Man Push Cart, by Ramin Baharani, is about Ahmed Razvi, a Pakistani immigrant trying to make ends meet with a pushcart. In Pakistan he was a rock star, but each day now he commutes from his apartment in Brooklyn to Midtown Manhattan, to a corner on Avenue of the Americas, ready to sell coffee bagels by 3 a.m. He also sells bootleg adult films. His wife died after immigrating, and their son lives with Ahmed’s in-laws. Ahmed works hoping to one day make enough to live with his son. He temporarily befriends Mohammad, a rich Pakistani, who recognized him as a singer and hired him to help him financially. Ahmed also forms a romance with Noemi, a Spaniard who runs a newsstand. He adopts a cat too, which helps him cope emotionally, but it dies shortly. After having paid 5,000 dollars for the first installment, Ahmed’s cart is stolen. This is a devastating blow, and he’s forced to beg for financial help from the person he was buying from, Noori. The film portrays Ahmed’s life as lonely, confined, desolate, and bordering on desperation within a prosperous and indifferent urban landscape. Regardless of his past, now he has no choice but to start from scratch and keep working his pushcart until things get better, but don’t look like they will.
The film is compelling because of artistic choices that don’t advance the plot but give the viewer a greater understanding for Ahmed’s circumstances. For example, there are multiple, repetitive shots of Ahmed sleeping on a train ride home or to Manhattan, dragging his pushcart down the street, selling his bagels and coffee during the day. Showing these situations again and again gives the sense of his monotonous and boring lifestyle.
Additionally, many conversations magnify and highlight the struggles Ahmed and people like him have to go through. In one scene, Ahmed’s talking to a character who looks Pakistani, and who tells of a friend “living the life” because he’s in Albany working at Dunkin’ Donuts, which highlights just how poor these immigrants are. In another scene, one Pakistani character shows a scar on his stomach, while someone else explains to a group that he was stabbed up the gut for being a “terrorist.” This conversation conveys how Pakistanis struggle with maintaining their identity and with their safety because of American prejudices.
Moreover, many of the shots of the Manhattan setting show just how insignificant Ahmed’s pushcart is compared to the city, and how depressing his situation is. Whenever he is dragging his cart down the street, one always sees cars driving past, while he’s walking hunched over. There are also many shots of skyscrapers towering over him and his pushcart. To make the mood gloomy, many scenes take place in the dark, either outside at night or inside, and the few scenes outdoors in the daytime mostly take place in rain.
Man Push Cart leaves out many details, like why Ahmed’s in America and how his wife died. However, our lack of knowledge about Ahmed reflects how he knows so few people, and those he knows, he doesn’t know well or questions if he knows at all. For example, he asks for but does not get 5,000 dollars from Mohammad, who isn’t a close friend by any stretch. Also, he suspects that Noori, someone he considered a friend, and the one to whom he pays installments, stole his cart after the first payment.
Ahmed’s story shares elements with that of many other immigrants. He lost his identity. His ethnic group is a victim of prejudice. Ahmed hasn’t much social capital, but he has some. Mohammad helped him by hiring him to paint his apartment. This is a clear example of social capital, how immigrants of the same ethnic group will support each other and lend each other money.
If “you are what you eat, where you eat, and because you eat out,” then Ahmed doesn’t exist, because he never eats out. He does sell food, but the food he sells is the cheapest and most basic there is. The food he sells does show that he is assimilating, because he must appeal to an on the go New York market.
This film shows an immigrant who cannot advance without cultural, economic, and social capital. Ahmed barely has any of these. He has no family except his in-laws, who greatly dislike him, no connections, no money, and no education, and so he’s forced to stay working in a low-income job to sustain himself.
Man Push Cart lets us experience and emotionally connect with the life of someone with whom many New Yorkers interact but about whom few New Yorkers think. Ahmed’s circumstances are shared by those in newsstands, those selling umbrellas outside when it’s raining, and all those getting by, by any means necessary. After this film a New Yorker will never look at a street vendor, or any struggling immigrant, the same way again, but rather as someone with a history, a lost identity, a family, aspirations, and struggles.
On a larger scale, and bigger picture, we see a wealth gap between Ahmed and the Americans he sells to, and yet he is working tirelessly from 3 a.m., then selling DVDs on the side, and yet lacks the capital necessary to advance himself. This film would benefit policy makers and Americans in general, to rethink how possible the American dream and economic advancement really is for someone that really starts from nothing and works tirelessly, and how to actually make the dream a possibility.
