Comedy of costumes: Clothes play a big role in Sulemani Keeda, here's how

By Mitali Parekh

Sulemani Keeda is set in struggler land, that stretch between Khar and Andheri East in Mumbai. Here are grubby script/ book/ jingle/ tweet writers, the social media worker bees, the photographers, the musicians, actors, stylists and other technicians that support the television, film and advertising industries.

And to the person who clothed the characters in the film goes our gratitude for an authentic representation of this tribe. Since they’re not named in the credits, we assume the actors wore their own clothes. It lends a lack of artifice that’s rare in cinema and also revealing about the characters.

The film’s heroine, Ruma (Aditi Vasudev), is a corporate lawyer by day and a photographer by will. By the time we meet her, she is already transitioning into an artist – she’s about to go abroad to study photography – but hasn’t found her voice. Her clothes are functional, dark and mostly nondescript. She wears none of the statement watches, coiffed hair, crisp shirts or pastels that a corporate lawyer would to mingle in the workforce.

Wittingly or unwittingly, Sulemani Keeda showcasesbrands that the suburban working girl prefers: the distinctive Quirkbox print blazer on Rohini (Rohini Ramanathan) who hosts a poetry slam; tops from Cotton World, dresses from Golmaal, mixed with pants and jewellery from Fashion Street and Hill Road. The ubiquitous, thick-framed glasses tell us that everyone has been thinking about their lives deeply. After all, what’s introspection if it isn’t accessorized by emo frames?

Possibly because there wasn’t an official wardrobe, the film intuitively gets how women – a significant proportion of Mumbai’s middle class, immigrant dreamers – alter their dressing style in Mumbai. They don’t undergo the kind of transformation Karan Johar and Manish Malhotra would conspire to dole out in the usual commercial film. Rather, they wear kajal, pierce their noses, knot their hair up and secure it with a claw; or twist scarves in ingenious ways. Their freedom is expressed in drop crotch and harem pants they wear so that they can sit astride bikes and scooters; in 100-rupee stoles they pick up from roadside vendors to cover-up in public transport. There’s rebellion, but there’s also a clear-sighted awareness of the pragmatic reality of living and staying safe in a big city. Sure, they wear shorts and tanks in places of comfort, like Ruma does when she is packing at home. But when it’s time to go out and get an ice cream, she puts on a shirt.

The clothes also become a comic ploy. Ganesh ‘Gonzo’ Kapoor (Karan Mirchandani) remarks at the outset that people like Mainak (Mayank Tewari) and Dulal (Naveen Kasturia) judge those who wear dark glasses indoors, like Gonzo does. “I have a cyst,” he clarifies. A cyst that never seems to go away.

Gonzo’s sartorial choices argue vociferously against his intellectual affectations. He discusses his Tarkovsky launchpad while wearing a maroon, ladies dressing gown, which steals the scene by gaping. Similarly, his fabric fedora and Africa-inspired print kaftan are choices of a B-grade glamour boy.

Then there’s the chaotic ensemble Dilip Prabhavalkar, the chief of censor board, wears at the farm house — a red block print, half-sleeved shirt over amphibious sporty bermudas, topped with a ladies straw hat from Accessorize. Even his paramour raises a chuckle, wrapped in a jaundice-yellow towel with slip-on sneakers. In some scenes, a piece of clothing interjects in place of a funny line — such as when Ruma first calls Dulal as he’s cooking, he turns around to show a colour patch on his boxers that resembles a loin cloth.

Gonzo’s fate is clearly foretold by the opening shot of his movie — a close-up of a very recognisable turquoise on what is colloquially known as a ‘tyson’ chain bracelet. It is Salman Khan’s trademark accessory, adopted by rickshaw drivers and Bhai’s fans everywhere. Again, it’s quite a counter to his claims of wanting to be “out of the box”.

Like their ideas, Mainak and Dulal’s T-shirts are interchangeable. They are mostly graphic and message tees, sometimes appropriate to the personalities of the wearer — such as the black ‘Girlfriend’ tee Mainak wears at a party, or the ironic ‘Hulk’ tee that Dulal wears, making us keenly aware of how timid he is. We know they share a wardrobe when they are about to leave for Sewri to shoot flamingos and Mainak cons Dulal out of the freshly-washed red tee Dulal had chosen to impress Ruma.

The only time both of them wear regular, collared shirts are when they try to change life tracks — Dulal as he tells Ruma he loves her and tries to convince her not to leave. Mainak changes his wardrobe when he meets Gonzo alone and is ready to surrender to the Bollywood system. In contrast, Gonzo is wearing a red jacket that establishes a visual connection to the red, sleeveless jacket his father, Sweety Kapoor (Razak Sheikh), wears. It’s a sign they’re slowly beginning to get on the same page.

As the movie draws to an end, there a sweet serendipity between the clothes again. It’s after a year that Dulal and Mainak meet. Dulal has now acquired emo specs like Mainak, while Mainak wears a chequered fedora (like Gonzo) indoors and carries a handkerchief (like Sweety Kapoor). But we know that Mainak is not a complete sell-out yet. As he tries to get Dulal to get on board with Sulemani Keeda he’s still wearing a graphic T-shirt. It’s a sign that perhaps he still holds out hope to script his kind of success.