Vijay Kumar Gaba

 The city of Merrut in Western UP is famous for many things. In the ancient history, the town finds mention in both Ramayana and Mahabharata. In Ramayana, Merrut is the birth place Ravana’s wife Mandodari; while in Mahabharata it is part of the Hastinapur, the Pandavs’ kingdom. The medieval history of the town goes back to Indus Valley Civilization. In the modern history, the town was an important cantonment of British. It was in Merrut, where the first organized uprising against the British started in 1857. In post independent era, Merrut emerged as one of the famous education centers in UP. However, it became more notorious for the infamous Hashimpura massacre by the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) in May 1987, when Virbhadra Singh of Indian National Congress was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. With that one incident started the decline of Indian National Congress. Congress lost power in the key States of UP and Bihar forever after that and could never form a majority government in the center.

Outside the history and politics, the city is famous for two things – scissors and publishing houses. The mint established by the Mughal Emperor Akbar in Merrut, resulted in development of foundries in the town. It emerged as major source for producing swords for Maratha and Sikh rulers. Finally it ended as the famous producer of scissors and blocks for printing presses. The publishing industry started in Merrut in middle of 19^th century and evolved into a major cottage industry.

The burgeoning printing presses motivated a large number of pulp fiction writers in the town. At one point in time Merrut was publishing 10 new novels every day. There were hundreds of ghost writers who were writing day and night for the popular household names. Manoj, Rajvansh, Ved Prakash Sharma, Surendra Mohan Pathak had become household names in 1970s and 1980s. The pulp fiction published in Merrut was a popular travel companion for most Hindi speaking population travelling by road or railways. The novels published in Merrut entertained and enthralled the readers for several decades. Young, old, man and woman all were obsessed with these novels. 

The genre however started losing its charm to popularization of TV in mid 1990s. The online entertainment dealt a severe blow to the popularity of Merrut pulp fiction.

The recently released Hindi movie Haseen Dilruba attempts to give a new lease of life to Merrut brand of pulp fiction. It is definitely a cult film in that sense.

Set up in a small town (Jawalapur, Haridwar), this is a brilliant story of love, passion, aspirations, and families at crossroads of modernity and traditions. Given that these types of stories are firmly rooted in typical Indian middle class neighborhood, one does not need an ensemble star cast. Though this movie has star cast in Tapsee Pannu and Vikrant Messay, future movies of this genre could even do with rather unknown faces from a local neighborhood.

Tapsee (a disillusioned and aspiring middle class girl) and Vikrant (an educated common youth with a very strong emotional quotient) have played their part in Haseen Dilruba absolutely brilliantly. The direction, script, dialogues are all perfect for the setting.

I am sure this is just an experimental beginning and we shall see many more such film in future. OTT streaming provides a perfect platform for this genre of entertainment to flourish.

Even if this movie does not do well now (I wish it does), it will be remembered as beginning of a brand new trend in Hindi cinema.