Palpable but unders tated chemistry

S?me love stories are

Just so sweet, more so, when real life couples roma nee on reel. Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya is one of those. No extraordinary story, no unique formula, no major histrionics, yet, this romantic-comedy entertains and touches your heart.

Mini (Genelia D'Souza) is an educated, fun-loving daughter of businessman, Bhatti (Tinnu Anand), who wants to marry her off to a richjaat, Sunny, who in turn wants the permit Mini ho lds as his entry into " Caneda" aka Canada.

But the feisty Mini, who loves life and adventure, will have none of that.

Viren (Riteish Deshmukh), who drives Bhatti's rickshaw, is a simpleton with dreams of starting a travel agency with a fleet of cars for which he is painstakingly saving money Bhatti sells off all his rickshaws one day w ith Viren's savings of Rs.60,000 in it. Egged on by his friends to drown his sorrows, Viren guzzles a few drinks and in a drunken stupor lands up at Bhatti's doorstep demanding his money back, while Mini's engagement is in progress. An argument ensues and Viren lays his hands on a pistol. In the commotion, Mini seizes the opportunity and forces Viren to kidnap her and makes him drive them off in the waiting vehicle.

The spunky Mini makes a deal with Viren that he w i ll follow her instructions and will demand a ransom of Rs.10 lakh from her father. He can then have his Rs.60,000 and she will keep the rest as she does not want to go back home and marry.

While the ransom letter goes to Mini's father, the couple enter into someone's home and try t o make ends meet. In the process, they fall in love and are happy being with each other.

The story takes a twist when Mini s fiance al ong with her father comes to pay the ransom amount but actually fools them and starts firing, hoping to take Mini back.

Suddenly, Mini and Viren are kidnapped by another person and taken away to the Chowdhary 's haveli.

Chowdhary (Om Puri) is a notorious kidnapping kingpin, who makes a l iving out of demanding ransom. Just when you think Puri is a villain of sorts and some never-ending torture d rama a la 1980s Hindi films, will unfold, we discover that Viren alias "Chotu" is Om Puri and Smita Jayakar's son.

Disapproving of his father 's ways, Viren has left home six years ago to work in Patiala as a rickshaw driver

Foll ow your heart and not your head when you watch this comedy directed by debutant Mandeep Kuma r

The sincere effort to make a light hearted, fun, love story shines through.

Genelia as the spirited Mini is adorable and delivers an energetic performance. She looks fresh, gorgeous and does full justice to Mini's insanities and pranks. Riteish plays Viren to the hilt. He is earnest, restrained, but you have seen him do this before.

The duo li ghts up the screen with their palpable, but understated chemistry. Tinnu Anand and Om Puri expected ly deliver good performances.

Sachin Jigar's music compliments the film. Main vaari j anwa tugs at your heart strings. The title song Tere naal also brings out the flavour of the film.

However, Veena Malik's item number- Fan ban gayi-fails to elicit whistles or fans.

Cinematographer Chirantan Das impresses by beautifully capturing wonderful locales in rural Punjab and scenic Himachal Pradesh.

Enjoy watching a sweet love story with the now Mr and Mrs Deshmukh as t he lead pair. Trust me, it is entertaining enough.

Troy Ribeiro

some films are meant to run that extra mile to go beyond being a mere cinematic experience. As we see names of real-life athletes who died unsung flash across the screen at the end of Paan Singh Tamar we realize what we've just witnessed in the past 190 minutes of taut playing-time is not just film. It's a treatise on what destiny has in store for people who do not conform to socially..,, acceptable definitions of success.

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cinema with the editing (Aarti Bajaj) and background score (Sandeep Chowta) adding a dimension beyond the drama of the driven athlete.

The film is shot by cinematographer i,a. There ar~ hurdles, and hurdles - some impossi~e to overcome.

Indeed lrrfan Khan as Paan Singh Tamar typifies that criminal neglect of all athletes in rur country barring cricketers who, as we all know by now, are grossly overrated Toma r was a steeplechase runner. Not that it made any difference to his destiny. In the army for the long innings Tamar, we are told, took voluntary retirement to l look after his family and land in his native village.

This is where Dhulia's riveting screenp lay, where not a moment is squandered in self-indulgent editing, gets truly astounding. Abandoning the manageable hurdles of the steeplechase Tamar took to the gun to avenge the wrong done to his family.

The two lives of Paan Singh Tamar, in the army as a celebrated sportsperson and e~ outlaw on the run in the Chambal valley are brought together in a stirring '" bind ofthe brilliant and the haunting.

While Dhulia's earlier works suffered for the lack of a suitable budget Paan Singh Tomar is technically a polished piece of

Aseem Mishra with an intriguing blend of a bleeding authenticity and a poetic resplendence. Indeed, Tigmanshu Dhulia's training as a racounteur of a tale of social injustice and damnifying outlawry, harks back to the director's association with Shekhar Kapoor's Bandit Queen.

In portraying Paan Singh's l eap from celebrated athlete to wanted bandit, Dhulia avoids the ostentatious brutality of the circumstances that made Phoolan Devi a social outcast. Paan Singh Tamar has very little on-screen violence. It's the heart that bleeds profusely and invisibly in al most every frame.

The unspoken question, why do we treat our athletes so shabbily, trails the narrative, as does the other larger question of social inequality and the subversion of law.

Unlike other films with a strong social message Paan Singh Tamar never stops being a truly liberating cinematic experience. Of course much of the credit for the film's sledgehammer effect goes to lrrfan Khan's central performance. As Paan Singh lrrfan is in one word, flaw less. There is not a single shot in the film that he gets wrong. He follows his character's destiny with an intuitive alertness that leaves no room 'for ambiguity in the i11'1:erpretation of the character's complex lifi. And (t's not just about getting the character'~spoi;

Khans of our cinema kindly watch lrrfan's performance?

The beauty of watching lrrfan transform into Tamar is the seamless leap the actor takes into the character. lrrfan is blessed with first-rate supporting actors, many of whom we haven't seen much on screen before. They add to the film's high level of authenticity by just not looking like and speaking their lines like actors.

The scenes showing lrrfan r unning with other actors are beautifully captured as moments of metaphorical significance.

Somewhere down the line the scenes showing Tamar jumping over hurdles on the race track merge into the larger picture to tel l us, life on field and life outside the race track have one thing in common. You have to keep running, no matter what the odds

Paan Singh Tamar is a terrific edge--ofthe-seat entertainer. The synthessis of two genres - the sports film and the dacoit drama - is done with such confident ingenuity that we hardly realize when one ends, the other

"No one gave a damn about me country. Today when I'm a baaghi (rebel) everyone wants to know about Paan SinghTomar;'lrrrfan says " caustically.

Hopefully after this film we'd learn to care for our unsung heroes a bit more.

Oh yes, a word on the stunning soundtrack From snatches of old Lata Mangeshkar melodies to radio announcements on Nargis Dutt's demise, time passages are achieved through incidental snatches of voices caught in mid-air.

Life's life that. You never know what you will experience in that raga we call existenee until a snatch of a lin~ hits you from a distance.

Subhash K.Jha