Main, Meri Biwi aur Woh - Movie Review.

Bollywood has a very limited perspective about India. Their stereotyped India consists of Punjabi families living in a big posh city (Mumbai) and never hesistating from breaking into see-my-armpits dancing routine at each and every joyous moment. Recently, they've moved out of Mumbai, out of India for that matter, and started to focus on NRIs. What about the rural India? and the small towns lost on the maps? What about the rustic cities in the hindi heartland? No sir, that doesn't translate well on to box office success! OK, we'll give you some imaginary Fursatganjs filled with idiotic "ganwaars". OK, show 2-3 tempo and cycle-rickshaw and voila! that's India for you!

Chandan Arora doesn't believe in that and has a point to prove. His last film, "Main Madhuri Dixit Banana Chahti Hoon", focussed on a small town girl and her dreams of making it big in Bollywood. His latest offering, "Main, Meri Biwi aur Woh", has the same flavour of middle class India living in "theth" hindi heartland of UP. Believable characters & realistic, yet fancy storyline and Rajpal Yadav have become the trademark for Arora's movies.

The story is based in the town of Lucknow. Mithilesh (Rajpal Yadav) is a librarian at the Lucknow university. He is forced into meeting a girl since he is well into the marriagable age. At first he was very hesitant, but when she finally meets Veena (Rituparna Sengupta) he falls for her immediately. Low on self-confidence, he doesn't feel that he deserves someone like Veena but to the surprize of many, Veena too falls for his simplicity. Mithilesh is very happy after marrying Veena, but somehow he can't do away with his insecurities. Just when he was getting a bit secure about his taller-than-him wife, Veena's college time friend, Aakash (Kay Kay), arrives in their neighbourhood. This pushes Mithilesh further into depression and insecurities. Watch the movie to see how he deals with all this and sorts it all out!

Rajpal Yadav won an award for his performance in "Main Madhuri.." and he has only improved on his performance in this movie. The movie belongs totally to Rajpal Yadav and he has played his role superbly. His character, Mithilesh, is a very lovable person, loaded with his insecurities and anxieties. Yadav has depicted the various moods and stages of Mithilesh's life very meticulously and right to the dot. Rituparna Sengupta & Kay Kay both have done very good work.

But the clear winner is the script. I'm sure everyone can relate to the script and the characters & incidents. The script contains some real rib-tickling moments and has ample space for emotions too. I was most happy to finally watch a movie which deals with the India which is not already sterotyped by Bollywood, which is still attached to the reality, which features real life people in real life situations. Its a simple and straight forward story but then simple things are the best in life!

(Review done for InfiCA. Yup, they need better web design :-) I'm sure they're gonna look into it pretty soon. Cut 'em some slack fellas!)