Whims published... It's not an expert's opinion, It's not an online diary, It's not a web journal... It is just my whims published

Budhdhadev Gupta is the owner of one of the finest authentic Indian restaurants in London. He is 64, still a bachelor. His say is that he did not find any interesting female to marry till date. He is a perfectionist when it comes to cooking and serving the best Indian food to his customers. He also considers chefs are best artists in the world. No.. don’t question it or object it. When Budhdha can taste Zafrani Pulav and can tell us the quantity of all the ingredients in precision of grams, we just have to accept chefs are indeed great artists or should I say great chefs are indeed great artists. Budhdha seems to have no great bonding with any one except his aged mother and a kid next door who is fighting blood cancer.

One fine day a mistake of cheeni for namak by one of Budhdha’s chefs makes Budhdha to confront a beautiful customer of his. That’s Nina [Tabu], a spinster from Delhi who is currently staying in London. I swear I did not get the purpose of her stay in London. Budhdha challenges Nina that Zafrani Pulav available in his restaurant is the best, without knowing the cheeni for namak mistake by his chef. The next day Nina returns with tasty Zafrani Pulav. Budhdha finds out the mistake from his chef and decides to apologize to Nina. What begins with a cup of coffee for asking apology slowly and steadily builds up as a strong bond between Buddha and Nina. Budhdha surpasses the usual emotions like jealousy for another male talking to his woman, the initial jitters in man woman relationship.. etc etc I loved Amitabh doing all this so convincingly.

Bhalki, director deserves a great amount of credit for depicting the romance between Budhdha and Nina delicate yet elegant and surely not frivolous. There is always great amount of risk involved in narrating the romance between old man and a young man or vice versa. I have even watched few movies which fail miserably in depicting this kind of relationship. Either they look silly or unreal. But that is not the case here in Cheeni Kum. Another great thing about the characterizations of both Budhdha and Nina is that both being so sure about their unusual relationships and being so sure even about getting married to each other. It feels nice to see two souls being so sure in love! Does it come by maturity..? I liked the banteringly romantic conversation between Amitabh and Tabu throughout the movie.

Paresh Rawal is good as Tabu’s father. Amitabh is marvelous as Budhdha. I do not think anybody else could do Budhdha’s role so convincingly in the whole of Indian film industry. Tabu looks gorgeous in salwars. I liked her performance in this movie more than in Chandni Bar or Astitva. Though I liked the kid-next-door, I did not quite like her characterization in the movie. I want to repeat Rajeev Masand’s say on this. “I love kids being kids, but not acting like matured adults”. Ilaiyaraja’s music is truly awesome. Feels heavenly to listen to ‘Jane do na’ in Shreya Ghosal’s voice.

At last I beg to differ with the title of the movie. Cheeni Kum is actually very very sweet :)

RGV introduces Vijay to us by few naive conversations, as mentioned below:

Vijay confesses while narrating his story, "...its the insecurity that haunts a human being at this age.. insecurity of growing old... insecurity of nearing to death... a reality no body wants to face.. and when I am at this juncture of my life, Jiah enters into my life.. giving me the hope of reliving my youth.. I just found solace in her proximity...”

And in another scene, Jiah asks Vijay: "its how long have you been married to Amritha?"
Vijay: "27 years.."

Jiah: "27 years!!!!", exclaims. " .. So how is it..?"
Vijay: "what..?"

Jiah: "ur married life..."
Vijay: "hmmmm.... no complaints..."

Jiah: "i thought you would say, great"
Vijay: hesitantly justifying himself, "yeah... no complaints means... means… it was great"

Jiah:"u love ur wife..?"
Vijay pauses for long and nods his head, "hmm.... yeah"

Jiah: "why did u take so much of time to say that.."
Vijay just smiles feeling he is exposed... searches for words to defend the cause of that pause...

Let me make it clear that there would not be any trail of infidelity between Vijay and Amritha. But its just that as any other relationships on earth, theirs would be going mundane... without any attempts by both of them to revive it. Then enters the fountain of youth - Jiah, a friend of Ritu who comes to spend her holidays in Vijay's house. Bringing a new hope into Vijay’s life. Who admires his photography.. who ridicules him with her PJs. I liked the personality of Jiah, for which I again should admire the script writer and the director himself. She is dusky, bold, unpredictable, young... her thick dark brows.. the long untied hair, tousled always... the way she gyrates in her 'short shorts'! I feel Jiah had everything that would attract Vijay. And guys, if you are expecting a physical relationship between Jiah and Vijay, No ur wrong. These kinds of relationships need not get physical always. All you find in the whole movie is a peck on the lips of Amitabh by Jiah. The rest is all just clean cheerful and playful acts between them. And if you are wondering then what exactly are both of them expecting out of this relationship.. Its a mere nothing.. Its just the moments they spent together.. the cheer that brought to both of their lives..

I stronlgy agree such relationships are just too impossible to be tagged by a name. Those relationships just exist and when it gets exposed to the Hippocratic society, it just chokes everybody's lives, including the lives associated with these 2 chaps. Thats what happens
here in Vijay's case also. No body understands his emotions towards Jiah. But it would be presumptuous to express his feelings for Jiah to his wife, his teenage daughter. But Vijay does it... knowing his life would become hell after revealing this dirty secret to his family members.

They just force Jiah to leave their house and punish Vijay by abandoning him. Vijay just wants to live rest his life in Jiah's memory. I do not feel there could have been a better climax than this. Jiah's exit is as unpredictable and swift as her entry. She just leaves his house leaving loads of memory fuelling Vijay to survive, if not to live; in her absence. What better way to say she was that cool fresh breeze in his life...

Some creeds of people have objected the storyline, saying it is against Indian values. But I just say, ‘Indian values’ is too heavy a term used to protest against such a movie. This is just a movie about an unconventional emotion narrated in a convincing fashion. Its just a dirty secret any aged man would want to dig deep in his heart, Its that secret any blue eyed teenage girl would never ever would reveal to her parents... Let’s just accept it the way it is...

4got to mention, Amitabh is superb as Vijay, Jiah is too perfect playing Jiah and hats off to RGV. I even liked the treatment RGV gives to whole of the movie... majorly gloomy yet green...