Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light (AWIAL) establishes its Mumbai DNA early on. A visibly-tired Anu (Divya Prabha), an upstart nurse in a city hospital, is jotting down details of a patient. Age? “24… oh no sorry, it’s 25,” a young woman says, holding on to her child. “Pfft!” reacts Anu, showcasing her mild annoyance for having to strike out what she’d written earlier.

Three women, monsoon and a severe city. If Payal Kapadia’s iridescent All We Imagine as Light was a novel, there would be dried flowers stuck between its pages. Since it is a film, the intangible feeling is imbued with visual tactility. It is present in the way Prabha (Kani Kusruti), a middle-aged woman, holds a totem of cold technology within the warmth of her embrace. It is embossed on the face of Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), a woman in the middle of a crisis, as she listens to a fiery political speech about reclaiming what is hers. And it drips from the text messages a young Anu (Divya Prabha) sends to her lover: “I am sending you kisses through the clouds so that when it rains my kisses touch your lips.” Kapadia’s film is suffused with such ache that if you extend your hand you can touch it.

Mumbai has not only been one of the most featured cities in Indian films but it is also explored as a subject over the decades. Many a times, the dark underbelly of the city is brought to light. Filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s worldwide acclaimed feature film debut All We Imagine As Light (Malayalam along with some usage of Hindi and Marathi) also shows the bitter side of Mumbai. But it, for a change, doesn’t feature the criminal side of the city in any way.

Payal Kapadia’s enchanting ode to sisterhood and the glaring contrasts of Mumbai has a tranquil charm to it. There’s a certain tenderness and ease to the flow in storytelling that makes you see the city in a new light, even if you have been a Mumbaikar all your life. Watching Kapadia’s three protagonists setting themselves free from societal and psychological shackles to embrace their desires, gives you that warm fuzzy feeling.

A woman leans on a pole in her compartment, for support, for balance, swaying with the rhythm of the train. She looks exhausted, after a long day at work. We take in, like she does, the way the city looks at night, bars of refracted light and darkness dancing across her face. This image, which comes early in Payal Kapadia’s lyrical ode to working-class Mumbai and female friendship, becomes a marker of the themes the film explores, and it stays with you.

All We Imagine As Light opens like a non-fiction film about a city of grand fictions. We see a dark Mumbai — the factory of dreams — in which its survivors and victims imagine light. Invisible migrant voices play over a montage of traffic, streets, beaches, stations and hope. A pregnant housemaid jokes about being fed well by her employer. A veteran from Gujarat refuses to call it home because he’s afraid he might have to leave any moment. A dockyard worker recalls the fishy smells from his first night; he speaks like the stink has gone, but it’s his nose that adapted. A woman credits the place for making her forget a breakup. They all sound like stories from the “Spirit of Mumbai” handbook — it’s hard to tell their fate from their faith. The film seamlessly transitions from the generic to the specific by the end of this montage. The camera settles on one such story in motion: two Malayali nurses on the train back to their tiny apartment.

बॉलीवुड की फिल्मों में मुंबई को हमेशा खूब रोमांटिसाइज किया गया है। मसलन, बड़ी-बड़ी इमारतें, बाहें खोले समंदर, चकाचौंध भरी जिंदगी, प्यार का अहसास दिलाती बारिश, लेकिन इस सारी चमक-दमक के बीच यहां बहुत से ऐसे लोग हैं, जो अपने हिस्से की रोशनी के लिए रोज संघर्ष करते हैं। जो यहां की तमाम भीड़ में भी अकेले हैं। ये वो हैं, जो रोज उठते हैं, काम पर जाते हैं और लौटकर आ जाते हैं। इनकी जिंदगी इस भागते शहर में भी ठहरी हुई है। पायल कपाड़िया की कान फिल्म फेस्टिवल में प्रतिष्ठित ‘ग्रां प्री अवॉर्ड’ जीतकर इतिहास रचने वाली फिल्म ‘ऑल वी इमेजिन एज लाइट’ रंगीनियत से परे वाली इसी स्याह मुंबई के नाम प्रेम गीत है।