Bol Bachchan

If you lower your taste several notches, you might find this slapstick film funny

A chieftain in Rajasthan lives the grand feudal life in a haveli.  He is surrounded by pehelwaans, comical looking wrestlers dressed in dhotis.  It is an idyllic life and  Prithvi (Ajay Devgn) is not complaining. He has two passions—one is for people who always tell the truth and the other is for idiosyncrasies  of the English language.

English is Prithvi’s  step mother tongue.  She treats him poorly, but he never takes her for granted, and, despite her  whimsical syntax and semantics, tries to keep the language happy.  He translates very literally from Hindi to English and no one in the village has the guts to question his interpretations.  When he wants to say,  ‘Saale ko kutte ki maut maarunga,’ he consults his built-in thesaurus and comes up with: “Brother-in-law will die Tommy’s death.”  When he wants to threaten  someone with, ‘Main tumhe chhate ka doodh yaad dila doonga’  he says: “I will make you remember milk No 6.”

Prithvi’s other passion, of course, is for truth. One day, a Muslim stranger,  Abbas Ali (Abhishek Bachchan), arrives at the village and erroneously violates the sanctity of a locked temple. He is frightened by the ferocious Hindus who confront him, and, on an instinct of self preservation, adopts a Hindu identity.  He says he is Abhishek Bachchan.

Prithvi is a bit dim and accepts this explanation. The entire movie, thereafter, is built around the shenanigans of Abbas and his friends to keep Prithvi  from the truth. Some of it is funny, but most of it is ridiculous and we are treated to long stretches of caricature and slapstick. The humour is not spontaneous. You have to lower your appreciation level several notches to enjoy it.

To paraphrase a comment from the star linguist of Bol Bachchan: this movie may not be your cup of lassi.

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Ajit Duara