Dasvidaniya-A review

Talk to any hindi film lover about a Man dying of cancer, and Rajesh Khanna’s Anand will be the first thing that will come up. Rajesh Khanna has a sort of monopoly on the character of a dying but cheerful protagonist, in the bollywood lover’s psyche, with films like Anand and Safar. Those are very big boots to fill, and Vinay Pathak and Shashant Shah do it convincingly.

This is Shashant Shah’s first film, and I didn’t know much about him. But all I needed were just a few Google searches before I figured out why he could succeed, where several others have failed. He has been the director of several comedy shows like ‘The Great Indian Comedy Show’. The writer of this movie, Arshad Syed, has been the lead writer for TGICS, as well as, the writer of Javed Jafferey’s Videocon Flashback. Leave it to the comedy writers to make such a wonderful film on death.

But actually, even though the film is about death, it is more about life and living, not just existing. Amar is an accounts manager in a small firm, and is living a utterly banal life, till he comes to know, that he has stomach cancer, and just about three months to live
The major part of the movie deals with what he does after he comes to know of this fact.

We often live utterly boring lives, saving up for a better tomorrow, and sometimes that tomorrow never comes. What would you do in such a case? What about your dreams and hopes and aspirations? What about all those things that you had thought you would do? Sometimes you need a deadline, and not everyone is fortunate enough to find when theirs is.

Vinay Pathak, is a fabulous actor, and everyone knows about it. This is a film with a lot of cameos: from Ranvir to Saurabh Shukla, from Neha Duphia to Purvi Joshi, Gaurav Gera to Suresh Menon, and several Others. Most of them were from the cast of ‘The Great Indian Comedy Show’ and the director uses them in the exact required dose.

This movie is not about great people, nor about big locations and glamor. It about regular people like you and me, who have dreams of their own, and want to achieve them one day, but somehow they are lost in day to day life.
This is a movie, which is not great, but is definitely worth your time. Go and watch it.

This post is a part of the November madness programme that I am following, where I attempt to post one entry on this blog, every remaining day of November minus weekends, public holidays, and any day i might get laid.