Chi Va Chi Sau Ka

Director – Paresh Mokashi

Cast – Lalit Prabhakar, Mrinmayee Godbole, Raya Abhyankar, Pournima Talwalkar, Supriya Pathare & others

            Imagine your reaction when, a film, promoted as a ‘modern take on relationships’, turns out to be a big hoax. ‘Chi va Chi Sau Ka’ is one such artificial take on uncommon individuals who ‘experiment’ before tying the knot. 

An ‘obsessive’ animal lover, Savitri a.k.a Savi (Mrinmayee Godbole) decides to move in with energy/water conservationist Satyaprakash a.k.a Satya (Lalit Prabahakar) to test their compatibility. Their respective (and reluctant) families agree to their wishes. However, this journey is marred by peculiar dialogues, subplots and exaggerations.

Director Paresh Mokashi, known for ‘keeping it natural’ in every film goes out of the box to make it believable. It’s a significant departure from his earlier films where realistic situations also played their part. Trust me, other than the small romantic song in Konkan, each and every scene is all about dialogues.

Now this brings me to Madhugandha Kulkarni. She makes the audience laugh with her intelligent use of words. But, that has made the first half noisy, and to such an extent that you feel like taking a break. The cast just doesn’t stop talking/arguing. It reminds of you of some scenes in Vivek Bele’s plays. In the second half, the film goes off track the moment it seems to reach its destination.

RomComs have their own moments which are missing out here. The bizarre behavior of the lead pair drastically reduces their chemistry.  And, it’s not that weird people don’t exist or that they don’t fall in love; they are natural in their own way. For a moment I thought about Fahad Fasil in the Malayalam film ‘North 24 Katham’

The Satish Alekar-Jyoti Subhash subplot is an unnecessary addition and carries no relevance. Similarly, Bharat Ganeshpure is wasted in his role as the narrator. He can’t be the Paresh Rawal of ‘Mr & Mrs Khiladi’ (striking similarity observed). Lalit Prabhakar was much better on TV. He fails miserably on the big screen. The only actor that does justice to her role and is pretty much believable is, surprisingly, Mrinmayee Godbole (ignore the ‘Veg/Non-Veg’ question to the rickshawalas)

I am going with two and a half stars out of five for Paresh Mokashi’s ‘Chi va Chi Sau Ka’. It’s like the Kalyan Bhel without pharsaan, kanda/tomato and chutney. You can wait till it airs on Zee Marathi.