Salaam Bombay! (1988)
Directed by Mira Nair

While Salaam Bombay! eschews the Bollywood convention for happy resolutions, it is, like its jolly-Bolly counterparts, a movie about “escape” and “illusion.” The illusion of a dream, the urban reality that denies it, and the innocence that is lost in the process. More than a story about a village boy caught in the garish fluorescence of the city, it is a story of survival at the most fundamental level – an everyday struggle for life that is the story of billions of people around the world.

The story revolves around Krishna/ Chaipu- a village boy abandoned by his mother and the circus she gave him to – who works as a chai boy in Bombay in an effort to save enough money to return home. His surrogate family consists of street urchins, prostitutes, pimps and a best friend whose addictions eventually turn against him.

In this story, the goal to return to the “sweet air of the village” serves as both character motivation and foil to the dank “dung” of the city. In this story of urban decay, “identity” is defined not so much by the “city” but from the attempts to escape it (either via drugs, sexual delusions or death).