Lights, camera, climate action!
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara's 'Bagwati’ could well be a limited-edition bag handcrafted by indigenous people using sustainable materials!
Movies are magical things.
Stories brought alive by dozens of people labouring in front of and behind the camera. From the doomed love of Mughal-e-Azam to the violence of Gangs of Wasseypur, from the inspirational Anand to the dark humour of Peepli Live, movies deliver messages wrapped in heroic foil. In doing so, cinema confronts us with ourselves - not just personal struggles, hopes and fears, but also the dilemmas, sorrows and successes of society.
Bollywood and TV’s impact on real life has been transcendental; from sparking a cultural craze such as dulhe ki jootiyan churana a la-Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, to inspiring hundreds to join the defence forces after the release of Lakshya; from Rang De Basanti provoking the youth’s interest in the socio-political to the myriad issues of and about women that Tara made us acknowledge and deal with.
What if one of the biggest issues of our times, the climate crisis, were to be represented on our screens - in blockbuster Bollywood-style or bingeworthy series on OTT or as a weekly dose on TV shows. India is one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world. Most Indians in a survey said they had personally experienced at least one extreme weather event or related impact in the past 12 months; a whopping 94% youth said they are directly impacted by disruptions caused by climate change and that they widely experience eco-anxiety.
The film and TV industry’s own heart, Mumbai, is a potential muse - be it for a triumph against-all-odds saga about the city of dreams, a futuristic 26 July 2005 scenario, only this time the city’s iconic Bandra-Worli sealink and the linked coastal road are under water. Or a drama between political factions over a hotly contested election in a post-climate dystopia, a thriller about a hostile takeover of a respected corporate group amid an intergenerational transition of power in which the renewables business is impacted or a laugh riot about a perpetually eco-anxious teenager navigating the chaos of aamchi Mumbai!
If our writers and story-tellers turned their gaze to the possibilities, they’d find that our changing planet presents dozens of grim and not-so-grim realities that can be brought to the screen. Come to think of it, there is no story that cannot be told with an environmental undercurrent or the full-blown chaos of the climate crisis. Whether it's a modern day love saga or a suspense-story around corporate fraud, a thrilling whodunnit or a family drama, all these arcs can creatively bring in elements that mirror our environmental reality. The sheer range of themes, plots, sub-plots, characters & sidekicks and references that can come alive onscreen could usher in a new era of climate-embedded storytelling - one that mirrors our modern day predicaments, and helps us to navigate it without fear, with renewed hope, perhaps even stumble upon solutions, and spark a movement for climate action.
Such serials and films will have the potential to hook a key demography – the youth, the same ones who increasingly report feeling eco-anxiety, the ones who are just as conscious about their online/offline persona as they are about their carbon footprint and the ones who will be the most affected by the worsening consequences of lack of climate action. And just like in-film advertising is big business, climate-conscious directors and producers could do the same for a bigger cause. The big media houses can take a lead in this and the first movers will not only be pioneers in plugging a gap in climate storytelling endeavours, but also be aligning with a planetary goal.
India has set itself a 2070 timeline to achieve net zero – i.e. a state wherein the amount of greenhouse gases we release into the atmosphere due to human activity is equal to the amount of GHGs removed. While we are well on this path, and it is by no means an easy one, a little Bollywood and TV drama will make walking on it that much easier.
My friend, Tanmayi and I donned our thinking hats and added a climate lens to Gully Boy & Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and gave a few cinematic characters a climate-conscious persona. Grab the popcorn!
Gully Boy: Plot tweaks from an environment/climate lens
1) Set in a climate-impacted Dharavi (extreme flooding)
2) Last-chance tourism of Dharavi
3) Sky (Kalki Koechlin) makes an album on environment and climate destruction
4) Azadi song/rap - the reference to people/rooms in a home (ghar mein hain chaar, phir rooms tere aath kyun) can refer to the richest people contributing the most to emissions or to carbon tax for the elite
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara: Plot & character tweaks
1) In the opening scene, Kabir (Abhay Deol) can propose to Natasha (Kalki) with a lab-grown diamond or a ring made of sustainable materials.
2) Natasha is a permaculture specialist or an architect/interior designer who specialises in sustainable buildings.
3) Laila (Katrina Kaif) is a marine conservationist-cum-dive instructor; she makes references to how warming temperatures is making corals bleach, which in turn is shrinking the size of clownfish.
4) ‘Bagwati’ is a one-of-a-kind, limited-edition, handcrafted bag made from natural materials by indigenous people; can be a luxury brand, but the focus is on sustainability and circularity.
5) Tomatina scenes: Nuria takes the group through many bylanes just before the tomatina festival and makes references to how the festival and the neighbourhood has changed because of extreme weather events and related changes.