Chingaari
I admit I am not too well versed in Kalpana Lajmi’s cinema, and haven’t watched any of her films barring the refreshingly honest Ek Pal. My association with her is restricted to Lata Mangeshkar’s extremely eloquent ‘Dil Hoom Hoom Kare’ from Rudaali. Hence, I approached Chingaari with an open mind, and to say it left me cold is a major understatement.
Chingaari is one of those B-and-C-grade films masquerading as an art film. It is a puerile and pathetic piece of cinema that has neither the content nor flow to captivate audiences. It seems Lajmi’s intention was to shock and sensationalise the audience without any care for aesthetics or form.
The story is set in a typical North Indian village, Rangpur which has a designated red light area called Lal Batti (how unimaginative!). The gullible villagers are firmly held in tight clutches of the evil head-priest Bhuvan Panda (Mithun Chakraborty), who abuses his authority for own selfish motives. He keeps them involved in meaningless religious mumbo-jumbos instigating fear in their heart to retain his superiority over them. He uses illogical rites like making a naked virgin girl sit on his lap, while he places himself over a corpse, in order to exorcise the dead man’s evil spirit! Even though he berates prostitutes, resorting to physical and verbal abuse even if they so much as touch the Goddess’ idol inadvertently, still he has no qualms in spending the nights at their place – practicing wild, kinky and sadist sex!
One such prostitute is Basanti (Sushmita Sen), who lives with her daughter Titli, and ekes out her living in that deplorable condition.
In this murky environment enters the fresh, educated and young postman Chandan Mishra (Anuj Sawhney). Like any villager postman, he not only delivers letters, but reads them out and writes for them, and in a sense he becomes a confidante, friend and mentor to them. An unstated, muted and sublime love develops between Chadan and Basanti, cemented by his affection for the latter’s fatherless daughter! He also instigates revolt against Bhuvan Panda.
No doubt the love story between the postman and the prostitute (incidentally, the film’s original title as well) is good, and could have been a classy saga of romance, sacrifice and valor. Unfortunately, Lajmi seems to have seen too many Neha Dhupia flicks of late, hence it ends up being a loud, crass and disgusting melodrama.
The narrative moves in jerks and fits, and the screenplay is shoddy. There is no continuum in the movement, and several unwanted scenes are repetitive or too lengthy for comfort; the running time is also inordinately long; looks as if the editor just did not know his job. Sequences where the prostitutes are interacting are gross. Sushmita’s introduction scene where she instigates two colleagues fighting over a customer and urges them to use words like ‘randi’ and ‘chinaal’ is horrible.
The dialogues are crappy, peppered liberally with obscenities and profanities and are written only to evoke shock value. The climax is hilarious - Sushmita goes to the village temple with her hair flying wild, drums beating and picks up a trishul and kills Bhuvan Panda – it’s straight from those forgettable mid-eighties dacoit/revenge dramas that had infested Bollywood that time!
Production value is shoddy and camera work is tacky. The music (by Adesh Srivastava) is nothing to write home (or anywhere) about.
Sushmita Sen gives a relatively good performance, though she appears too urban to pass off as a rustic prostitute convincingly. Anuj Sawhney is adequate. But Mithun Chakraborty is too tired and haggard! Ila Arun, as the red light area’s head-madame, is ok.
The film does nothing to sensitize against the prostitute’s plight; nor does it help to lay spotlight on interior
India’s woeful condition. In the end, it’s not even good cinema. This chingaari fizzles out without lighting any fire. I hope Lajmi drops the ‘neice of Guru Dutt’ tag for the time being till she returns with a more meaningful and involving film!
Overall: Avoid
Side Notes
While on prostitutes, I read the following somewhere: during the shoot of Kalyug abroad, Deepal Shaw was mistaken for a whore by another one from the tribe there! Despite liking Shaw in that film, my overall impression of her is that – to put it very bluntly – she looks like a slut! Her music videos are largely responsible for giving that image. In the write-up that I read, Shaw narrated this incident with obvious glee. I don’t know about her, but if I were in her place, I would have taken serious offence and not publicize this fact and, more importantly, do some serious introspection!
Secondly, who is that goddamn singer who has screeched ‘Aa darr ke marr’ from Darna Zaroori Hai! It’s the most irritating, grating and awful voice I have heard in recent times. If the brief given to her was to sound sexy and scary at the same time, she has got it widely wrong! Why does Ram Gopal Verma waste money and time in recording songs which no one is going to buy? Stardust (April 2006) carries a piece on Verma’s deteriorating position in the industry. Though Stardust in itself is a gossip magazine, but still some facts are true and cannot be ignored – his films (except Sarkar) have all flopped, his proteges are deserting him and his financers are distancing themselves.
Hope Darna Zaroori Hai bails him out. I liked the first part (Darna Marna Hai) and am eagerly awaiting the release of the second one now!
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