A happy affair

Can you imagine a heady mocktail of stylised Urdu and fizz-filled Punjabi? That is exactly what Mudassar Aziz offers you. Talk India – Pakistan, we invariably talk of either war or cricket and one of the dullest cricketers (albeit with commitment) was another Muddassar.

This Muddassar ensures he makes up for all the dull moments his part namesake offered. Thematically films on the bordering neighbour invariably dealt with either jingoism or chest beating heroics or in more recent times a Bhaijaan with a heart of gold or even a slapstick like ‘Tere Bin Laden.’

This time you have a product that meets the rich traditions of a Hrishida and Gulzar and yet keeps the pulse of a Priyadarshan. Surely in times to come when we list the better comedies of Hindi cinema this will be counted.

Hilarious throughout its running time of just over two hours, it ensures that the sensitive cross border relationship is not strained or exploited. On the other hand, it eschews the political area and gives you a Wodehouseian comedy.

There has not been such classy humour for a while in Hindi cinema. I had to go through the ordeal of a Telugu comedy earlier in the day and this came as a study in contrast.

The situational comedy, through to its genre is not so much about the story. The storyline is about a feisty Punjabi gal Happy (Diana Penty) who runs away from her wedding and refuses to marry her groom in waiting – the local Corporator Bagga (Jimmy Shergill).

Waiting outside a la Prithviraj Chauhan is her boyfriend Guddu (Ali Fazal – doing a perfect Bertie Wooster). Things go wrong when she jumps down the balcony from the wrong side and gets into a fruit basket intended to be part of the good will exchange with Pak heavyweight politician Javed Ahmed (Javed Sheik).

Sr Ahmed has political dreams for his son Bilal (Abhay Deol). He predicts that he would be that momentous change Pakistan is waiting for – the next Jinnah.

Bilal is engaged to Zoya (Momal Shiekh), another heavyweight in Lahore. The alliance is a top level political arrangement between the families with Zoya hopelessly and jealously in love with Bilal just as Bagga is with Happy.

Happy unwittingly lands up in Lahore and unlike the locals, is too boisterous and unwilling to be the quiet person. Meanwhile in India, Bagga has kidnapped Guddu and held him ransom to ensure the return of Happy.

Now Bilal takes up the task of coming to India using his connections and entices Guddu a musician to go over to Lahore. When things have to go wrong they will and thus everything goes wrong in every ones’ scheme of things leading to a Blandings Castle finale.

What makes the film hilarious is not just the dialogues and the fine sense of balance that Mudassar gets on board but the fine performances from the entire cast. Jimmy Shergill may well be ghost walking from his ‘Tanu Weds Manu’ script, but his presence is such a delight.

Ali Fazal is just adequate without looking like the needless dud we make of the ‘also-rans’ in our cinema. Kanwaljeet as Papaji is good as is Javed Sheik. Special good news for the fans of the Deol.

Abhay has always lent a high degree of credibility to his roles. He does that again. Two superlative performances come from Piyush Misra as Usman Afridi – Bilal’s blundering assistant and Momal Sheik as his fiancé.

It has surely been a while since I got to watch a hilarious comedy from Bollywood. This sure is one that will be somewhere in the middle layers of the short list of good comedies.

We do not get them once too often. We need to make good use of the rare opportunity and savour the moments.

Happy Bhag Jayegi

Cast : Abhay Deol, Diana Penty, Jimmy Shergill and Ali Fazal
Direction : Mudassar Aziz
Genre : Comedy-drama
Likes: Performances and style
Dislikes: Not much