Udta Punjab (Abhishek Chaubey, 2016)

Udta Punjab tells the intertwining stories of a migrant worker, a star musician, a doctor, and a police officer who are
connected by two things: drugs and Punjab.

In the late 1990s, televisions across the United States played a short clip of a teenage girl running her hand through her hair and looking angry as she stormed about her kitchen wielding a frying pan, smashing eggs, plates, cups, and everything else in her sight to communicate to viewers the destructive impact of heroin. If this thirty second anti-drug public service announcement were given a $5.9 million budget and extended in running time by two and a half hours, it might closely resemble Abhishek Chaubey’s much-discussed and highly controversial 2016 film Udta Punjab.

Udta Punjab chronicles the journeys of four characters who struggle against drug addictions and trade. Its anti-drug message is omnipresent and unmissable, yet many critics of the film have worried that it glorifies the use of drugs. Before its release, the censor board objected heavily to many parts of the film, proposing nearly 100 cuts. In the end, however, only a single cut was made, and it was one not directly related to drug usage. The inefficacy of the censor board in the case of this film reflects the fact that critics’ concern that Udta Punjab glorifies drugs could not be further from reality. From the opening sequence, in which three plainly dressed men ride together on a single motorcycle through a dark field before throwing a large packet of heroin over a border fence and into Indian land, the drug trade is shown without glory, lacking the glamorized sex appeal illicit drugs have been given in other films such as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Terry Gilliam, 1998) or Pineapple Express (David Gordon Green, 2008).

Musician Tommy Singh embodies the claims of
glamorization of drug use.

Udta Punjab’s music can, unlike its story presentation, be justly criticized for glorification of drugs. The trance and hip hop-inspired title track of Udta Punjab praises the use of marijuana and cocaine with lyrics such as “freedom and liberty, it’s all in the weed,” “don’t shy away from the high,” and “one sniff is eternal bliss.” Described on India.com as the “party anthem of the year,” this song, like the rest of the music in Udta Punjab, features dark, pulsing beats and is fun to listen to. Despite the track’s enjoyable tune and pro-drug lyrics, it is played in the film over images of tragic consequences of drug abuse. In many scenes, sound editing contrasts fun hip hop music with tragic scenes. Udta Punjab effectively employs music to criticize drug usage within the context of the film. Outside of onscreen context, however, this critical aspect of Udta Punjab’s incredibly popular music—the rights to which were sold for ₹18 crore, making it the largest such deal in the history of Bollywood—may be lost, allowing listeners to possibly misinterpret the music as a glamorization of illicit drugs.

The film’s visuals, unlike the music, cannot be misinterpreted as pro-drug. Punjab is shown as a substance-dependent place of melancholy and despondency. Colors are muted and lighting is often heavily shadowed, literally darkening the film to cinematographically reflect the gloom of the subject matter. The infrastructure of Punjab onscreen is deteriorating, its roads sorely in need of maintenance and its buildings crumbling into ruins. A dilapidated building is, significantly, shown as a site where drug users gather to shoot up heroin. This decaying structure visually connects the drug problem of Punjab to neglect and ruin, reflecting the general disregard of the serious issue of the region’s drug abuse. It is one of the film’s many obvious symbols, which include a hockey stick, swimming, and a billboard advertisement for a beach vacation spot. At times, the overt symbolism can feel trying, but, however obvious these symbols are, each one’s presence in Udta Punjab is, like nearly everything in the film, rooted in reality.

The characters are the film’s biggest strength. Many people in society resign themselves to Punjab’s massive drug problem. Over the course of the film, the disruption of four individuals’ acceptance of the status quo as they decide to reject the world presented to them is shown. While an unnamed migrant worker girl (Alia Bhatt) and famous musician Tommy Singh (Shahid Kapoor) struggle to overcome their dependencies on heroin and cocaine, addiction specialist Dr. Preet Sahani (Kareena Kapoor Khan) and disillusioned police officer Sartaj Singh (Diljit Dosanjh) recognize that they must stand up for their home and attempt to undermine the system that produces and traffics dangerous drugs. Through following the awakening of these four Punjabis to their region’s drug crisis, Udta Punjab praises the bravery of standing up to the seemingly impossible in attempting to take down the reign of drugs.

The migrant worker is introduced to the world of illicit drugs.

Of the four major characters, the most powerful duo is that of Tommy and the migrant laborer girl. Tommy Singh is a wild, angry singer and rapper. On introduction to him, viewers are plunged into a chaotic world of pulsing beats and flashing lights as he jumps and struts onstage at one of his concerts, singing high praises to cocaine. This introduction scene is bright and loud, but, through editing which juxtaposes it with scenes showing the darkness of the drug trade and the emptiness in users’ eyes, feels lifeless. Unlike Tommy, the unnamed girl is quiet and calm. She is in a field alone when the world of drugs loudly interrupts her serenity as the packet thrown over the border fence falls just feet from where she sits. She opens the packet and, trying to determine what it is, puts a bit of it on her tongue, symbolically getting her first taste of the drug culture that will soon consume her life. When she later attempts to sell the packet, she is taken advantage of and captured by members of the drug trade. They hook her on heroin and prevent her from leaving their illicit world. As this nameless girl and Tommy begin their process of freeing themselves from addiction and leaving drugs behind, Udta Punjab hits some of its best notes.

The film’s interesting characters, inventive music, masterful sound editing, attempts at reflecting a real-world crisis, and moments of emotion make Udta Punjab bearable. The film’s unwavering attention to its anti-drug message valuably prevents it from becoming a glorification of drug usage, but does so at the expense of creating a truly engaging narrative plot. Instead of having a central conflict that keeps viewers hooked, the film presents the violence and destruction linked to drugs in an overly broad and wide-sweeping manner. The film’s depictions of its themes are somewhat unprecedented in Indian cinema, but remain unable to overcome the uninteresting plot. Drugs may leave an onscreen warpath, but Udta Punjab remains as unmoving as an extended cut of Rachael Leigh Cook taking her weaponized frying pan out of her kitchen and into all of Punjab.