DUM LAGA KE HAISHA

Film ‘Dum Laga Ke Haisha’ is that it has a story. The tale is the basis of a solid, honest-to-goodness script, a lead couple that wins you over gradually but confidently, and a bunch of actors who know exactly where they are at.

 

 

A Rajat Kapoor movie that has been presented as a Yash Raj Films affair, this is the most experimental step ever taken by the premium production house. In fact, there is so much resemblance between Dum Laga Ke Haisha and Kapoor's last release Aankhon Dekhi in terms of stage, setting, milieu and even characters that one ends up wondering if both movies had been shot concurrently on the same sets at the same time while taking services of a common dialogue writer and cinematographer.

 

 

So what makes this movie still a little different in terms of a whole outcome? Well, three things. First and notable, it features Ayushmann Khurrana, and not Ranvir Shorey who may just have walked into this part had this been pitched as a rather offbeat affair. Secondly, it has music that is set in the 90s with Kumar Sanu all over the narrative, instead of say, K. L. Saigal. Thirdly, and most significantly, its climax is (delightfully) commercial, what with Anu Malik's energetic title number playing in a Chak De! India kind of setting.

 

 

Unconfident young fellow Prem Prakash Tiwari (Ayushmann Khurrana) is a perfect candidate for the kind of ‘rapid-speaking’ English coaching classes, the ads which you find plastered on walls in small towns and ‘kasbas’. He’s called ‘Lapoo': it could well have been ‘Lalloo’, because that’s what Prem comes across as, as he ricochets between his overbearing father (Sanjay Mishra), his annoying ‘shakha pradhaan’, and his friends.

 

 

He’s the kind of man-boy who still changes into khaki knickers and does ‘varjish’ by the riverside (the ‘shakha’ bit is an interesting quirk, and adds to the character), and who can still be badgered. That trait leads him to the `mandap’, where he is placed alongside Sandhya (Bhumi Pednekar), who would be called, kindly, ‘healthy’ (pronounced ‘haalthy’). Or, ‘plumpy’ by people who think it is a word. Or, if you are the reluctant husband who is seething at his union with a girl with no ‘soorat’, much worse.

 

 

The mix of two worlds is what makes Dum Laga Ke Haisha special as it brings home a definitive point of women empowerment without shouting from the rooftops. So debutant Bhumi Pednekar shows that as an early 90s young woman (the film is set in 1993), she won't take things lying down, whether it comes from her husband or his forever whining buaji. All she wants is respect and when that doesn't come her way, she is willing to walk out.

 

 

In case of Dum Laga Ke Haisha, the husband has his own fears to fight. As hero suffering with inferiority complex of being uneducated and under confident, Ayushmann is superb as Prem as he turns into a character for screen which is altogether opposite from his real life persona as well as on-screen image since Vicky Donor. Just watch out for his subdued act in front of his family or that drunken emotional outburst in front of his friends and you would know. Forever in the character, he never once strays.

 

 

You have Sanjay Mishra, Seema Pahwa, Sheeba Chadha, that annoying (yet helpful) friend, that kid brother, that arrogant friend turned foe - each of them is straight out of a small town realistic setting that you have come across on a regular day. This is well complemented by the art direction that keeps you immersed in Haridwar despite the cushy seats of a multiplex.

 

 

Any flaws? Not really, except for the fact that a point or two you do feel if the lead protagonists or at least their parents could have helped in getting them together across the table and initiated a talk. Also, in the middle of the film’s second half, the mood shifts from being light hearted to a little grim (as well as slow) which goes against the whole pace and fun element that it otherwise boasts of. Furthermore, how one wishes that the music element played a bigger role in the tale. It is there in bits and but a little more 90s touch would have only ignited the nostalgia further.

 

 

Ayushmann Khurrana does a decent job as the ‘chota shehari’ Kumar Sanu fan who learns to dust off the cobwebs in his mind, and to apologize to the woman he has hurt : it takes courage to play this not very likeable character without demanding sympathy from us. The achievement of the movie is Sandhya, beautifully played by Bhumi Pednekar, the overweight girl burdened by not just by her size, but by the lingering awareness that love could, painfully, be out of her reach.

 

 

Still, these are minor things in the bigger scheme of things as Sharat Katariya's appropriate handling of the whole 'divorce hearing' scene at court is worth the price of ticket!

 

 

Overall, it is worthy to watch once for performances of Ayushmann Khurrana and Bhumi Pednekar.