Imagine Lagaan without the deep baritone of Amitabh Bachchan in the background. Similarly, Gadar-Ek Prem Katha without Om Puri’s trademark voice explaining the partition era. More recently, Ileana d’Souza’s voice and character has been used to bind the narrative of Barfi, the story of a mute and deaf character. Gulzar is latest to join the bandwagon as he turns narrator for the upcoming anti-war film, Kya Dilli Kya Lahore. A narrator or a sutradhar has been used in Bollywood since times immemorial. However, good voice might not necessarily be the only criteria.
“For my film, I used the character of Alan, a foreigner (played by Corin Nemec) as a sutradhar (narrator) for the Western audience. They do not know about Indian politics or culture. So we needed to educate them and we thought Alan was a creative solution. Also I think Alan works because as he’s not Indian, there is no communal bias. He is free to say what he wants,” explains Rahul Dholakia, director and co-writer, Parzania. His film Parzania set in the 2002 Gujarat riots managed to appeal to audiences in every part of the world owing to a neutral portrayal. The use of an outsider as a narrator gave it a much required unbiased presentation.
“The idea of narrator in cinema is derived from drama. The voice in my film was used to evoke those scenes, which could not be presented. A narrator’s voice should be emotive enough to take audience to a certain situation or era. In Maine Gandhi ko Nai Maara, I asked Urmila to tell the story as the film intended to depict a sensitive father-daughter relationship,” says Sanjay Chauhan, screenwriter, Maine Gandhi ko Nai Maara, where Urmila Matondkar plays the role of a daughter of dementia victim, Anupam Kher.
For Kya Dilli Kya Lahore director Vijay Raaz, selecting Gulzaar as a narrator was an easy choice as he knows that period very well and has written a lot about it. As Gulzar himself offered to take up the role of narrator, Raaz feels that maybe he thought that the film needed him as a story teller.
However, not every movie requires a storyteller feels film critic, Joginder Tuteja. He says, “Narrators are essential, when they are a part of the screenplay and help in making us believe how scenes transpire, if they can’t be depicted. The use of Amitabh Bachchan’s voice in Lagaan, Piyush Mishra in Gangs of Wasseypur or Ileana in Barfi as narrators were absolutely essential. However, at times in quintessential commercial cinema, they are even used as publicity gimmicks and selling points.”