6 Years of Gully Boy: A Character Study of Zoya Akhtar’s Underdog Story

By Ananya Arora

It’s 14th February, 2019, and Apna Time Aayega has taken over everything. It’s in your phones; its playing inside malls; its playing on the streets; people are wearing t-shirts with that slogan—you can't escape it. It’s 2025; the Indian hip-hop scene has arguably reached a wide international audience—songs make their way from underground artists to your Spotify-curated playlists. How well has Zoya Akhtar’s Oscar-nominated staggering film Gully Boy aged? How relevant are the themes explored of love, music, faith, struggle, and poverty explored in the emotional rags to riches tale?

Murad is an aspiring musician coming from the Dharavi slums of Mumbai. He dares to dream in a place where people don't find space to step foot in. Gully Boy’s screenplay follows a structure wherein every character is introduced as either a reminder that his dreams are too big and unachievable or as a reminder how much harder he has to work to be even able to dream his full dream. To dissect a film as layered yet simple as Gully Boy, I find it important to do so by fleshing out the characters of the film since its based off of real-life rappers DIVINE and Naezy.

Siddharth Chaturvedi plays the latter character, called MC Sher, in the film. He comes as an almost messiah-like figure to Ranveer Singh’s character of Murad. Sher’s character falls into the category of people who remind Murad how much harder he has to work to not feel shame to even dream a dream like his. With almost every scene that includes both Murad and Sher, the scene is well lit. Even in night scenes, there is even and bright light spread on Sher’s face because he often guides Murad to light. Similarly, Kalki Koechlin’s character Sky shows Murad his wings further, making her fall into the category of people who show Murad hope, or a stark reminder of how inaccessible hope is to a man like him. Murad’s standalone scenes are always dark, dull, and dingy. His scenes with his family in their house are rarely ever shot with evenly lit mise en scène. Even in scenes with the character of Moeen played by Vijay Verma, Murad’s friend and accomplice in crime, the scenes are dimly lit. The camera is often stable, never dynamic. There are also many single close-up shots of Murad in his house, whereas scenes with Sher or Sky are taken as two shots and mid-shots to establish the availability of space.

Perhaps the most contemporary and my personal favorite character that stands on its own, separate from the film even, is that of Safeena, portrayed by Alia Bhatt. Zoya Akhtar positions herself as a director, not particularly as a Muslim woman filmmaker, perhaps because, coming from a house of prominent and famous storytellers such as Javed and Farhan Akhtar, she doesn't have to. Nonetheless, what’s interesting to note is she always makes sure to write exceptionally fleshed-out women in her film, regardless of identity. Safeena, for me, is the best example of this, co-written by Akhtar’s longtime collaborator Reema Kagti and Vijay Maurya. Safeena is a young, smart Muslim woman. What we see of her in the film is that she is extremely possessive and violent. She often gets excessively jealous in her long-term relationship with Murad and resorts to physical violence to resolve these feelings. The bridge at which the two meet is above a landfill, the only place where their worlds can collide briefly and provide peace and time to be together fleetingly.

What is impeccable to me about the writing of Safeena is that she is written off as a violent and possessive woman just for the sake of it. Safeena cannot be rebellious or outgoing due to her strict parents and her Muslim identity. Nonetheless, she finds courage to act out, be physical, get angry, and be outwardly jealous just because she is all of these things intrinsically as a person. Safeena lies to her parents for her boyfriend; she gives Murad her iPad; she gets into physical altercations with other women Murad sees; she also gets slapped by her mom, but we never see her as anything but a strong woman. What is another striking thing about this balanced sketching of the character is that Safeena doesn't feel like a two-dimensional shadow of Murad, written only for the sake of having the hero’s love interest established. She is her own person who goes through her own arc in relation to Murad, and to this day Safeena stays as one of the most plausibly strong woman characters written in mainstream Hindi cinema at least.

Now coming to our actual gully boy, Murad, he is our average underdog. Painted in dusky blue tones and a rather problematic dark skin makeup, the writing makes us emotionally attached to him from the start. Murad’s dialogue is what makes this emotional connection happen instantly, delivering powerful punches throughout. Ranveer Singh’s impeccable acting is also a huge help to make the click happen. Even after six years, Gully Boy essentially stands the test of time. It is farsighted in ways that it is ubiquitous and speaks to the age-old story of class struggle and the impoverished artist. The thorough writing also never really makes us feel bad for Murad per se. It rather makes us angry, arguably the stronger emotion here at play. What this does is highlights the unfairness of systems, of people just born without certain access and privileges, despite the relentless talent and hunger. To replace the looking down upon, sorry feeling, Zoya, Kagti, and Mourya very deliberately swap that feeling for anger, to drive the audience to not sympathize but empathize with their Gully Boy.

P.S. city of stars, are you shining just for us? ✨

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