Desi Train

You start to uncork the champagne. One of the top actors of our times has come out with his first directorial venture in the land of cinema. Naseeruddin Shah, despite his many lows, is still a powerhouse, a library, a school of acting in himself.

Time to celebrate. Press play, sit back, push your footrest up and enjoy.

Oh wait a minute! Champagne to kholo bhaiee (Hinglish: Open the champagne you ass). Unfortunately, the champagne’s flat and has no fizz. It’s equivalent to drinking an extra sour grape juice, that’s bound to have you spending the next 38 hours of your life in the rest room. No boom boom here.

And the movie, just like the bottle of champagne, can be capped back, put in it’s box and put on the mantle of your decorative pieces in your living room. The purpose? To serve as a reminder that not all good things have a happy climax. Premature ejaculation and non performance can be the greatest assholes in your bedding (or sofa or wherever you have sex on) life.

Though not everything is bad in this Hota, Nahin Hota, Whatever Hota, which is an amalgamation of four parallel stories reaching one climax.

So we have an about to leave for America guy (Shergill, not much to do here) in bed with his runaway bride (Konkana Sen Sharma, efficient as always). Bride soon realizes she lives in a zoo what with a cranky American mom who gave up her “trailer trash American life” (her words not mine) to marry an Indian and become an Indian citizen. Mera Bharat Mahan! (Hinglish: The Indian director/actor Manoj Kumar is Great!). Add to the cranky momma in law, is a Sis-in-law, who should be every man’s nightmare.

Sis-in-law looks very capable of chopping your mini-me off after having sex with you. Boo darna zaroori hai (Hinglish: Do not fear for the technology of reattaching penises is here, so go and have sex with the crazy girl, get cut and come home after a reattachment surgery). Add to this crazy zoo, is the father in law who keeps looking silently at the two beeatches (sorry could not find an appropriate word) of the house, too busy feeding fish and working on having the longest beard in this world.

With great pain do I inform you that the father in law is played by none other than Naseer’s partner in crime in the cult classic Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron. What a tragedy to see Ravi Baswani falling from JBDY and other classics like Chashme Baddoor, in the messy YHTKH.

Parallel story two has an agent (Paresh Rawal) who for 12 lakhs will drop you in America under the garb of you being a garba / dandia performer in his troupe. Things go skidding again for him when the love of his life returns after ten years, begging him to take her daughter away to Amayreeca, far away from the drunkard father.

The part solely survives based on, who else, but the ever dependable Paresh Rawal. Getting into the skin of the Gujarati agent who will not settle for anything less than his quoted amount of 12 lakhs, Paresh breathes life into the role making this segment absolutely watchable. Here is an actor who very clearly and visibly, in such a fine way communicates to the viewer the “character” of the character. Watch his scenes outside the US Embassy or the ones Boston airport.

And then there’s Ratna Pathak Shah as his lost love who plays her part with absolutely no problems.

The third parallel story gets tricky. Here’s the part which got the most crap from critics and bloggers. It involves a cocaine-sniffing stock broker Salim (Irrfan, fluctuates between kick-ass and pure ass) along with his brother Javed (Karan Khanna, ably played) who have got their green card and are ready to leave for the States. Sons of a retired female don (all hail the women’s lib) played by dance director, Saroj Khan (What the???), the guys get entrapped in an incident which accelerates their jumping on the next flight out of the country.

But our Salim, besides his love for sniffing coke, is madly in love with an older woman who teaches hunks on how to dance. Suhasini Mulay’s casting as the sex crazed mature woman who teaches ballet/dance or whatever it is, has been at the receiving end of most of the critics. True, it could be a borderline miscasting of the century, but hell wait. Why? Was something wrong in Mulay’s performance? Well, no, if you keep aside that none of the characters in the whole project were given a well rounded structure in a way that would hit your heart.

So the only reason (for critics’ ire) could be that the impression of Bharatiya Mata created by Mulay in her past roles is so strong and deep that it is simply impossible to digest her character in the present project.

How can actors afford to break the moulds they are trapped in, if the press themselves do not give them the permission to change or break it?

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Agreed that Mulay’s character may make many throw up, cause hell, it’s Suhasini Mulay, and no she should not be doing such I kiss young men in my bedroom kind of roles. Wait! Who are we to judge what character an actor should play? Are we now trying to control them and then rue the fact that there is no experimentation done in Bollywood?

Mulay and Naseer, have just tried one. In my eyes, again it is borderline miscasting, because of the strong memories of Mulay’s past good momma roles. Yet don’t forget that she came back to the world of cinema in the role of a meanie politician in Hu Tu Tu.

Coming back to Irrfan, I’m not sure whether I should sit him down and talk to him about the screwed up roles he’s taking up or perhaps I should simply skip the talk and start kicking his ass to get his sensible button switched ON.

Some of the scenes where he invariably leaves his stamp of his brilliance invariably are messed up by Naseer, the captain himself. His eyes opening to the fact that his love has a secret – the whole scene was written perhaps as if the writers were in a big rush (not Uttam Gada, who’s washed his hands off this project, on the pretext that nothing he originally wrote is in the movie). Rush for what? Did the movie set have just one restroom?

Further Irrfan’s breakdown in front of Mulay’s apartment is defocused by Naseer’s camera decisions. Splits and jumps in movements do not accentuate the pain. This was Irrfan’s highpoint and the camera and scene editing should have just let go and remained steady on a fine actor giving his only best scene in the entire movie. Bad Decision.

The fourth story is about a student (newcomer Ankur Khanna, promising talent) who can’t leave for the States to pursue his MS on account of lack of finances and personal problems that hold him back. On the side he’s in love perhaps with Khushboo (Ayesha Takia, not bad, not bad at all), one of Bombay’s rich elite, who in the end, helps him out to reach the US.

Of course the constant reminder of September 11, shows us where the movie is headed to. A sad ending. But again, the climax is botched up. Wasn’t there a better way to execute the same ending but differently? Again, the feeling is one of something being rushed, running out of ideas or plain laziness on part of the team to give us such below par execution in the final reels.

And someone please call Shemaroo the DVD maker/distributor for this project (and also Ahista Ahista, that I saw at one go). The first chapter of the DVD tells us not to watch pirated DVDs cause of course it’s illegal, but also because of the poor picture and sound quality. Well, either Shemaroo has turned video pirates themselves or they are using some primitive tools to dish out the DVDs. The picture quality of many of Shemaroo’s DVDs are HORRIBLE. And I’m putting this mildly.

It’s disgusting to see such a crappy picture quality where instead of the actor moving from point A to point B, you see a body with a face that is only made up of colored squares moving on your 32 inch LCD. I dare not imagine what it would look like on a 42 inch plus up plasma. And mind you the picture is being pumped in by my Bose system.

If this is the quality of “original” DVDs that we should expect from Shemaroo, then it’s time to reverse my decision on watching movies on pirated discs.

And in the end, it’s time to face the facts about Naseer as a director. He may have the vision, but dare I make the statement that, he isn’t as good a director as he is an actor. Directing plays is one thing, but movies are an entirely different ball game and Naseer is lacking on many fronts. Not all concepts of playwriting can be copied and pasted into movie making and screen writing.

The concept of four parallel stories is definitely worth a dekko, but where is the smooth integration and handshaking between the segments when the story jumps to and fro between them. I wish Renu Saluja were alive, for she would have worked her magic on such a mouthwatering venture. Unfortunately Hina Saiyada has miles to go before being somewhere up in the big league.

It would be interesting to see how different would the project have turned out, had Naseer stuck to the original script by Uttam Gada. For better or worse, it was Naseer’s call, and he hasn’t done the job well. Agar original script hota to kya hota?

C Plus. Go flat in. Come flat out.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 13th, 2006 at 11:16 am
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