Salaam Bombay!, another entry in the street urchin sweepstakes, is beautifully photographed and full of fresh natural performances. It is less emotionally draining than most of its competitors in this subgenre but its message is nevertheless sober and sound.

Historical Background: Mira Nair is another one of the talented female directors born in India, along with Deepa Mehta (see Earth). Nair was born October 15th, 1957 in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa, India. After taking her education in Delhi University and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she began a career in film as an actress. When she later turned to directing, her first experience was in documentaries, such as So Far From India and India Cabaret. Nair decided she wanted to parlay that experience with cinema vérité into a drama relating to the street children of Bombay, which resulted in Salaam Bombay! (1988). Despite being her first feature film, it received more than 25 international awards including the Camera d’Or (for best first feature) and the Prix du Publique (for most popular film) at the Cannes Film Festival. It was nominated for the 1988 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Her two other most successful films have been Mississippi Masala (1992), starring Denzel Washington, and Monsoon Wedding (2001). The latter film took the Golden Lion at the 2001 Venice Film Festival as well as garnering a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Film. She also directed The Perez Family (1995), Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996), and My Own Country (1998), the last of which was made for Showtime television. More recently, Nair made a film for HBO entitled Hysterical Blindness (2002), starring Uma Thurman and earning Thurman a Golden Globe and the film itself three Emmys. Nair was one of the eleven directors commissioned to direct film segments after the terrorist attack of 9/11 with a length of 9 minutes, 11 seconds, and one frame. Nair chose for her topic the search of a mother for her son after he did not return home on that eventful day.

The Story: An Indian boy of eleven, Krishna (Shafig Syed), performs chores and errands for the owner of a traveling circus. We learn that Krishna was kicked out of his home in a rural village by his mother because he set fire to a bicycle that his older brother was repairing, in retaliation for being mistreated by his brother. His mother sent him packing with the demand that he not return before earning 500 rupees. The circus owner sends him to town on an errand, orders him not to “try any tricks,” but by the time Krishna returns, the circus has finishing pulling up stakes and left. Now on his own, Krishna uses what little money he has for a one-way train ticket to the nearest large city – which turns out to be Bombay.

In Bombay, Krishna soon becomes one of the hundreds of street urchins scrounging a life on their own. He begins to hang out with a small group of homeless children, some a bit older, some a bit younger. His circle of associates include Salim (Mohanraj Babu), who is somewhat older, Keera (Baju Barnad), who’s a little younger, Koyla (Sarfuddin Quarrassi), and Chungal (Chandrashekhar Naidu). They sleep on the street in the red light district nestled among the brothels. Krishna finds work delivering tea for a tea concession operated by Chacha. He thus acquires the nickname “Chaipu”, meaning “tea boy” (which is how I’ll refer to him henceforth). He delivers tea, for example, to one of the local prostitutes, Rekha (Aneeta Kanwar), in her bordello. Rekha has a cute little daughter of about five, Manju (Hansa Vithal). There’s a lovely little scene in which Chaipu and Manju dance to a tune on the radio while Rekha looks on lovingly.

Manju’s father is Rekha’s pimp, Baba (Nana Patekar), who is also the local drug dealer. When Rekha is accommodating either Baba or a customer, Manju has to play outside of her mother’s room. In protest, she scratches on the opaque windows of the door like a cat, which naturally irritates the occupants of the room. At night, she sometimes has to sleep outside with the street boys.

Chaipu comes under the influence of a young man of twenty-five, Chillum (Raghubir Yadav), who sells drugs purchased from Baba to tourists in the sections of the city that the tourists frequent. Chillum sells a drug packet to one tourist for 150 rupees, which is apparently a good deal better than the going price at the time. Chillum is strung out on drugs himself and introduces Chaipu, first, to hashish and, later, to heroin. Chaipu’s exposure, however, is rather limited while Chillum is quite addicted. In fact, Chillum got his nickname from the word for a kind of elongated clay, stone, or wooden pipe used in India to smoke hashish. Chillum ultimately overdoses and the boys hold a street funeral for him.

Another subplot entails a young girl from Nepal, Solasaal (Shaukat Azmi), who has been sold into prostitution and has just arrived at one of the bordellos. She is a sixteen-year-old virgin and is quickly nicknamed “Sweet Sixteen.” She is distraught and initially rebellious but is “tamed” by her Madame with the help of the sweet-talking but corrupt Baba. Both Baba and little Chaipu are attracted to Sweet Sixteen but she’s two high-priced a commodity for either one of them, as her virginity will to sold to some well-heeled customer. Chaipu tries to “save” Sweet Sixteen by setting fire to her bed, hoping to flee with her during the ensuing fire, but the two don’t get very far. For his trouble, Chaipu gets fired from his job as tea delivery boy. He’s only about halfway to his goal of 500 rupees saved that he’ll need in order to return home.

Chaipu and the other street kids survive by stealing and taking odd jobs. On one occasion they clean out chicken cages, another time its plucking the feathers from freshly slaughtered chickens, and, later, they work as busboys at some kind of ritzy dinner event. They also rob the home of an elderly man on one occasion, under the leadership of one of the older boys. After the busboy gig, the group of urchins are walking home when a police car comes by. Most of the boys flee quickly enough to get away, but Chaipu doesn’t want to leave little Manju alone and stays with her. Both are arrested and packed off to separate juvenile facilities. Manju is placed in permanent state custody because her mother is a prostitute, which breaks Rekha’s heart. Regardless of her occupation, Rekha was a loving mother to Manju.

Chaipu ends up in a facility called "The Chiller Room" that is little better than a warehouse for delinquents. He’s become enough of a tough street kid to hold his own. He ultimately manages to escape. Returning to his familiar turf, Chaipu drops in at the bordello to invite Sweet Sixteen to run away with him, back to his home village. She, however, is now attached to Baba and reconciled to her new profession. Rekha has decided to pack up and leave, disgusted with having lost her child and Baba’s many false promises. Baba tries to block her from leaving, which leads to a final surprising development that I’ll leave for readers to discover for themselves.

Themes: Although Salaam Bombay! covers territory somewhat similar to such films as Shoeshine, Los Olvidados, Pixote, and City of God, Nair nevertheless manages a distinctive tone and message. This film is not as harsh or grueling as any of those aforementioned films, yet it also avoids sentimentalizing the tragedy of homeless children or providing some contrived kind of salvation. Nair gives dignity to the problem but ultimately her message is respect for the survival skills that these kids have acquired. This film is a testament to the spirit of survival and the ability of children to find simple joys in childhood even under the most extreme of conditions. Nair’s quite distinctive view of the problem of homelessness found expression in a most constructive kind of way after the completed film was in the can. The profits from the film were used to create a trust fund that established learning centers in three major cities in India, including Bombay. Rather than trying to “repatriate” these children into the families from which they “escaped” for one reason or another, the learning centers work with the street children within the context of their current lifestyles. Many of these kids have jobs and survival skills and would not voluntarily return to a lifestyle entailing parental authority. Many of them are, however, willing to drop into a center on their own terms and schedule to acquire reading skills, movement training, training in interpersonal skills, groups discussions, and so forth. These centers have served thousands of street kids in Indian cities and are now endorsed by the Indian government.

One of the most moving and revealing segments of this DVD was not in the film itself but in one of the featurettes. The American cinematographer for this film, Sandi Sissel, developed an almost immediate attachment for one of the street urchin performers, Raju Barnad, who played Keera, and, with his mother’s permission, adopted the boy. He was then raised with all of the opportunities that typically accrue to children growing up in middle class America. He is now well-educated and works as an assistant cameraman in the film industry. Not only is this a satisfying tale of a child saved but it also makes abundantly evident that many of the children abandoned by their families and by society at large and condemned to homelessness on city streets could be solid and productive members of society with a decent amount of care and opportunity. The idea that children in poverty are unsalvageable anyway may ease the conscience of the penurious elements of human society, but Raju’s case puts the lie to the excuse.

Production Values: The casting for Salaam Bombay! was extraordinary. Only four of the performers were professional, all adults. The children were actual children living on the streets of Bombay. Nair invited a large number of street children to attend a free workshop where they were taught movement, given voice exercises, taught how to raise their eyebrows, and given an opportunity to tell their stories. The most promising of the kids were then offered roles in the film, some in bit parts and some as the leads. Syed, who was actually fifteen, was cast in the part of eleven-year-old Krishna. According to Nair, he stood out from the beginning and developed focus and concentration over the course of the training. She picked him because he exuded intelligence as well as vulnerability. The little girl, Hansa Vithal, was adorable as Manju, with her big brown eyes, and Raju Barnad was another standout as Keera. He has a delightful scene in a movie house where he virtually dances in his seat. Chanda Sharma was lovely as “Sweet Sixteen.” None of the children could read, so all of their lines had to be fed to them orally and memorized. It is greatly to Nair’s credit that she was able to elicit such high quality performances from these inexperienced performers. The script for the film was pieced together from fragments of stories told by the kids during the workshops embellished with fictional elements to provide coherence and dramatic flow.

The professionals in the cast included Aneeta Kanwar as Rekha, Raghuvir Yadav as Chillum, Nana Patekar as Baba, and Chaukat Azmu as the Madame at the brothel. Yadav went on to roles in Bandit Queen (1995) and Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001). Patekar was an unknown at the time that Salaam Bombay! was made but has since become a star in Bollywood films. Nair used members of her crew for some of the bit parts.

This was a low budget affair, financed 25% by the Indian National Film Development Corporation and 49% from a British source. Nair had to raise the rest herself. Nair called on cinematographer Sandi Sissel, who lived in NYC, to be her photographer but because of the limited funding, Sissel was only allowed to bring one other American with her for the project. Most of the shots had to be “stolen”, meaning shot in public without the knowledge of the people in the scene. The actors would sometimes run through a public setting where there were hundreds of people while the scene was being filmed surreptitiously from a hidden location. Most of the scenes had to use natural lighting, so the time of day in which the scenes were shot was critical. There was a conflict at the time between India and Pakistan, so it was impossible to get film developed quickly. The blues washed out in one of the two kinds of film that were used and the blue tone had to be rebuilt in the processing. Sissel points out in her commentary track that there is lots of color in India – you can see it, for example, in the bright fabrics. Sissel did a magnificent job capturing and, at times, augmenting these natural colors to produce a lush color palette for this film. It is lovely to look at.

The settings were all natural and selection of those settings was quite a task. The scenes filmed in bordellos used actual bordellos of Bombay. Nair met with the “Union of Madames” to gain their cooperation. At times there were prostitutes servicing their clients separated from the filming area by only hung sheets. Let's hope they were well-hung – not the johns but the sheets! Another scene involving procurement and intake of illicit drugs used an actual notorious cemetery location in Bombay where pushers conduct business.

Bottom-Line: Salaam Bombay! is a superb film though not quite as superb as some of the other films dealing with children in poverty, such as Pixote or Los Olvidados. The film taken by itself I rate at four-stars. This is one rare instance, however, that the DVD product significantly exceeds the value of the film alone. MGM has provided one of the nicest packets of extras I’ve ever encountered for a DVD, especially outside of the Criterion Collection. There’s a choice of two commentary tracts, one provided by director Mira Nair and the other by cinematographer Sandi Sissel. The one by Sissel was highly technical and would mainly interest professional photographers and cinematographers, though I did listen to about twenty minutes of it before losing interest. The one by Nair is one of the best I’ve encountered. In addition there are six featurettes. Four are in the style of “Where are they now?” and relate to four of the cast members. One relates to the screenwriter for the film and the last discusses the programs that have been put in place for street children in India funded by profits from this film. The extras also include the theatrical trailer and a photo gallery.

This is an exceptional film. In Nair’s own words, it drew its energy from the kids and the truth of the story. Salaam Bombay! is in Hindi with English subtitles and has a running time of 110 minutes. You’ll probably want to devote some additional time to the fine extras.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from India:

Aparajito
Charulata
Earth
Jalsaghar
Kadosh
Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
Mother India
Pather Panchali
The Terrorist
The World of Apu

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age