Chaman Bahaar Review: An overdose of a love story of an underdog rebel from small-town.
Anshul Gupta
Jitendra plays a paan shop owner vying for a school-girl famous for wearing shorts in a Chhattisgarh village
Rohena Gera’s 2018 film Sir, which did rounds of plenty of film festivals, was a story of house help and a live-in maid who develops a relationship with her employer. The film was a take on dreams and aspirations of a maid, forbidden love and class divide that exists in possibly every society.
Chaman Bahaar, shot and made three years ago, was supposed to be Jitendra Kumar’s first film, has now released direct-to Netflix. It is a love story of a paan shop owner.
This film has nothing to do with Sir, but I mentioned it as this is another story where the protagonist belongs to a profession that isn’t considered as aspirational. I am not judging any profession here just like our country’s head, who said no job is big or small, mentioning that selling pakoda is also a job, as his reply to the employment crisis in the country, couple of years ago.
The story is of Billu (played by Jitendra Kumar who has become every man on-screen), who wants to make a name for himself, as his father couldn’t, being a security guard of Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), by owning a shop, selling paan and tobacco.
But soon his paan shop becomes a meeting point for the district Lormi’s men to play carrom and spend time to woo a school-going girl, whose father is the new sub-engineer and has transferred from Mungeli village.
“Lormi ke youth ki hawa badalne wali hai, kanya ke aagman se (the life of the youth of Lormi village is going to change after the arrival of the girl),” states Somu, one of the two good for nothing friends who just play the role of giving oil to the flame.
The object of desire of these hordes of men, Rinku Nanoria (played by Ritika Badiani), doesn’t have a single dialogue in the film, I waited till the end, even replayed her scenes to check if I had missed it. The bets are played of who will get the girl, either Shilajit Singh, a local party candidate, Aashu — the opposition or the elder son of the DFO, as this was an excuse of entertainment for these guys, since girl wouldn’t be theirs, ever.
The film, written and directed by debutant Apurva Dhar Badgaiyann, is told with a one-sided perspective, as if there’s no need to show what the girl of her age, stared and loitered around by a number of men, thinks and must be going through.
Our romeo is very determined and innocent at the same time, although he doesn’t look like one. As in one scene, the greeting card seller stares at him from head to toe, when he asks for an “I Love You’ card, secretly thinking if guys looking like him can also fall in love.
Chaman Bahaar wants to be a bit of everything, but doesn’t become anything. It starts of as a romantic love story, but also touches upon themes of police brutality and how the victim of police brutality becomes an election issue, it also talks about gaze and how fair-skinned and a shorts-wearing girl becomes a medium of entertainment for desperate youth. The humour doesn’t work entirely, it does but very rarely. The town MLA refers Billu as petty paan seller, in that moment he just reflects the mindset of most of the upper class of our country what it thinks of people who are not as fortunate as them.
Jitendra gives a dedicated performance, but the writing doesn’t let the viewer feel for his character, one bit. There are other token characters too, that are always there in a small-town story, and none gets anything to feed off. Yogendra Tiku as troubled single parent does well, in what is given to him, a side-character.
The almost two-hour long film, feels too long for a story that has a misguided sense of achievement. It changes tone at the entry of the hot-headed Police officer, and then magically it all becomes hunky-dory at the end, by which the viewer in me was also puzzled about what I had seen in past two hours.
