aa ja nachle

Na ja nachle!

AAJA NACHLE DIRECTOR: Anil Mehta ACTORS: Madhuri Dixit, Konkona Sen Sharma, Kunal Kapoor RANKING: ** A still from Aaja Nachle Roohafza was for many the preferred soft beverage; Thums Up (or Campa Cola) precious drinks to serve welcomed guests at home. N Chandra's Tezaab or Subhash Ghai's Khal Nayak were universally-loved sources of blockbuster entertainment; maybe because Basesar Ram and co. on Doordarshan's Hum Log had just been their closest rivals. The said directors were considered top of their game, and Madhuri Dixit, a female 'Amitabh Bachchan'. This was in the late '80s, and early '90s. Much has changed since, and most of it in pop-culture for the better. Nostalgia is a beautiful exaggeration. Posters that announce 'Madhuri's back', with her backless choli facing her audiences, merely play with gentle imaginations, without quite placing anything in context. I noticed the red, syrupy Roohafza after years at 'Basesar's' (Vinod Nagpal) home. Basesar plays Diya's (Madhuri) father in the film. Where and how the heroine's parents - possibly important characters - disappear after making a brief appearance in the film is unknown to me. The heroine herself, top dancer of a local theatre company, disappears to America after a vague fling with a firangi photographer. The nautch numbers may otherwise be seen as low entertainment across country-sides, not the high culture it's implied to be. The small-town of Shamli nonetheless disowns her precious danseuse for having eloped or married out of the community. Her romance remains as short-lived on screen as in her life. Divorced, with a child, Diya returns home many years later to find her dance-theatre in ruins. It's been quite a few years, yes. We also find that Madhuri, perhaps fitter (and air-brushed) from before, naturally isn't what she used to be. Her heroine has a theatre to keep from turning into a shopping-mall. We have a collective memory to preserve. The film doesn't help much. Unless Mrs Nene herself said no-no to an obvious romantic dalliance on the story-line to spice up the subject, Madhuri inexplicably stays the official, asexual Apsara throughout. Auditions begin for an ambitious theatre production over sequences straight out of Reykesh Mehra's Rang De Basanti. Likewise, the lead actor-dancers (Sensharma, Kapoor), and others, sense resonance of their real-life over the course of this production. It's relatively obvious 'Madhuri' came before this movie itself. A film was merely filled into the blanks. Yet, there is little to fault the choicest actors hired to pull off the script: Irrfan Khan (the shopping-mall builder); Akshaye Khanna (a foreign-bred local MP); Ranvir Sheorey (the heroine's old-fanatic); Vinay Pathak (a sarkari babu, the world's most boring husband)…. Together they at best make for swiftly sliced left-overs from Khosla Ka Ghosla, Bunty Aur Babli, even Chak De India: stories of mid-India's quirks and aspirations. I'm not surprised the screenplay is credited to the writer of the three mentioned films (Jaideep Sahni). Sahni is made to brew an earthy, small-town flavour. The concoction, though sweet in parts, smells more an instant potion now. This is cinematographer Anil Mehta's first film as director. There is little to doubt that. The last 15 to 20 unbearable minutes are enough of self-indulgent evidences to bear. The heroine finally stages her production 'Laila Majnu' to Shamli. We know the movie is sponsored by Yashraj. It isn't clear who sponsors this paraphernalia in a small town. The organisers could have bought up the entire theatre company's land with such budgets and ended the matter. The stage and costumes are lit up enough to embarrass Sanjay Leela Bhansali on a lazy Sunday. The play goes on and on and on. Yes, Aaja Puck-le would be a more appropriate invitation card for the play this group puts up. And the film they've put together as well.