Aishwarya Rai in Umrao Jaan

Umrao Jaan

Umrao Jaan is a Hindi Movie released in 2006 has been taken from Urdu novel of Mirza Haadi Ruswa. It is converted into screenplay by J.P.Dutta and directed as well. This movie takes you to the period of nineties and makes you feel as if you are in Alif Laila’s world of magic visiting that era of history. It is like the success of the invention of Time Machine and the very tour is to the Umrao’s life story. You feel yourself as alien wearing the clothes quite different to the courtesan of that time. You appreciate their costumes and look to yourself having desire to be like them.

First glimpse is of Umrao’s (Childhood Miran / Aishwarya’s) father who is a witness and become the reason for Dilawar Khan (Vishwajeet Pradhan) to be sentenced for ten years. After coming out of jail he plays vengeance and kidnapped and sold Miran to Kotha wali in Lucknow (Shabana Azmi) who named her Umrao. The destiny seems to play with Miran’s life.

Second glimpse is that of beautiful young Umrao flourishing in the field of art especially poetry, music and dance. Everyone who once visit and view Umrao’s performance forget the way to home. Same thing happens to Nawab Sultan of Lucknow. This time something different happens as Umrao also falls in love with Nawab Sultan. Here again destiny takes a much worst turn and Nawab has to chose between Lineage or Umrao and he goes for Umrao. Khanam Sahib gets furious as she wants richness from Umrao’s lover or would be which was not possible in case of Sultan. She plays a trick and involves Faiz Ali (Suni Sethi) and eventually sells Umrao to him while Sultan has been fallen a prey to misapprehensions.

And a last glimpse is that of permanent misery, distressful, and pity condition of Umrao. Now continuous songs scene after scene and expression of grief prevails and a sort of repulsion starts creating among the time travelers and desire to see the end of this tragic drama soon but alas director is so involved in creating drama and raising sympathy for Umrao and goes too far to succeed in his struggle.

Although best pictorial representation, cinematography, Aishwarya heart catching performance and other major and minor characters play well their roles yet film remain unsuccessful in box office. And time travelers (spectators) come out of the time machine (cinema) with sorrow for Umrao but also sorrow for the time waste as it take too much time to see a distressful end. Would it be better to cut short the movie to the level of patience of audience it hit the Box Office.