In a big city, our stories can seem to disappear into the enormity of urban life. All We Imagine as Light, the award-winning new film by Payal Kapadia, takes place in Mumbai, the seventh most populous city on earth. In voice-over we hear various migrants, in many different Indian languages, describe their experiences and feelings upon coming to live in Mumbai. The overall sense is of disillusionment. People work and struggle and dream, but they miss their homes and find Mumbai unwelcoming. It’s important that Kapadia starts her film this way. The story turns out to be about three women, but the movie is dedicated to all the people toiling in anonymity in the great city.
Prabha, played by Kani Kusruti, is a nurse at a busy hospital. She is quiet and serious and keeps to herself, not going out to party with her fellow nurses after work. Her roommate Anu, another nurse played by Divya Prabha, is a bit younger and more outgoing. They’re both from the Kerala region and speak Malayalam, but have had to learn Hindi as well, in order to live in Mumbai.
Prabha hears some gossip that Anu has been seen with a young Muslim man. Feeling protective, she confronts her, but then realizes that she has no business being judgmental. Eventually, Prabha confides that she is married, to an Indian man working in Germany, with the plan being that she would be able to join him eventually. The marriage was arranged by her family without her having any choice in the matter. Now the husband hasn’t called her in over a year.
Anu, in turn, confides that she is in fact seeing a young man named Shiaz, who is Muslim. They meet furtively, in places where they don’t think they’ll be seen by anyone who knows them. Anu shares that her family is trying to arrange a marriage for her, but she doesn’t want to go along with this. In the character of Anu, the film speaks for the emotions and sexuality of Indian women who want to be free of the ancient patriarchal strictures that are placed on their lives. Here also is the urgent issue of Hindu-Muslim relations. Anu risks being ostracized by her family and society for loving someone from the wrong religion. But she still chooses love.
The third woman in the story is older, a hospital cook named Parvaty, and played by Chhaya Kadam. A builder is going to tear down the tenement where she lives, and she has no written proof of her tenancy to take to court. Prabha tries to help her, but ultimately Parvaty is planning to quit her job and move back to her home in the country. There she will be poor, but at least have a secure place to live. She is frank and open, kind of a mother figure to the other two women, and the three of them form a strong bond.
With this finely crafted work, Kapadia steps away from the mainstream Bollywood tradition. This picture is deliberately understated in its emotional honesty. We sense the significance of this portrayal of women’s lives in India, without it being made into an explicit message. The warm evocation of the myriad qualities of these women’s lives is conveyed through the director’s poetic visual style and the naturalistic acting. The meaning of the title, All We Imagine as Light, becomes clear to us intuitively, as we are invited to experience the inner life of these women.
