Wearing a sunny orange dress on a sunny Delhi morning, Laila is all set for a date in the neighbourhood park. Excited beyond words, she eases out the folds of her dress, blows the wisp of hair falling annoyingly on her face and smiles her trademark ear-to-ear smile. Spotting a vendor, she reaches into her bag, fishes out her sipper and asks him to fill it with juice. Happy and still smiling, she sips on her drink and watches the world go by. Laila is all set for a date — with herself. 

This could be the story of any young woman discovering some me-time in the daily bustle of life. But Laila is no ordinary young woman. Afflicted with cerebral palsy since birth, Laila (Kalki Koechlin) has a disability that limits her movements, but doesn’t restrain her dreams. Living with her parents and kid brother in one of the million government tenements that dot the capital, Laila dreams of writing songs, falling in love... and having sex. Laila has her physical limitations and psychological setbacks, but Margarita with a Straw isn’t about teasing your tear ducts or resorting to manipulative machinations… it’s a film that celebrates love and freedom and the freedom to choose love in a way that few Indian films have done in the past. 

So despite limbs that rarely remain in control and a speech so slurred that you can barely fathom a word, Laila lives the life of any young woman: she studies creative writing, writes lyrics for the college band, has a soft spot for the cute lead singer Nima (Tenzin Dalha), kisses paraplegic friend Dhruv (Hussain Dalal) in the corners of the campus, surfs porn and masturbates. All this on her wheelchair. 

When a chance to study at New York University beckons, Laila jumps at it, egged on by her supportive mother (Revathy) and despite the reservations of an overprotective father (Kuljeet Singh). Once in New York, Laila discovers an environment that treats her as “normal” — she wheels around freely in the city’s disability-friendly streets, orders her first alcoholic drink without raising eyebrows and strikes up a close friendship with blind Pakistani student-activist Khanum (Sayani Gupta). What starts off as a sexual experiment between the two metamorphoses into a live-in relationship, with Laila even having a quickie one afternoon with a young man from her class. But life isn’t a bed of roses  for anyone — least of all for Laila — who has to bear the brunt of the choices she makes. But she emerges triumphant every single time, eventually leading to the realisation that life is what you make of it. 

The best thing about Margarita with a Straw is its non-judgmental perspective. Director Shonali Bose — whose deft direction in Amu, dealing with the 1984 genocide, was unanimously praised — imparts soul and substance to a story that could have easily taken the sympathetic route. Instead, she makes Laila a feisty woman of today, willing to experiment with life and confident of her choices — sexual or otherwise. The lovemaking scenes between Laila and Khanum — though a trifle disjointed, courtesy the censor scissors — are filmed sensitively. So is the mother-daughter dynamic between Kalki and Revathy, the teen’s rebellious attitude gradually giving way to a strong and unspoken bond between the two. The scene in which Laila tells her mother she is “bisexual” doesn’t come with the kind of heavy finger-pointing you would normally think of — instead, it’s handled with compassion and understanding and even a tinge of humour. 

Kalki is the reason that makes a sip — or more — of Margarita... a must-try. The actor, who has made a name taking on roles that count, inhabits Laila like perhaps no one else could have, making her a flesh-and-blood character who won’t allow physical impairment to pin her down. Revathy once more shows the brilliance she is capable of — the mother and wife in her always at the forefront, even as she fights a losing battle with cancer. Calcutta girl Sayani is the find of the film, her Khanum a picture of quiet and unapologetic confidence. 

For Aamir Khan, Margarita…  is “the best film in a long time”. Amitabh Bachchan  has called it “a brave and original film”. What’s holding you back from walking into a film that celebrates “being you”? Do it for Laila — and the millions like her who want to live their lives like you and me. Care.

MARGARITA WITH A STRAW (A)
Director: Shonali Bose
Cast: Kalki Koechlin, Revathy, Sayani Gupta
Running time: 101 minutes

Priyanka Roy
Margarita with a Straw for me is the film of the year because....
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