Khandaani Shafakhana Movie Review

Once the sex clinic humour is done with, and the need for a more open discussion on sexual problems espoused, ‘Khandaani Shafakhana’ just hangs, like a defective computer which needs to be re-programmed. The script has completed its narrative mid-way through the movie and the audience ends up marking time till the end. This is unfortunate, because the film has a sweet sincerity that is quite affecting.

The design of an old world ‘Unani’ medical clinic in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, and the ambience of a conservative and shy small town mind, embarrassed to talk about things like erectile dysfunction and a low sperm count, is rather well done. The sprawling clinic is in an old dilapidated building, and was once run by the late ‘Mamaji’, better known as the renowned Hakim Tarachand (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), the man famous for putting vigour into the sex lives of middle aged men in Hoshiarpur. He made his own concoctions from herbs, roots and the like, but functioned like a disciplined allopathic doctor, with elaborate case histories noted down in his voluminous notebooks, and sperm samples collected by the dozen.

Before he died, ‘Mamaji’ wrote a will, leaving his clinic, and the valuable real estate it occupies, to his favourite neice, Baby Bedi (Sonakshi Sinha), on the condition that she keeps it running for at least six months after his demise. Baby (Babita) is a medical representative and is more familiar with X-rays and lab reports, but she is nostalgic for her childhood, and has fond memories of her beloved ‘Mamaji’. So she takes on the challenge and responsibility.

As a woman, she is received with hostility by the shopkeepers of the commercial locality in which the clinic is situated. As it is, they feel that the proximity of the sex clinic harms their business. A lady hakim running it is taking things a little too far, they believe. Protests begin.

Meanwhile, as Baby potters around, and the reluctant male clients, initially hesitant to speak to a woman about their sexual infirmities, start coming back, she rather enjoys the experience.

There are downsides of this new line of work, of course. The funniest is when a patient puts down a little bottle of his coagulated sperm on the table and tells Baby what it is. In the next shot, she is in the kitchen at home, with her mother spreading ghee onto parathas. She watches her brother (Varun Sharma) wolf them down. The nauseated expression on Sonakshi Sinha’s face as she looks at him spreading some more ghee and eating, is priceless.

The subject material is inexhaustible, but, inexplicably, the writer runs out of gags midway through. Movies like this work when they are built on fascinating and entertaining bit characters who interact with the lead actor. This does not happen in ‘Khandaani Shafakhana’ and many of the smaller parts, like the lawyer played by Annu Kapoor and the Judge played by Rajesh Sharma, are not half as funny as they could be. The famous Punjabi and Haryanvi rapper, ‘Badshah’, makes a special entry and plays himself, and it is nice to see him, but even he does not add substantially to the text of this comedy.

Honesty is a fine value, and this work has plenty of integrity to its purpose of asking for more sexual openness in our society. But the cinematic foundations for the structure of the film are flimsy, and this leads to an emphatically boring movie experience.

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Ajit Duara