October: Magic in the Mundane

Cast: Varun Dhawan, Banita Sandhu, Gitanjali Rao

Director: Shoojit Sircar

“For men may come and men may go, but I go on forever”

Tennyson’s profound philosophy beautifully sums up October. Life goes on for one and all, but every soul shapes its flow, curves its path, transforming it as they pass by.

Life and its ordinary occurrences come alive in October: foggy nights, a carpet of night-flowering jasmines, the lush green of a downpour, the stained, dirty glass of an unused car. It is in these everyday happenings that writer Juhi Chaturvedi and director Shoojit Sircar discover tales of growing up, inexplicable human connections and finding a purpose to strive. Unlike their previous collaborations, Vicky Donor and Piku, October is a somber, meditative and a gentle film.

Dan (Varun Dhawan) is a hotel management trainee working at a 5-star hotel in Delhi on his internship. Shiuli (Banita Sandhu) is his fellow trainee. On New Year’s Eve, during a celebration on the terrace, tragedy strikes. Seeing Shiuli lying in the hospital bed in a comatose state affects Dan, changing him and his life forever. Dan is a man-child, a lost soul teetering on the extremes in the thick of an existential crisis. A bundle of contradictions, he is sincere and truculent, hard working and whiny, cautious and reckless, temperamental and patient all at the same time, trudging through life unsure about what he wants or who he wants to be. Shiuli’s last words, “Where is Dan?” asking about his whereabouts, infuse his life with a profound sense of purpose and he channels this, caring unconditionally for her and her family.

Labels flow thick and fast – boyfriend, best friend, lover, what are you to her, people ask – but none of these define Dan’s relationship with Shiuli. Beyond the occasional glances and a few brief exchanges, Dan and Shiuli at best can be termed acquaintances sharing a common friend. And yet, it would be too simplistic (and a great disservice to the film) to term his concern for her as mere love. Romantic love could’ve been an easy explanation, but writer Juhi Chaturvedi and director Shoojit Sircar will have none of it. Human connections and its complex, intangible feelings, arise in our subconscious mind for myriad reasons. For Dan, his concern towards her could’ve stemmed from a whole range of emotions: guilt and compensation at his absence, her last words asking for him, extraordinary sensitivity, something from his past or even love. Whatever the reason maybe, for the first time, he does something that is completely dictated by his own feelings and whims, not because someone instructs him to, but because he feels it is the right thing to do.

All the glitz and the glamour of a 5-star hotel holds no sway in Dan’s heart as he finds implausible excuse after implausible excuse to escape its confines. Even though he is good at his job, the inside of the hotel only leaves him with a sense of being tied down. Not even the prospect of opening a restaurant with his 2 buddies keeps him motivated. But contrast this to the clinical and procedural confines of the hospital and Dan suddenly comes alive. His curiosity is piqued and everyday functions attain a new importance in his life – from judging the urine output to knowing the receptionist’s trysts with the nurses, he knows it all. The confines of the hospital, give him a sense of liberty, a choice that he makes willingly, probably for the first time in his life.

Shiuli’s family in return, is quite ignorant of his presence but slowly warms up to him. In Shiuli’s mother Prof. Vidya Iyer (Gitanjali Rao), sister and brother, Dan finds a home and a connection that he never quite seemed to have shared with his own family. To Vidya, he becomes a pillar of strength, a voice of hope when she falters in her own belief. A single mother and a mathematics professor at IIT Delhi, Vidya is dignity and strength personified and debutante actor and multiple award-winning animation director, Gitanjali Rao, never makes Vidya the object of our sympathy. Instead, she turns her into an everyday working woman who holds fort when her family is put through testing times.

Her relationship with Dan anchors the film, gradually building over time. The scene with Dan’s mother and Vidya speaks volumes. While she is baffled by her son’s concern, to Vidya, he has become family. In the scene that follows, she realizes how selfish she has been and asks Dan to leave and focus on his career. Surprisingly, Dan listens. In a latter scene, when Dan returns, unable to stay away any longer, the looks they exchange elevate their bond to an understanding that goes beyond perfunctory.

Time is a cruel master in October. Seasons change, months go by and Shiuli stays comatose. In the meanwhile, life continues for Dan and Shiuli’s family – Work must go on, studies continue in a quiet corner of the hospital, something as normal as a tuition even must be attended to. The transition is depicted in excruciating detail: riding back and forth from the hospital, sleeping on stretchers and hospital chairs. Shiuli’s recovery is wonderfully captured, her hair and makeup giving us indications to the passage of time. Festivals, and not awkward captions, tell us of the months gone by. And it is to the director’s credit that none of this ever gets drudging.

Making frugal use of dialogue and framing and avoiding unnecessary tropes like flashbacks and narrations, we discover facets about Dan and the rest of the characters through their interactions and relationships alone. We never get to know where Dan was on the night of the accident or the nature of his relationship with his parents. Vidya’s brother-in-law’s disdain towards her and her kids, points to an underlying friction. Shiuli herself is a mystery. And somehow, there is immense heft in the writing, making us instantly care for these characters.

Writer Juhi Chaturvedi has a knack for capturing little vignettes from day-to-day life, building an organic eco-system that feels surprisingly close to real life. Dan isn’t an isolated being – his interactions with the nurses, the hospital receptionists, the pharmacists, the security guards, even random visitors, most of them casual conversations and insights which are mined delightfully to produce everyday humor, is the film’s core strength. A conversation between Dan and Manjeet about the various equipment and tubes in the ICU is droll and hopeless at the same time.

Director Shoojit Sircar explores unknown nooks and crannies: the long corridors of the hotel and the hospital, the pristine laundry section, the hotel mess area, nature’s wonders in the nearby park. Intimate and up close on one hand, sprawling and vast on the other, the camera lovingly captures these commonplace experiences. Steeped in lush greens, warm yellows, earthy maroons and squeaky clean whites, the film feels tender and hopeful never bogged down by its grim premise. The minimal background score and lilting theme add to this buoyant spirit. In moments that could’ve easily lent themselves to a dramatic, crescendo-filled orchestration, the use of ambient sounds like the noise from the vacuum, the breathing equipment in the ICU or Vidya weeping, sans the background score, gives room for the characters to breathe, allowing us to feel their struggle and lending the proceedings a lived-in feel.

Shiuli in Bengali means “the night flowering jasmine.” Like the jasmine, Shiuli burns bright for a brief time, leaving an affecting fragrance that helps Dan finally come of age. On a spiritual level, Shiuli may be an extension of Dan’s attitude towards himself and the world. Her metaphorical flower is at first neglected, later cherry picked and laid by her bedside. With all his confusion and recklessness giving way to clarity, like the jasmine tree he takes home with him in the end, he not only has grown up, but the reason for his transformation will always be with him, by his side.

October offers up many a philosophical question along the way – when Dan, out of privileged innocence, tells Shiuli’s family that it is up to the person to decide whether they live or not, he is referring to the perennial argument around euthanasia: Who gets to decide when to pull the plug? When does one give up on a loved one who may no longer recover? Why should human connections be well-defined? Do intangible bonds formed by opposite sexes always have to fall under the ambit of love and attraction? And for a film that could have easily relied on ideas of fate, god and prayer to ask for a miracle, it refreshingly presents a rational, practical and scientific case that steers miles away from these usual tropes; Hope and humanity are the only things you need and the film succeeds masterfully in convincing us of this endearing worldview.