“The Last Color”: Master Chef Vikas Khanna dishes out a thought-provoking visual delight.

“Wahan mat dekho, ap shagun hoga.” (“Don’t look there, it will bring bad luck”).  For 5-time Michelin Star recipient Master Chef Vikas Khanna, those were words he had heard all through his life growing up.

The object provoking that comment, an old widow, was apologetically trying to curl up, shrink and disappear into the shadows nearby. Not to be seen or heard.

“She may have been about 90, but then when you do not get the right kind of food, your body ages differently. What I saw, was a woman, her face full of wrinkles, her hands gnarled and weather beaten, trying to still offer a tremulous namaste”, recalls Vikas. “Being in the public eye, I did what I do by habit, a slight nod of recognition, a slight joining of the hands. But even I was unprepared for her reaction. The widow almost keeled over, stunned that someone had acknowledged her existence, even if just barely… That someone has told her through that small gesture – I see you; you are not invisible.”

“She almost bent to the ground, greeting me with unabashed gratitude. All my life I had seen how widows, including my own grandmother, were treated differently. They were not allowed to participate in anything auspicious. As a child, always on Holi, I wanted so badly to throw color all over beeji, my grandmother.  (Until 2013, until India’s Highest Court intervened, widows were not allowed to play Holi). Instead, I blindly toed society’s rules , including the one that told me that these widows, shunned most of their lives through no fault of their own, were bringing the rest of us bad luck.”

Vikas was participating in Holi, India’s famous festival of colors that day, in (of all the places) Lord Krishna’s colorful Vrindavan. He was being felicitated by the crème de la crème, along with the influential escort who was showing him around.

After all, he was this superstar who had heads of countries, even the Pope, and top notch celebrities from every walk of life literally eating out of his hands. But that day and for many days to come, the widow’s face started to haunt him. “I felt such regret, that as a human being, I could not defy that man and that superstition, and didn’t reach out to hold her hand, to talk to her, to have done something to make her feel she was as important as anyone else. But I didn’t… and to this day whenever I remember her or talk about her, I choke with emotion. I didn’t know it then and she never will, but in that moment, she changed my life.”

On his return flight, a silent and uncommunicative Vikas poured his thoughts into a story he titled “Colorless.”  “As a Chef, your entire life revolves around color. And to take that away from anyone is heartbreaking.”

His story was rejected by every single publication he sent it to.

Vikas took it in his stride just as he has anything in his life that didn’t work according to plan. What he did not forget was the widow. He kept returning to Vrindavan, meeting many widows and writing their stories privately. But he still did not know what to do with them.

Then came another major turning point in the form of a catastrophic event. At the height of his fame, when he was turning everything to gold – opening popular restaurants, writing several successful television programs and books – his father suddenly passed away.

It was as if the bottom had dropped from his world. Consumed with grief, he literally vanished from public eye. The pain took him to Varanasi, to find closure. Unable to sleep in his fancy hotel, he would go to the river, and sleep on the boat amid the stars.

He would wake up, attend the morning aarti (prayers) and return to his hotel . Vikas also was in disguise because he had gone into hiding to heal his wounds. “I did not want anyone to recognize me and call me weak or see that I had fallen.” But Shiv, his well-educated boat wallah, revived his spirits.

“The boat wallahs in Varanasi are something else. They don’t care at all about your fame or status or how much money you have. Mine would say ‘Bhai tu kitna bhi ameer ho jayega, ganga toh mere ghar hi aati hai!’ (Brother you may become however of a big gun, but Ganga only comes to MY house!).”

One night lying under the stars on that boat Vikas had a mystical experience. “I just felt something and started humming a tune I had never heard before and fell asleep. When I woke up Shiv said to me, “You know Mother Ganga came and sang you a lullaby. She does not do that for everyone… but her son was very tired last night so she came and sang.” That tune made it to “The Last Color” and in Vikas’s voice.

And then one day an incident happened on the ghats of Varanasi that finally helped Vikas produce, write and direct a story so powerful that everywhere it goes, it has moved the hearts and souls of people, bringing them to tears and inspiring them simultaneously.

“I was still healing and was not in any hurry to go home. My mom, being the typical Punjabi Indian mom, said, “Come back whenever you feel you want to, as long as you eat your meals!”  I had grown a beard, and used to cover myself with a blanket, wear dark glasses so no one would recognize me. Suddenly, one day this little girl emerged out of nowhere. She was a fearless and feisty tightrope walker and approached me with great confidence. ‘Kaisa laga mera tamasha. Hum hawa mein chaltey hain, aur kisi se nahin dartey?’ (How did you like my act? We walk on air and are not afraid of anything.) She then demanded money from me.

I said to her ‘You are bright and fearless, so why don’t you go to school instead of doing this?’ She told me how her family had come from another town and had been duped of all their money, so she was doing the dangerous tightrope walking without any safety net underneath to get the funds to pay her tuition for admission to school.

“I gave her the required amount and as she was walking away, I called out and said ‘Choti (little one) what will you become once you graduate  from school?’  She turned and looked at me, maybe a bit taken aback. After all who cares about what little orphans and untouchables become? Why would anyone care to even ask? But she said with the same fierce fearlessness, ‘I will become a police officer and will wield a rod and teach all these police officers who constantly trouble me, a lesson.”

“I still remember her standing there, her hair flowing against the backdrop of the cool waves of the Ganga. And the blazing sun – its rays like they were tangled in her hair, almost setting them ablaze, enhancing the fiery determination that she symbolized. And then she ran away, vanishing forever in the streets. I tried but could never find her again. She was lost in the city of light and darkness but in that moment, I knew I had my story and that I had  to tell it from her perspective.”

Varanasi, a holy city of lights adorned by the most sacred of rivers, the Ganga. Some say it was created by Lord Shiva 5000 years ago, but even scholars admit that the city of Varanasi is at least 3000 years old. And it is undoubtedly the spiritual capital of India. There, deeply embedded in the light of the glittering lamps that are part of the  morning and evening prayers,  is the belief that if you are so lucky to have your funeral pyre lit on its famous  ghats, it will catapult you up the spiritual ladder and you will attain Moksha (nirvana).

Until King Ram Mohan Roy put a stop to the practice in 1829, widows were burnt in those funeral pyres along with their husbands in a ritualistic practice called Sati.

Sati was mostly discontinued, but the life of a widow remained a living hell. In the days gone by, many young girls were married off to men old enough to be their fathers. Their husbands’ untimely death left them isolated and shunned, unable to mingle with anyone at auspicious occasions. They were made to eat bland food, often just a plain rice gruel and many were sexually abused, as well.

Set against the backdrop of this holy city, Vikas Khanna’s “The Last Color” is a haunting Kaleidoscope of lives intersecting each other, with pain and joy, judgment and acceptance, fear and courage ,where injustice finally loses to hope and redemption.

There is Choti, an outstanding performance by Aqsa Siddiqui – a non-actor hand-picked by Vikas at a government run school. “She thought a master chef is coming so she is going to get good food! And she was least interested in acting!”. Choti is a feisty little tightrope walking orphan, and also an untouchable (low caste). Along with her friend (another street urchin named Chintu) Choti is trying to earn enough money through her act, so she can go to school. Both are often running for their life, deviously slipping through the hands of the corrupt and abusive police officer Raja and his honchos because their act is illegal. Bribery is the only way you can get them to look the other way, but these kids never have enough.

Running through the streets looking for Chintu, who often goes missing, one day Choti’s path crosses that of Noor (played by the actor par excellence, Nina Gupta), an elderly widow.

When Choti tries to attract her attention by touching her, Noor recoils, partly because of the fact that the orphan is low caste, showcasing how even the most downtrodden can be equally judgmental and condescending.  But the reason is bigger than that.

It compels Choti to tell Noor the next time they meet that her eyes remind her of Bhura’s eyes. “When Noor finds out Bhura is a little wounded puppy she bursts out in a quiet, rarely seen smile. But then Choti adds that Bhura was badly wounded and when she stroked him lovingly, he started crying loudly.

“Why?” asks Noor. In one of the most heart-breaking lines in the film the sassy Choti, without a sliver of pity, answers in a matter-of-fact way. “Usko pyaar ki aadat nahin hogi na. (He was probably not used to being treated with love”). Noor realizes in that moment that it is not just her eyes that mirror little Bhura’s, it’s also her life, devoid of a loving touch.

Choti’s determination not to give up on that burgeoning friendship slowly starts warming the elderly widow’s barren heart. As the relationship grows, Choti asks her why she only wore white. Did she never like any color?

That innocent, curious question brings back memories. Memories of a life that seems so distant now.  A time when little Noor was named by her grandfather after the most famous, dazzling diamond, the Kohinoor because of the light emanating from her. The time when Noor was the apple of his eyes. Her grandfather recited Tagore’s most inspiring poems to her, he told her it was HER  dance that made the sun rise and shine! Yes that very Noor, then a feisty young girl, whose life was full of the vibrant colors of a happy, carefree life and the joy of being loved unconditionally. Whose confident, proud eyes only saw that regal color, Pink – worn by royalty, because she was made to feel like one.

And then she, a child, was married off against her grandfather’s wishes by her parents to an old man who died a few months later. Noor did not know his name, and now it was as if  she had forgotten her own and what it meant – living for decades dressed in white, not allowed to mingle with anyone.

She passed her days in prayers, and nights on a ragged mattress on the floor with another widow who has allowed her to stay there.

Noor tells Choti that all widows are supposed to only wear white. “Why?” Asks a curious Choti. “So that they remain colorless.” An indignant Choti retorts that this Holi she will throw that pink color on Noor. She remains undeterred by Noor’s shocked protests that she cannot ever play Holi again.

Choti suddenly becomes her biggest miracle, bringing kindness – be it through a prohibited cup of tea that widows are not allowed to drink, or a stolen nail polish to hurriedly color three toes on one of Noor’s feet before a police man shoos them away.

In an ultimate gesture of trust, Choti takes Noor to her private hideaway and asks her to show her how she danced as a child. As Noor takes the first tentative, self-conscious steps for the first time in several decades, the sun shines for her again and mother Ganga watches the little world of light and joyful rhythm created by her two children, so far apart in age, yet so connected through their loving, non-judgmental hearts. One of the most touching visuals is of Noor returning home and putting imaginary jewelry, and kohl in her eyes.

And it seems that just for a few moments the phoenix rises from the ashes again.

Noor until then has never questioned her destiny or her circumstances. “They never do,” says Vikas. “They don’t have the GPS of the world. That is why they remain trapped in the ashrams, and in those dismal lives putting up with all kind of atrocities.”

But Noor suddenly finds the courage to question Choti’s, telling her repeatedly that whenever anyone tries to tread on her or her dreams, she must retaliate and rise so high that she leaves them far below, specks in dust. “Just like when I walk the tight rope and am above them!” Choti responds rejuvenated. When they are kicked out of a tea shop because they are outcastes and Choti is disheartened, Noor tells her about a moment when she was out with her grandfather, and suddenly all went dark. The little moon came from no where and eclipsed the sun. “Suraj toh roz hi jeetata hai par ek din chand ka bhi tho aata hai. (The sun wins every day, but the Moon has that one day too, to eclipse the sun.) She tells Choti. And that Choti must always remember that she is that Moon and her day will come.

Evil emerges disturbing the peace again, as Raja (the corrupt cop played brilliantly, again by a non-actor, Aslam Sheikh.) “He was a UPS guy who came to deliver a package to me, and I made him stay,” says Vikas with a laugh). He ill-treats his wife because she has not been able to give him  the much- coveted male child – only 3 daughters. He is brutal also because she does not bathe in the waters of a so-called baby boy producing miraculous well.

Vikas had seen a similar incident in real life. “I was hanging around and suddenly heard a splash of water. I turned around and saw a woman being pushed into a well by many others. That day I spoke up. I said what you are doing is very wrong. This lady could have hit her head on the side of the well and been badly injured. The husband of the woman recognized me despite my beard. But it did not stop them from following this crazy superstition.”

Raja also sexually exploits Anarkali (a transgender woman who protects Choti, played by Rudrani Chettri) and keeps threatening to do the same to Choti if Anarkali doesn’t comply with his demands. Raja and his goons also continue to harass Choti and Chintu often putting the young boy in jail.

Fed up, Anarkali tells Raja’s wife and contacts a journalist to tell her story of brutality and corruption in the holy city.

Anarkali is murdered by Raja to stop her, and Choti is the sole eye witness. The love that suddenly lights up her barren heart now gives Noor the courage to try and protect Choti. They decide to leave town and start their lives elsewhere. “Will I be able to call you Ma then?” asks a bedraggled Choti who has been on the run for two days, trying to escape Raja. The stunned look on Noor’s face in response is unforgettable because so much gets said in that moment of silence. In her barren life, there is a sudden watershed of love and belonging. In that moment Noor and Choti are no longer orphaned by their circumstances. They are already rising above them.

Do Noor and Choti escape to a new life? Does Choti fulfill her potential? What of Chintu? Is the police officer punished for the murder of Anarkali and does Choti keep her promise of playing Holi with Noor, and throwing color on her, symbolizing the triumph of good over evil and intolerance?

The deeply moving climax of “The Last Color” mesmerizes you with its twists and turns, bringing you to tears and then making you smile through them.

The allure of Varanasi, its rich culture, its colors, India’s stories of heartbreak and hope, are all interlinked through stunning cinematography and masterful direction. The script is so compelling that reality and fiction merge seamlessly, and the message that if you have a conscience you must stand up for what is right and be a leader to create a change, comes across clearly.

“That old widow I met years ago in Vrindavan did not question her destiny,” says Vikas. “But if you have any conscience, it will raise questions and bring discomfort. It is so easy to justify things in your mind, to avoid creating ripples, to silently follow whatever you are told by people who supposedly know it all. And yet if you have the integrity  and the courage to face your inner voice, you will know in your heart, as I did, that something just was not right the day I met her. That day, I just went away with the feeling that I should have done more, that what happened wasn’t right. I just kept feeling I owed her something. But what it was I did not know in that moment. Now I do. I had to speak up.”

The heart and soul of a film maker is always reflected through his work. And it is obvious that Vikas Khanna has his in the right place. A must watch.