Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of Bombay


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Timestamp:
Jul 3, 2012, 6:37:02 PM (12 years ago)
Author:
Trupti
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  • Bombay

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     1'''Bombay''' 
     2 
     3 
     41995 134’ col/scope Tamil/Hindi 
     5d/s Mani Rathnam pc Aalayam dial Sujata 
     6lyr Vairamuthu c Rajiv Menon m A.R. Rehman 
     7lp Aravind Swamy, Manisha Koirala, Nasser, 
     8Kitty, Radhabai, Tinnu Anand 
     9 
     10 
     11Controversial melodrama set in the 1993 
     12Bombay riots following the destruction of the 
     13Babri Masjid by Hindu zealots in December 
     141992. In a Tamil village, the Hindu Shekhar 
     15(Swamy) falls for a Muslim woman, Shehla 
     16Bano (Koirala). When the fathers of both 
     17oppose the marriage, the couple elope to 
     18Bombay where Shekhar gets a job as a 
     19journalist, while Bano gives birth to twin boys. 
     20Their personal story is intercut with growing 
     21signs of religious fanaticism around them led 
     22by saffron-clad members of the Shakti Samaj, 
     23an obvious reference to the Shiv Sena. 
     24Following the destruction of the mosque, 
     25Muslim militants kill two workers, and the 
     26Shakti Samaj leader (Anand), referring to Shiv 
     27Sena leader Bal Thackeray, leads his party into 
     28full-scale reprisals against the city’s large 
     29Muslim population. Much of the film’s second 
     30half recreates the riot scenes on sets that 
     31replicate their original locations with 
     32astonishing fidelity. The couple lose their two 
     33children in the riots, who are looked after by a 
     34transvestite. In the end, after a fervent pacifist 
     35plea by Shekhar, the family is reuinted and the 
     36secular-minded common folk of both 
     37communities pacify the rioters. The film was 
     38controversial even before its release, when 
     39Amitabh Bachchan, whose company ABCL 
     40distributed the Hindi version, sought 
     41Thackeray’s ‘approval’ of the film thereby 
     42further legitimating his position as an extraconstitutional 
     43censor. It was later attacked for 
     44its allegedly ‘secular’ credentials, its 
     45misrepresentation of widely reported events in 
     46order to blame the Muslims for having started 
     47the riots, and for its tendency to equate the 
     48‘voice of reason’ with Hindu majoritarianism. 
     49Ravi Vasudevan (1996) has published an 
     50extensive critique of the film and on its 
     51reception. 
     52 
     53[[Film]]