Lafangey Parindey

Director: Pradeep Sarkar

Actors:Neil Nitin Mukesh, Deepika Padukone, Kay Kay Menon, Piyush Mishra, Manish Chaodhary, Namit Das, Amey Pandya, Vijay Adhav, Vinay Sharma, Palomi, Rahul Pendkalkar

Taporis exist more in our cinemas than the city they try to replicate. Bolay toh (in a manner of speaking), you’ll realise, within months of tourism in Mumbai, that no one quite commonly talks in the ‘Bambaiya’ vocabulary, developed by writers for films alone. Where a doctor’s assistant is a “dispensary” (Munnabhai MBBS), a short man a dedh footiya (Vaastav), or in this case, a ballet-dancer of the neighbourhood’s a “dance bar”. The suggested roadside slang still makes for loved humour, always worth looking forward to.

Dull filmmakers here know this, attempt it, but are in no position pull it off. The said dancer goes blind in a road accident. Her mawali (loafer) friends make light of her situation: Ek hi jhatke mein Hema Malini se thenga Malini! It’s the best line so far. No one’s likely to laugh.

With few references pointed to the real, cramped ghettos of Mumbai allow for huge dance floors and gymnasiums (at Andheri’s Yashraj studio, perhaps). This is where One-shot Nandu (Neil, reasonably sincere), a prized fighter, teaches the blind dancer (Deepika, roughly spunky) to master her sense of smell and sound to overcome the lack of sight.

Both rehearse together as dancing partners on roller skates. The premise seems evidently clear. This is, I guess, a film on dance (Flash Dance, Shall We Dance etc). There’s but too little of dance here, and most of it rank ordinary to make the genre’s grade. The music itself, for a given musical, appears borrowed from recent films labeled for the supposed youth (Rock On, Wake Up Sid).

A cop, beyond his call of duty, personally investigates the accident that cost the heroine her eyes. There was more to the mishap than the suggested car crash. A don had sent his minion, the hero’s brother, to kill off his rivals. The don himself, baldpate, golden teeth, is the hero’s surrogate dad. Running local trains overlook Mumbai’s underbelly. You’re definitely in for a gangster film (Ghulam, Parinda, or On The Waterfront that inspired both).

The blindfolded hero knocks his opponents out with a single punch. Men fight like cocks. Betting crowds surround the ring. This has to be a street fighter boxing movie then.

You will never know. I give up. It’s not even worth trying to figure. The overloaded confusion never ends. Going back to the dance movie, the leading pair, having a ball with the ballet, makes it to the final round of a popular talent show on television. A friend cautions the hero: “The audience's vote decides all. There are three kinds of audiences. Housewives, aunties: give them the ‘saas-bahu’ (soap opera) look. Young dudes: show them off your dolay sholay (muscles). Young girls: they’re already on your side; just don't overact.” The words are spoken with rare conviction.

The director on this one sussed out the first set of audience with his last film (Laaga Chunari Mein Daag). He’s forcing himself now to check on the other two. Such scatter-brained, mish-mash of a movie is only possible when the makers' eyeballs are trained at some sucker or the other the cinema's intended for, and not the soul of even a semblance of a script. I’m sorry, but my eyes are turning bleary now. Be careful. So would yours.

"So this is a love story!" says the wry cop at the end of the film while closing the case that exonerates our hero 'One-Shot Nandu' of accidently blinding Pinky Palkar in a car accident.

Indeed "Lafangey Parindey" (LP) is a love story. And how grotesquely indecorous has been the marketing of this tender and shimmering look at an improbable love in the slums between a free-wheeling boxer and wannabe roller-skating spitfire gone blind.

Deepika Padukone gives to the tale the kind of fluent grace and eloquent spin that the audience associates with the female legends of celluloid, namely Meena Kumari and Nutan. Deepika brings the poignant lyricism of the former and the spirited delicacy of the latter into what's unarguably one of the best-written female characters in recent times.

When Pinky goes blind all of a sudden, she doesn't flutter her eyelashes and trip over furniture like any self-respecting blind diva in our cinema would. She quickly picks up the pieces of her shattered life, and yes, also the rollerskates and leaves home to a sniggering brother's taunt and a concerned mother's encouragement to renew her dreams.

The above is one of the many finely-written and worded sequences in this film suffused with a delicate charm and infinite wisdom.

Neil Nitin Mukesh has a tough thankless role. Not only is he that archetype known as the 'Supportive Lover' in the script he must also move back in every other sequence to let Deepika walk away with the best expressions and dialogues. Neil never over-steps his boundaries. As the shy fighter who needs the blinded sports-girl's clairvoyant spirit to take him on the road to love more than she needs him to cross that traffic-laden road which she can't see, Neil gets the lower notes in the scale of the love symphony right.

While the two protagonists' journey into love via a dance contest ('Rab Ne Banadi Jodi' revisited) takes centrestage in Pradeep Sarkar's deftly-cut material, the peripheral characters also get enough space to have their say aggressively without getting hysterical.

A film set in the ghetto is bound to remind the audience of Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire" and Vishal Bhardwaj's "Kaminey". Sarkar dodges both and goes for the most unexpected reference points, namely Douglas Sirk's "The Magnificent Obssession" and its desi spinoff Gulzar's "Kinara". As in "Kinara", the hero is on a redemptive route taking the blinded girl through the corridors to her dream. It's a journey undertaken with great warmth, tenderness and loving care.

The dialogues convey a streetside sauciness without getting abusive. Street wisdom need not be eeks-rated.

But hang on. LP is not soft at the edges. Pradeep Sarkar brings to the storyboard a gritty edge-of-the-street desperation that miraculously accommodates a very supple love story.

In a moment that can only be defined as tragic-comic, one of the hero's friends walks away with one of the most expressive lines in this film. After Pinky goes blind the friend says, "Ek minute mein Hema Malini se Thenga Malini ban gayi."

The reference to Hema Malini is not lost in a film that takes Gulzar's "Kinara" to another shore.

The scenes are written by Gopi Puthran with utmost concern for a pitch that conveys high passion without toppling over. Deepika looking into the sky with a lovelorn look in her unseeing eyes asking Neil to describe the moon is a moment that is priceless and poignant.

Cinematographer C. Natarajan Subramanian shoots with loving care. LP is an inspirational tale told with as little fuss and as much feeling as cinematically possible. Not to be missed.

New Delhi, Aug 16 (IANS) After the 2007 box-office dud "Laaga Chunri Mein Daag", director Pradeep Sarkar looks forward to securing a hit with "Lafangey Parindey", an unusual love story about a blind ambitious girl and a street fighter that releases Friday.

Produced under the banner of Yash Raj Films, "Lafangey Parindey" is about Nandu (Neil) who fights blindfolded and visually challenged Pinky Palkar (Deepika), who can dance on skates.

While Nandu is fierce and hungry to win, Pinky’s ambition is to rise above all the 'losers' living in her locality and carve a niche for herself. They, along with a group of friends, set out on a journey to achieve the impossible.

Deepika calls it one of the most challenging films of her career.

"For me, this role out of all the films that I have done was the most challenging. It's not been easy. It required a lot of focus and concentration. I had to observe a lot of blind people before I could play this role," Deepika told IANS.

"The biggest challenge was to pretend that I was not seeing. There were no supporting tools like black goggles or a stick with me to make it obvious that I am blind," she added.

The actress along with other cast and crew spent time with visually challenged people to understand their behavioural nuances and figure out counter actions.

The film will have some daring stunts and both the actors have performed them themselves.

Neil admits he was covered in bruises for a major part of the shoot but insists that before he attempted the death-defying action sequences, he was properly trained by action director Sham Kaushal.

"There's nothing fake about the fists of fury that fly in Pradeep Sarkar's film. It requires the rawest of physical violence and it can't be faked. So if you see me now I'm covered with welters, wounds and bruises, all gifted to me every day while shooting this, the most dangerous film of my career," Neil had told IANS.

In fact, the actor narrowly escaped a major accident while shooting for the film when his bike went over a manhole and the actor lost his balance. Fortunately, he quickly managed to jump back on and wasn’t seriously hurt.

Even Deepika didn't shy away from taking risks. A scene required her to ride a bike and fall into a muddy dip. The director and Neil were wary of Deepika doing such a stunt on her own, but the actress refused to use a body double and successfully performed the stunt on her own.