LACKLUSTRE CHRONICLES

Ranchi Diaries

STARRING: Himanshu Kohli, Soundarya Sharma, Taaha Shah, Harry Bala, Pitobash, Pradeep Singh, Anupam Kher, Jimmy Shergill and Satish Kaushik

DIRECTOR: Sattwik Mohanty

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Contextually, director Sattwik Mohanty’s Ranchi Diaries showcases Asia’s largest mental hospital, which is situated in Ranchi.

But unlike the hospital which treats its patients, director Sattwik Mohanty treats (read entertains) his audience with low-IQ, physiologically-challenged characters. In this quirk-of-fate film, they are supposed to ignite the humour factor.

The plot, with a botched abduction followed by a bank robbery that lands the gang in more trouble, forms the crux of the tale.

Narrated in a non-linear manner, the plot and the screenplay are lazily crafted in a slipshod manner. The narrative begins on a dramatic note with a rural bank being robbed on the RanchiPatratu highway. While the police have surrounded the bank in the hope of arresting the robbers, speculation about the burglars abounds. Some are even as preposterous as the robbers being aliens.

Then to enlighten us on the current scenario, the narrative rewinds to events that occurred a week earlier. We are introduced to a load of characters. Instead of being organic, this information overload is indolently dumped on the audiences by a voice-over, which is unenthusiastically rendered by Vijay Raaz.

Anupam Kher plays Thakur Bhaiya, the quintessential local mafia king who has his fingers in every pie of Ranchi. His nephew Lallan (Jimmy Shergill) is the principled police officer of the region, who is at constant loggerheads with him.

Monish (Himanshu Kohli), an engineer also known as a “master mechanic,” is in love with Gudiya (Soundarya Sharma), a singer who has dreams of becoming a pop sensation like Shakira. Her talent draws the unwanted attention of Thakur Bhaiya. So they are constantly deciding to elope.

One evening, in an inebriated state, Monish abuses Thakur Bhaiya and hence is picked up by Thakur Bhaiya’s goons. Meanwhile, Monish’s friends Pinku

Just what the Queen needed in her twilight years. And let us be honest, Abdul is not above being a manipulative opportunist. But then, as the shrewd Queen retorts, who is not an opportunist in the royal household?

Director Stephen Frears, no stranger to cross-cultural romantic conflicts (who can forget the tumultuous passion between the Pakistani Omar and the British Johnny in Frears’s My Beautiful Laundrette?) here unravels with carpetlike imagery, the burgeoning fondness of the Queen for the tall handsome Oriental subject with a mixture of amusement and wonderment.

Victoria & Abdul renders itself handsomely and elegantly to the theme of ambivalent passion. The Queen may whitewash her feelings with as much decorum as she likes. But there is most certainly a dark unexpressed and inexpressible frisson between she and her unlikely brown Muslim friend whom everyone at the Buckingham Palace refers to as ‘The Hindoo’.

Judi Dench drenches the Queen’s Victorian propriety and dignity in the colours of irreverence and iconoclasm. Queen Victoria as played by the actress, eats sumptuously (we see her at the meal table quite a number of times), drinks, burps and probably farts too. And she is not averse to snoring during ceremonial meals with aristocrats and other stuffed shirts (and stockings).

This is a fun queen, living her last years on her own terms. And Ali Fazal’s Abdul Karim provides the Queen with that impetus to be naughty and wild. Their relationship is impetuous and bridled by the Frowning Glory of the royal household. The disapproving brigade of British peers is played by a fine team of English actors.

Watching Judi and Ali sink their collaborative teeth into Victoria & Abdul provides us with a delightful, if somewhat iconoclastic, insight into what the colonial relations would have been like if they had not been encumbered by protocol. There are moments of great tenderness and understanding between the two actors, almost echoing the tender but troubled relations between Adela Quested and Dr Aziz in E.M. Foster’s A Passage To India.

Victoria & Abdul has a beautiful heart and body. It feels and looks fetching. It is a work born out of sincere feelings and therefore, worthy of the respect that it so flippantly solicits.

Subhash K Jha

(Taaha Shah) and Bunty (Pradeep Singh), the two “matric-fail sons” of a retired postmaster who are bullies and consider themselves to be the Godfathers of the younger generation, unknowingly, along with their friend Babloo (Harry Bala), kidnap Thakur Bhaiya’s younger brother. Their van gets intercepted by the goons carrying Monish.

The four friends land up at Thakur Bhaiya’s bungalow who decides to teach them a lesson. Lallan interrupts Thakur’s plans by saying that if the four are involved with kidnapping, the law will investigate and punish the four. So, he hands over the four friends to his junior, Sub Inspector Choubey (Satish Kaushik) to proceed with the investigation. Instead, the corrupt officer insists on being bribed. So, how the five of them successfully rob a bank and later lose the money, is what keeps you hooked.

While the characters are stereotypical, the performances of the entire cast are perforce perfunctory.

Overall, Ranchi Diaries tries hard to be quirky but fails miserably.

Troy Ribeiro