George Simmel is widely regarded as a pioneer of Urban Sociology. The Metropolis & Mental Life (1903), despite being published at a period when cities were quite different from today’s megacities remains relevant. The essay highlights how the city “creates in the sensory foundations of mental life” with its “rapid telescoping of changing images, pronounced differences within what is grasped at a single glance, and the unexpectedness of violent stimuli” which is in “deep contrast with the slower, more habitual, more smoothly flowing rhythm of the sensory- mental phase of the small town and rural existence”. People develop a kind of “protective organ” and grow an indifferent & blasé outlook, marked by alienation & superficiality.

Simmel’s work can be used to analyze modern culture, art & literature. The storyline of Imtiaz Ali’s 2015 film, “Tamasha” can be placed within this context to understand & how the organizational & professional fabric moulds individuals’ life in cities. The film is centred on the core topic of the disintegration of self as a result of the administrative whirlpool followed by a search for oneself. 

Ved (Ranbir Kapoor) meets Tara (Deepika Padukone) while holidaying in Corsica & develops an instant connection. However, they make a pact to conceal their real identity & Tara meets an enthusiastic & adventurous side of Ved. Tara meets Ved again four years later in Delhi. Tara soon realizes that the present-day Ved was an automated, robotic servant to schedule & his job. She then helps Ved to discover his true spirit & break free from the shackles of overly formalized work life.

As pointed out by Simmel, relationships in the city are conniving as shown by Ved’s father pressurizing him to become an engineer. This is indicative of how quality is acknowledged in quantitative terms of money earned & occupational status. Therefore, in a metropolis, all relationships are objectively formed & identity is purely based on profession. This can be seen in the movie, when Ved, on becoming a product manager uses that as his identity. He offers Tara his business card even before having a proper conversation and revealing his real name when meeting her after four years. Similarly, while introducing Tara to his boss, Ved describes him in terms of professional qualities & as an “excellent businessman.” Relations are reduced to money.

Such a life dulls one’s senses to the point where one cannot sustain any more reaction at all and develop a blasé attitude. A similar instance can be observed in the movie when Ved goes about his daily, routinised life. He calls Tara at a fixed time and even calculates his steps ahead (putting his phone on silent and removing his watch) while getting intimate. Tara turns down Ved’s marriage proposal stating that the present-day Ved was a mechanical product of the metropolis.

After his break up with Tara, he focuses only on work and follows the same schedule. Likewise, Tara also concentrates on expanding her father’s tea business. Their response is thought out rationally. Desires & emotions are necessarily required to be subdued to maintain stability in production & profession. This idea surfaces again in the movie when an auto-rickshaw driver narrates to Ved about abandoning his dream of becoming a singer to take up a job to feed his family. Simmel had observed that:

Instead of reacting emotionally, the metropolitan type reacts primarily in a rational manner, thus creating a mental predominance through the intensification of consciousness, which in turn is caused by it. Thus the reaction of the metropolitan person to those events is moved to a sphere of mental activity which is least sensitive and which is furthest removed from the depths of the personality (ibid 12).

Ved is lucky and realizes that his true, subjective spirit was in Corsica. Ved starts behaving differently. Ved’s disorderly conduct creates a rupture in the organization setup. As a response to maintain order against Ved’s “unnatural” acts, he gets fired & is reprimanded by his father. Thus, as Simmel points out that though there is greater personal freedom in the cities but the close monitoring of the individual and the structural ordering of society erodes the freedom.

Punctuality, calculability and exactness, which are required by the complications and extensiveness of metropolitan life, are not only most intimately connected with its capitalistic and intellectualistic character but also colour the content of life and are conducive to the exclusion of those irrational, instinctive, sovereign human traits and impulses which originally sought to determine the form of life from within instead of receiving it from the outside in a general, schematically precise form (ibid 13).

The film returns to the theatrical skit, which is an extension of the opening scene & the allegorical performance that showcases people’s dull office life. The portrayal of a robot by Ved on stage and the continuous belittling of the heart are in line with Simmel’s idea of an economically programmed office-goer. Ved ultimately finally breaks away and shifts to his joyful persona and reconciles with Tara, to rewrite his story.

References:

Simmel, George. (1903). The Metropolis and Mental Life. Chicago, United States of America: University of Chicago Press.

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Ayushi Dutta is a Master in Sociology from Jadavpur University.