Bhool Chuk Maaf

Even as Sanjay Mishra delivers a climactic speech at his customary 20 km/hr, a third of Delhi’s film journalists are slouching in the cinema aisles, physically present, spiritually done. I’m seated, but only just, eyeing the nearest exit, thinking of dinner options and career choices. We’ve been ground down by Bhool Chuk Maaf, a film about purgatory that feels like purgatory. Ranjan (Rajkummar Rao) and Titli (Wamiqa Gabbi) are desperate to get married. Her father (Zakir Hussain), though, won’t allow them to until unemployed, directionless Ranjan finds a job, any job (very anti-national of the film to suggest there’s a job crisis driving young men to suicide). This sets up a dreary first 40 minutes, as Ranjan tries to bribe his way to a government job and Titli complains and scolds him (why isn’t she looking for a job?). Finally, a fixer named Bhagwan (Mishra) comes through, Ranjan is employed, and a date is set.

फिल्म के पहले सीन में लड़का-लड़की घर छोड़ कर भाग रहे हैं। लड़का 25 की उम्र में ‘कुछ नहीं’ करता है। बाद में पता चलता है कि ‘कुछ नहीं’ करना उसका खानदानी काम है क्योंकि उसके पिता भी ‘कुछ नहीं’ करते हैं और उसका एक मामा भी अपनी बहन के घर में ‘कुछ नहीं’ करता है। यानी यह लड़का दिमाग से पैदल यानी डंब है क्योंकि लड़की को वह कहां ले जाएगा, कैसे रखेगा, यह उसे नहीं पता। अचानक से लड़की को ख्याल आता है कि उसके यूं भागने से कहीं उसके पिता खुदकुशी न कर लें सो वह गाड़ी घुमाने को कहती है। यानी यह ‘पापा की परी’ भी दिमाग से डंब है। एक डंब लड़की ही किसी 25 साल के बेरोज़गार लड़के के साथ शादी करने के इरादे से घर से भाग सकती है। एक बात और-इन दोनों डंब लोगों में प्यार कैसे हुआ और क्यों टिका हुआ है, यह पूरी फिल्म में न तो बताया गया, न दिखाया गया और न ही महसूस करवाया गया। खैर, थोड़ी ही देर में हमें पता चलता है कि इन दोनों के घरवाले भी इनकी तरह डंब हैं क्योंकि लड़की का बाप ‘एक महीने में सरकारी नौकरी ले आओ, मेरी लड़की ले जाओ’ जैसी डंब शर्त रखता है जिसे उसकी डंब लड़की बढ़वा कर दो महीने करवा देती है। मोहलत का वक्त निकलने के बाद जिस लड़के से वह अपनी लड़की का विवाह करवाने को तैयार होता है, उसकी डंब हरकतें देख कर लगता है कि यह बाप है या लप्पूझन्ना…!

In the story of Satyanarayan, an important multi-stranded tale in religious storytelling in Indian homes, the protagonists tend to forget the noble deed they promise when they seek a blessing or a favour from the Almighty. But God has His ways to remind the faithful of the unkept vows. Cutting through a web of rituals, writer-director Karan Sharma brings the message of this timeless katha to theatres with a modern-day parable. A rollicking social commentary laced with a layer of magic realism, Bhool Chuk Maaf makes a sharp comment on the growing schism in society where goodness and compassion are often measured on a scale of religious identity, where the goal corrupts our action even when the Bhagavad Gita is invoked on a daily basis.

Bhool Chuk Maaf, featuring Rajkummar Rao and Wamiqa Gabbi, comes at a time when Bollywood has almost forgotten to make romantic comedies. In a world infested with spy-verses and Pan-India south actioners, Bhool Chuk Maaf reminds you of the years of Ayushmann-Rajkummar supremacy when these two actors featured in feel-good slice-of-life romantic comedies, delivering pertinent societal messages along the way. That era, somewhere between 2014 and 2018, is sorely missed now. Rajkummar Rao returns to the genre with Bhool Chuk Maaf, which has been in the news for its multiple shifts in release dates in the past month.

Given that its basic foundation rests on time-loop, one can’t even accuse Bhool Chuk Maaf of being a rinse-repeat film. What we can definitely point a finger at is how the film — in an oxymoronic way — uses this trope both lazily and laboriously. As a result, what we end up getting is a two-hour watch with endless possibilities let down by limited execution. Bhool Chuk Maaf unfolds in the kind of small-town India that Bollywood has been feeding us for years. Quirky families, oddball players, humour of the kind that has at least one lavatory-laced joke and, more often than not, a character talking and walking (talking more than walking) like Kareena Kapoor’s Geet from Jab We Met.

It’s only fitting that Rajkummar Rao’s newest comedy should be about him being stuck in a time loop and unable to find a breakthrough. Lately that’s how watching the actor feels in one interchangeable performance after another wherein he’s a perennially exasperated small town lad grappling with rom-com crisis. A similar air of déjà vu envelops his character Ranjan Tiwari in Karan Sharma’s Bhool Chuk Maaf as well as the viewer while beholding familiar sights and stock. Only this time the setting is Banaras teeming with visuals of ghats, genda phools and gobar.

Imagine an enticing cricket match. The players have serious skills. The spectators are having a blast. The momentum swings back and forth. Until suddenly, out of nowhere, a batsman does something controversial: he gets out on purpose. He ‘sacrifices’ his own innings so that his teammate, the more deserving candidate, can smash the winning runs. The commentators then play down the incident and reveal that this whole match was planned down to the T — it was all a ruse to prove that cricket is a selfless sport. Nothing was real. In fact, a multibillion-dollar corporation donated a small fortune to NGOs for every wicket and boundary. It’s not enough that cricket entertains; it must make the world a better place. Fans must be taught the value of humanity, even if it’s at the cost of the game. Some might call this charity. I call it ethical match-fixing.

Cobbling together rough and random elements from a mystifying mish-mash of genres, this Maddock Films dramedy seeks to achieve what the banner did in the recent past with a blend of horror and humour in Stree and its sequel, the biggest hit of actor Rajkummar Rao’s career. As an absurd caper playing out in the realms of fantasy and in the bustling streets, ghats and marketplaces of Banaras, it isn’t madcap enough. And as a time-loop comedy, it goes completely overboard with its central premise without being able to create a logical context for the perplexing goings-on in the life of a lad trapped in a limbo. It isn’t only owing to its outlandish plot that Bhool Chuk Maaf is a tad difficult to comprehend and decipher. It goes round and round in circles. What that leads to isn’t a pretty sight despite the energy that Rajkummar Rao packs into the lead performance and the steady support that Wamiqa Gabbi extends to him.