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Bareilly Ki Barfi may not have big budgets; what it has is terrific writing and scintillating performances that draw you in.
A doting dad who bums a cigarette off his daughter, opens the door, when the daughter comes back home from her midnight soiree, smells for alcohol in her breath, yet doesn’t lose his cool; a dad who narrates his day, his thoughts to the ceiling fan, which is as slow as his life!
A mom who moonlights as a moral science teacher in the morning and who in the evening, serves up Serbet or Kadak Chai, to the young men in the mohalla, depending on their marriage viability…whose only wish is to see her errant daughter’s wedding!
A heroine who loves to smoke, drink and eat non-veg on the sly, rides a two-wheeler, has a salaried job, yet searches for that elusive man who will make her story complete and who wouldn’t question, if she is a virgin! She has been rejected multiple times and hence wonders aloud to her dad, if things would have been easier, had she been a man! There are shackles to be broken within a stifling society, but the empathizing dad suggests ‘adjustment’ with judgmental, harsh society.
Some spoilers follow.
These are terrific changing templates of parenthood in Bollywood. Chimerical one might say, yet aspirational. If only all the fathers or for that matter, mothers, understood the need for daughters to exhale, to soar. There would be so many more inspirational stories of breaking the glass ceilings!
Yet curiously, the templates remain rooted in marriage being the end goal. We cannot be too imaginative, surely!
The heroine does find love – a double trouble actually – a hero who embodies kick-ass swagger a second and simpering shyness the very next! And a devoted paramour who is willing to go to great lengths to win over his lady-love…
When I was getting Hurry-met-So-Jhalli fried, I was subjected to the trailer of Bareilly Ki Barfi. I smirked and thought to myself, “Who the hell would see this HUH?”
Yet when the reviews for BKB gave it a 4 Star and finally when the penny dropped about who the creators were, I was tempted. Most of us, came out with goofy smiles plastered across, once the movie ended. That is the essence of this movie!
Bareilly Ki Barfi is peppered with our hinterland idiosyncrasies. It is a fine example of how terrific writing and scintillating performances are enough to draw the crowds in.
We often invest in big names and quite forget about the importance of quality or the necessity of nativity in our work.
As is usual, an original effort, straight from the heart, is a sure-shot winner!
Anupama Jain is the author of: * ’Kings Saviours & Scoundrels -Timeless Tales from Katha Sarita Sagara’, listed as one of the best books of 2022 by @Wordsopedia. Rooted in the traditional storytelling of Indian legends, warriors, read more...
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