My Thoughts on Rohit Shetty's Chennai Express

Just around the time of India's Independence Day, I went to see Rohit Shetty's Chennai Express (2013) starring the gorgeous and talented Deepika Padukone and Bollywood Baadshah Shah Rukh Khan. The movie was a typical Rohit Shetty film - filled with humor, laughter, and action - with quirky jokes that never failed to make me laugh and cry until my stomach was hurting. However, the film also in many ways depicted the South Indian culture and its illustration of the South Indian culture sparked controversy. The film's poster and trailer were criticized the filmmakers for demeaning the South Indian culture and language even saying that Deepika Padukone's accent sounds more like Malyalam than Tamil.

Chennai Express Poster via boxofficecapsule.net

Deepika Padukone, who is from South India herself, defended the film saying that she would never spoof her own culture. She said, :"I don't understand why people are jumping to conclusion without even seeing the film. We all are South Indians, Rohit is a South Indian and I think except for SRK most of the crew was from South.Why would we spoof our own culture? For years, our films have been based in Punjab but now few films have started setting their stories in South India. I think people are not yet used to it. It is a comedy and larger-than-life film so dialogues are meant to be funny," 

Recently, Manu Joseph released a powerful article that requires some deep thought and provokes thoughts on a nation -  Joseph writes: 

It is common for Indian intellectuals, who have the time for such exercises, to wonder what unites India. Cricket, democracy and even Hindi films are often cited as the glues. Yet, what really unites India is, very simply, its habit of being India. India is the proof that a nation needs to have nothing in common to remain a nation. In fact, increasingly, the very idea of “national” is losing its heft. There are no national political figures anymore; provincial leaders, issues and interests are resurgent; and Delhi as a center of power and culture has been, while not destroyed, greatly diminished. Yet, India is more assured than ever that it is, in fact, India.

Joseph calls India a country which is both a "myth and a fact." 

To some extent, I am drawn to the idealism that Joseph draws on and its a beautiful idea that Indians are reunited despite the fact that we have nothing in common with each other yet we remain a nation but is the issue of unity, "Indian-ness", and India so easily resolved? It almost seems as though we are not facing and learning to overcome our differences to become a united nation. It is also interesting that Shetty released the film during the time nearing the 67th Indian Independence Day! 

Here are my following observations regarding the film, its significance in the larger context, and India: 

• Until we see ourselves as a nation, we will never be able to see the humor, which the film is attempting to generate. Yes, I do agree to some extent it does ridicule the culture but I do not think it was intentional on the part of the filmmaker. 
• There are also many films like Akshay Kumar's Khiladi 786, Singh is King, and other films that try to draw on humor to highlight quirks of the various ethnicity that are existing in India and outside. If I remember correctly, Kal Ho Na Ho made fun of Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and Gujaratis. Humor is used as part of the entertainment and more like a plot device. While sometimes rightfully humor can be offensive to many, it is used to highlight subtle complexities and nuances of the culture being shown in the film. So, in Chennai Express, humor was used to counter the tensions that the hero experienced in the film. 
• Joseph also rightfully points out the clash of the two major languages - Tamil and Hindi - which are highlighted in the film. When I was in Chennai in 2009, I noticed that foreign tourists and ex-Pats were treated better than people from North India. I was uncomfortable using Hindi and spoke primarily in (Broken) English when eating out at restaurants or using auto rikshaws. Part of me was dying to learn the language but I was only interning for two months there, I did however wish that I had an extra language to lay claim to considering that I belong to the country which has 28 languages and God knows how many dialogues. Instead of seeing it as a negative, I think the fact that the film brings together both languages in unity in the cultural visual text, I think it hints towards a more united outlook of India as a nation! 
• The heroine in the film, Meenamma (Deepika Padukone) was an independent, bold, and strong woman who was traveling by herself in the country. The film highlighted an important issue, which I am passionate about - it talked about the subjectivity of women in India, their choice to develop their careers, or marry the man of their choice. Although her age was unknown, she ended up marrying a man who was 40 years old (which would still be considered a taboo in India). Furthermore, the film showed that Meenamma was vocal, extrovert yet modest and continued to maintain her traditional characteristics. In other words, she occupied her own space and was the driving force behind the plot of the film. Rahul (of course Shah Rukh)'s character was of a typical romantic hero, but what was memorable in this film was his defense of Meenamma's subjectivity. However, what I found slightly questionable was when towards the end of the film, he asked her if she would nod when he asked her a question - and she nodded - when he asked her to marry him. While I understand that we are interdependent creatures and we need/want companionship - in many ways - the film still paid heed to tradition though it highlighted and brought into question an important issue that continues to be relavant today! 

So, here are my thoughts on the film! Its worth a watch once but its definitely something I will show to my students one day to spark discussion and find thoughts on identification, social identity, unity, "Indian", Indian nationhood! 

The movie is currently playing in theatres. For the official website, please visit http://www.chennaiexp2013.com/

Sources: nytimes.com, timesofindia.com, indiatoday.intoday.in, anokhimedia.com, and imdb.com

Images: boxofficecapsule.net, cdn.koimoi.net, and indiatoday.in

© Nidhi Shrivastava 2014 This content is subject to copyrights. Please ask for my permission before using this content for any purpose.