Headline, January 30 2025/ LIFE : ''' MUMBAI'S UNTOLD MUSTERS '''

LIFE : 

''' MUMBAI'S UNTOLD MUSTERS '''

'' ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT '' : the film centres on Prabha [ Kani Kusruti ] - the head nurse of a city hospital, and her younger colleague, Anu [ Diyya Prabha ], who share an apartment.

They end up helping their newly retired co-worker, Parvaty [ Chhaya Kadam], who is threatened with eviction from her apartment due to her late husband's aversion to paperwork.

The two roommates also have their own personal issues. Prabha is a reserved and lonely woman whose husband has left her to find work in Germany.

Meanwhile, bubbly Anu spends her free time meeting up with her boyfriend, a relationship she has to keep secret, knowing that her Hindu family wouldn't approve of her dating a Muslim man.

THE IMAGES ARE OVERLAYED WITH A DREAMLIKE KALEIDOSCOPE of conversations in different languages -including Ben gali, Bhojpuri, Gijarati,Marathi and Malayalam - the language spoken by the main characters in the film.

'' ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT '' portrays three working class women finding their way in one of India's most crowded cities, which is where they've set up their life after migrating from the south of the country.

At the time of India's last census [2011], Mumbai had 23.5 million inhabitants. Migrants made up 43 percent of the population. It's also a city where extreme inequality, around half of Mumbai's population is estimated to be residing in slums.

Kapadia says she tried to express her ''love-hate'' relationships with Mumbai in the film, which shows how the anonymity of the big city provides relative freedom for these women, especially compared to their rural background in the southern state of Kerala.

But this independence comes at the cost of long daily commutes and other great hardships.

''Mumbai is a city that is constantly displacing people ; people are displaced and moved to far-fetched corners of the city, because one area goes through a real estate boom and the people who originally lived in one area can no longer afford to live there, or they're payed to move out,'' Payal Kapadia tells DW.

Within the past two decades, the filmmaker adds, ''I've seen the city skyline completely change and that is I think the fundamental characteristic of Mumbai.''

In her film, Payal Kapadia comments on various issues affecting Indian society - including gentrification, patriarchy and the class inequality. The later she makes visible through depiction of caste, language and religion.

But the filmmaker isn't pushing a message; she rather focuses on sharing the protagonists' experiences through poetic and subtle tones - a cinematic experience that's the opposite of classic bollywood bombast.

Kapadia addressed a similar situation in her documentary, A NIGHT OF KNOWING NOTHING. It features a film student's letters to her estranged boyfriend ; their intercaste relationship had been prohibited by his family.

Having other people determining who you can be with and who you can marry ''is very much part of the everyday life of young people in India,'' explains Kapadia.

'' That's a big concern for me and I use it as a kind of device in my films to talk about larger issues - but with something so fundamental as love.''

The film doesn't reveal much about Prabha's absent husband. A luxury rice cooker, ''Made in Germany,'' is delivered to the women's apartment. The man left Prabha shortly after their arranged marriage, and stopped contacting her.

The gift is seen as the last thing she'll ''hear'' from him.

'' All We Imagine As Light '' emerges as an Indie triumph at Cannes.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Life, Living and the World, continues. The World Students Society thanks The Express Tribune.

With respectful dedication to Payal Kapadia, the Global Founder Framers of !WOW! the exclusive and eternal ownership of every student in the world and then Students, Professors and Teachers of the world.

See You all prepare for Great Global Elections on - wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter X !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

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