of Rajasthan, bountiful Punjab and mountains-blessed Himachal Pradesh. All the discomfiture and hardship notwithstanding, in retrospect,  I only have fond memories of that epic journey.

When YouTube promos of ‘Highway’ promised a second-hand re-livening of the above experience, I immediately decided to catch up with the movie - out of a self-assurance that even if the film turned out to be a total no-brainer, my  ‘travel-happy’ Bong sensitivity would somehow find some reason to like a ‘Road’ movie like this.

Half way through the movie, I was confused not knowing whether the protagonists(Alia Bhat and Randeep Hooda) were more confused than me. My confusion stemmed from the thought as to whether the attempt to create an atmosphere of profound confusion was deliberate on the part of the director-cum-writer.

Veera(Alia Bhat), a rich man’s kid, is about to get married just in a matter of few days, when all of sudden, much to her horror she finds herself kidnapped by some gang-members  whose operatives come from the  hinter-land of sub-Delhi.

By the time, the gang figures out that it was an error of judgment to kidnap the daughter of an influential man and such an act eventually would generate too much heat to bear, it is too late. The gang factions out and thus starts a seemingly never-ending journey of the tormentor and tormented – the captor and the captive. In a hostage-like situation, ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ may have some relevance but hey wait ‘Highway’ is much more than ‘Stockholm Syndrome’.

Veera with her urbane and up-market upbringing is initially confused as to how to deal with her captivity and then suddenly, with each turn of the road, she is in a head-on-collision with a whole new world hitherto unknown to her as a bemused Veera goes on discovering the richness of life an opulent sky up above the verdant greenery which rushes to give a warm embrace from as far as the eyes go the distant horizon the untamed breeze which ruffles through her cascading locks with almost motherly affection. This is the starting point of her dilemma – does such a world actually exist. a world which is unpretentious. which does not smother. which does not sweep the dirt under the carpet for years!

As Veera increasingly clings on to her captor, who by now is more of a messiah than a tormentor, a perplexed Mahaveer(Randeep) witnesses a roller-coaster ride of emotional turmoil fueled by a complex mix of nostalgia fueled by his concern for an innocent-looking  hostage. For him, life has already hit such a dead-end of the road which does not even allow a reverse gear.

He is amidst a lost battle to fight off a baggage of pent up emotions.and then ironically, comes solace from the most unlikely quarters as Veera steps in to give refuge to this defiant-yet-vulnerable over-grown boy neither does who know where is he heading for. American Psychiatrist Eric Berne would have surely been happy to see his theory of ‘Transaction Analysis’ being put to a good use in a Bollywood movie which dealt with so many ego states!

In portrayal of their respective characters, both Randeep and Alia deserve kudos for dishing out such understated-yet-convincing performance. Many ‘almost frozen but not still’ shots have been used in an attempt to capture the magic that a journey might spell on the wayfarers who were suddenly aboard a common pedestal(read vehicle) despite the sharp contrast of their back-ground.  The story told in a ‘linear commentary’ format had a very ‘laconic’ approach with the dialogues and for me, this sense of economy with the dialogues was the high-point of ‘Highway’.

The photography could have still been better but I guess, in an attempt to remain true to the locations, the Director refrained from lifting the visuals digitally and hence, no surrealism but only credible realism was on the offing. The score of Rahman had an unmistakable  aroma of earth and they would haunt you long after you leave the theater.

Imtiaz Ali’s films are known to invoke extreme emotional reactions in the viewers. After watching the film ‘Rockstar’, someone commented that he had felt as if he was stabbed. For some strange reason, I tool felt as if the last bullet of ‘Highway’ was fired at me.

Be it the epic migration of wildebeest from Serengeti to Masai Mara or swarming of thousands of black-browned Albatrosses to Falkland Islands from the high-seas or say, thronging of hordes of Flamingoes into Little Rann of  Kutch from Siberia(Ref: National Geographic Traveller India, Feb 2014 Issue), I always found myself fascinated about the epic journeys that are filled with so much of drama. Once you hit the road, no matter whosoever is behind the wheel, the ‘road’ finally takes over with its unmatched charm and may be this is why it triggers such myriad emotions deep inside the mind of a vagrant.

Get your back-pack ready is all I would suggest break free from the mundane, be a musafir again, hit the ‘Highway’, join a baby-faced bimbette and a boorish criminal on board.  You won’t regret this journey – I bet.