Ritesh Batra latest film “Photographer” follows the crossing of paths of two very different people separated through the lens of a class and religion divide in Mumbai. There is Rafi, a street photographer, inviting visitors and tourists at the Gateway of India to take a photo of themselves with the Gateway as the backdrop. Rafi, lives in a crowded chawl with four of his friends who work during the day and share their sorrows and joys with a drink in the nighttime. His grandmother or Dadi who lives in the village wants him to marry or she threatens she will stop her medication.

Enter Miloni, a middle class shy Gujarati  girl, who is studying to be a chartered accountant. She walks by the Gateway one day and  by chance meets Rafi  who urges her to take a photo.  In a moment of impulse she agrees. This is a moment when time seems to stand still for both. She is fascinated by the photo he takes of her where she barely recognizes her own self. By her own admission she seems to look happier and prettier than she thought. She walks away and Rafi looks up and finds her gone but is unable to shake the image of her and starts longing to see her again.

 The film at this point somehow meanders and you struggle to connect the next few scenes on how they meet again and at what point Miloni agrees to pretend to be the girl he wants to marry to please his grandmother. By this time Rafi has transformed this girl of his dreams and given her a name Noorie. The charade begins and the feisty grandmother plays along superbly gifting her silver anklets and buying her clothes while Miloni’s family tries to set her up with a boy who is doing his MBA in the US. 

 Throughout the movie, we see an understated longing of the couple to get close to each other and yet the realization of being trapped in two different worlds clearly is a hurdle. Yet, there is a certain unwillingness and unhurried acceptance of their lives which reflects even in the pace of the film which is extremely slow at times. It is soothing yet frustrating, uplifting yet sad, slow but sure. At some point the film barely moves along and while we see the two stealing moments and expressing their feelings hesitantly, every moment seems fragile, ruminative and awkward. What happens next is left for the audience to imagine and the movie ends as we hear the song , Tumne Mujhe Dekha, Hoke Meharbaan, from Teesri Manzil humming in our ears. Both Sanya Malhotra as Miloni and Nawazzudin Siddiqui as Rafi act their roles superbly and Batra has the ability to craft a film as a delicate prose, quiet and unadorned but wistful.

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