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Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy via Mira Nair

– A Good Match!

A Suitable Boy has been with us for decades, in our hearts, the gift of everyone’s favorite author Vikram Seth. This global best-seller clocks in at 1349 pages and is one of the most beloved novels about a post-independence India.

I recall the many days of feverishly pursuing the loves and life of Lata Mehra down the rabbit hole, the sheer heft of Vikram Seth’s tale and how it embroiled us all in its ever widening and multi-colored landscape of a changing India.  In a way it was all our stories retold and leaving all else aside, we poured hungrily over its countless pages – not wanting them to come to an end – yet anxious to see how it turned out for Lata.

Well, now A Suitable Boy is once again with us, this time it’s a BBC mini series and once again we can’t wait to connect with it. It is Vikram Seth via Mira Nair – and that’s a good way for it to travel for Nair is the master of visual storytelling. She captures the immediacy and heat of this tale of India of the 50’s and makes it pertinent to our times.

This miniseries premiered in the U.S. and Canada on December 7 on the streaming service Acorn TV. It is directed by Nair, who has given us such films as Salaam Bombay!, Monsoon Wedding, Mississippi Masala and The Namesake, and is adapted by screenwriter and executive producer Andrew Davies (Pride And Prejudice, War And Peace, House of Cards).

Nair has condensed the book into a six-part series – and it keeps you hooked. With her jeweler’s eye for fine details, she incorporates all the nuances which make the story come alive on the screen – a young girl ’s awakening to love and life but also about the heartbreak and the growing pains of a nascent democracy in a changing India.

It is delicious to get a BBC series with all Indian characters and a story which so many already love. However, the series ends much too soon and you are left hungering for more of the larger issues at the heart of the novel.  This was the time you needed at least a 12 part series; a Suitable Boy needed a suitable amount of time to fully mature and take over our viewing life. Still, the tasting is delicious and stands up on its own as a dramatic series.

Even those who have not read  A Suitable Boy will feel the heartbeat of the characters, and the fine cast inhabits a real world and gets us involved in their lives.  Newcomer Tanya Maniktala as Lata has the fresh face of a girl next door and lovely enormous eyes and a sun-breaking-over-clouds smile which probably explains why so many men fall for her. Her three very different suitors  – handsome student and cricketer Kabir Durrani, worldly author Amit Chatterjee, and the down-to-earth, plain-spoken shoe entrepreneur Haresh Khanna are played by Danesh Razvi, Mikhail Sen  and Namit Das. On a parallel track is yet another unfolding love story – the ill-fated passion play of dashing, irresponsible Maan Kapoor ( the very appealing Ishaan Khatter) and the beautiful courtesan Saeeda Bai who is played by the charismatic Tabu. A lot of adjectives but they are all really top-notch and over 113 actors brings the high drama of newly independent India to life.

This is Mira Nair’s A Suitable Boy and it carries her lush colors, spirit and spunk. It is an addictive and fun watch, especially in these  quarantined  times when traveling to far-off destinations is out of bounds. A great time to journey into the past and into lives lived. You will enjoy this armchair travel to the cities of Delhi, Calcutta and Lucknow, to small towns and villages, the gorgeous production design by Stephanie Carroll and the evocative costumes by Arjun Bhasin.

There has been some criticism of the fact that the characters, even villagers, speak in English but it’s really a question of accessibility and whether the watchers of a BBC mini series will be as patient as cinema-goers about subtitles and an entire film in Hindi. I know I love watching Marathi and Bengali films in those regional tongues with English subtitles because the authentic flavoring and the weight of the culture comes through.

A great virtual trip to India. It is time-travel to the 50’s but some things never seem to change: even today at this very moment, mothers across India are searching for a suitable boy for their daughters. The more things change, the more they remain the same…

 

Mira Nair Talks About A Suitable Boy

What is A Suitable Boy about?

 A Suitable Boy is a massive yet intimate saga of four interwoven families across northern India in the year 1951; four years after Indian independence from the British. It’s an extraordinary tale of love and friendship across class and certainly across religion. Vikram Seth is able to reach the depths of human relationships – the heart, the mind and love in all its peculiarities. It’s universal and affects and relates to everyone. One level of our story is the journey of Lata finding herself, her own voice, finding love and being loved. At the same time, India goes on its own journey towards its first national election. Besides the affairs of the human heart, what interests me in this story is the interweaving of the personal story of Lata and her family but also the political story of our country, finding its own voice.

What attracted you to A Suitable Boy?

 A Suitable Boy has been one of my favorite novels since the day it was written. I read it repeatedly and felt as if it was my best friend. I felt a sense of great companionship and understanding and a sense of evoking a time in India in which I longed to have lived. I just vowed to direct the adaptation of it but it was too big at the time for me to get my hands on it. It really gives me extraordinary pleasure and pride to have the privilege of directing this show because it is something that has inspired me so much. It also gives me this vast canvas as I have 113 actors in the show and six hours to let the story unfold. That’s the way to make this show, it’s not something that should be squeezed into a shorter story as it needs to unfold. It’s so full of surprises and rhythms, where things need their time and their pace. I feel really privileged.

 How did you cast the character of Lata and what has Tanya Maniktala brought to the role?

 I searched all over India to cast Lata and I must have seen more than 500 young women, and they were all extraordinarily talented. But when I saw Tanya Maniktala, I just knew this was Lata. She has a sense of wonder in her eyes, a sense of being curious about the world and yet, a very self-possessed sweetness. That is very real and genuine and not acted. It was very difficult in modern India to find a young woman who had not seen the world, and so was protected from it, and yet had this intelligence about it.

 What has Ishaan Khatter brought to the role of Maan Kapoor?

 When I found Ishaan Khatter, which was almost a year ago, there was just no going back. He was Maan to the core and I knew I would have been so lucky to have him. It took some months until our show really got off the ground and he was confirmed as our Maan. We have a great relationship and he has a real understanding of the part. He worships Tabu who plays Saeeda Bai, the courtesan he falls in love with. I’m just thrilled that he is our Maan, because I’m not exaggerating when I say that there was no other Maan but Ishaan.

 What have you loved about directing A Suitable Boy?

 What I have loved about directing A Suitable Boy is reaping the great joy of telling a fantastic story with the finest actors that we have in our country. Any actor that I have loved and have asked to be in the show has said yes and has come along for the ride, from the genius of Manoj Pahwa, to the young Tanya Maniktala who is a newcomer to this game and is so beautiful in what she does. The range of actors in between is great and there was never a tense day, they brought their best to the set, whether they were newcomers or legends. We aspired for excellence and I do feel like we have done our absolute best–which is really what we are put on this Earth to do.

More details on how to watch at http://signup.acorn.tv.