No Smoking, for me is one of the finest Hindi films I have ever seen. Primarily because it has said things that I have been wanting to say all my life and it has, hence, made an impact on my life like no other. It has layers set so deep that they cut through your bones, only if you are willing expose your bones to it. At a superficial level it is a convoluted narrative, supposedly borrowed from Quitters Inc, about a guy’s struggle to quit smoking. With support from family, friends and finally Baba Bangali (Paresh Rawal in the role of the executioner played with chilling precision), the job becomes only difficult as the story progresses, before finally the protagonist collapses at the hands of a minor surgery.
All this at a superficial level. Bubbling layers below is the story of our very own Howard Roark (K, played suitably by John Abraham) and his struggle against a system that would not let him be. The story of a person who struggles and finally is left with only the Peter Keating in him. Letting the Ellsworth Tooheys (Baba Bangali) of the world win and take control. I am not going to go into the narrative and the entire movie description but just give you snippets of how The Fountainhead of India succumbs to the Indian version of Toohey (Baba Bangali).
Ayn Rand said, and I believe many others have as well, that Man’s greatest ability is the faculty of thinking. The power of his own mind. By corollary, his ability to take decisions and then follow them without regret. And decide without intervention from others. Without influence from others. The power to act upon his free will. K’s story is about the struggle between a society that wants to control and an individual that wishes to live and in order for him to live he relies on his free will. The act of smoking is an assertion of his independence not his interdependence. And therefore he is seen as being liberated from a suffocating water swamped bathtub every time he takes a drag. Where he can’t breathe and his smoke has this power of liberation for him. His cigarettes help him swim and then breakthrough to the other side. Remember how others also CAME OUT from closed cupboards, from under the table and other traps. And when he does not get his cigarettes, to act on his free will, he gets trapped, becomes un-confident and becomes part of a world where everyone is an enemy.
Till the end his struggle is to live his life based on this motto, to follow through with his decisions and his struggle against a system that cannot allow him as it is a risk for that system. That would forcibly want to change him and take control of him to make him part of itself. Forcing others to submit to the demands of a power forces all to submit. A dictator that is so omnipresent it moves about like a ghost (like a green film), a contamination that promises to engulf all. The movie does not choose to depict one person as the antagonist, though there are times when Baba Ellsworth does command the screen with his madness, it’s a collective that attacks K. That threatens to consume him and no matter where he hides he can’t escape.
The society / system / Toohey / Bangali find ways to punish him and coerce him. If he does not relent they make him deaf, he persists and they kill his brother, he does not desist and they destroy his wife. Until finally he gives up and turns into Peter Keating, a spineless worm who merely dwells in the society and finally leeches off them leaving behind his Howard Roark / soul behind the glass door feeling dejected and defeated. And not able to communicate.
Some thematic / story specific observations:
1. AK has used green as a color to show contamination of the society and the soul
2. The green ghost is the all pervading dictator trying to control the world
3. The dual personality of various characters is a primary theme. K behind the glass and staring at himself. Anjali the wife (who wishes to mould him into her world) and the secretary (who is willing to do anything for him), Jesse Randhawa song which is sung by Adnan Sami (a man singing for a woman) and finally Baba Bangali and the doctor (btw Jab bhi cigarette jalti hai is one the most erotic songs I have seen / heard)
4. AK probably had to dumb down the film a bit to show that there is always someone watching you. The Ram aur Shyam bit in the lift
5. How life does give you the opportunity to take back what you lost but you fight it so that you don’t risk what you have. The scene where Alex (Joy Fernandes) forces him to smoke a cigar This film is not about cigarettes, it’s about a man losing the connection with his soul, his conscience, his mind and losing his ability to communicate with his inner voice.
Thank You AK
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