The Odd Couple

Shared birthdays and sundered dreams reduce the degrees of separation between a gangster and a bored stay at home mom.

For how many contiguous units of time can we witness a thing of beauty and remain enamored by it? Minutes? Hours? Years? Monogamy demands that we remain enthralled by a lover until the end of either our time or theirs. If only that instinctive surge of emotion that arises in a relationship’s initial stages could be bottled and used in sparing amounts over its lifetime. The packaged endorphins would avoid the fungal growth of familiarity and the spores of contempt that slowly begin to spread over what was once a thing of consummate beauty. However, until biochemistry perfects this procedure of infinite possibilities, we will be stuck the onset of boredom and the existential crises it precipitates.

The title scenes of Vipul Shah’s Kuch Love Jaisa, are a quick study in the slow deterioration of a marriage into the mundane. Madhu Saxena, the film’s central character played by a comely Shifali Shah, and her order-loving husband Shravan (played by Summet Raghavan) go from sleeping with their legs intertwined as newlyweds to being separated by the gulf of daily grind. The film trains its focus on Madhu and her despair at disappearing in the eyes of her husband, children and even the domestic help. As a stay at home mom she feels her contributions at home are not being given due credit. And her angst seems entirely justified when her husband compares her to the ‘chipkali’ that believes it is holding the roof up. After nearly a decade of marital decay her loving husband has forgotten her birthday and she feels her transformation into one of the many inanimate pieces of furniture that adorn her house is complete. Borrowing a line from the Howard Beale handbook, she decides not take it any more.

Unbeknownst to Madhu, a dreaded gangster Raghav (Rahul Bose in a brooding effort) has been sold out to the cops by his moll, Rhea. This is Rhea’s birthday gift to Raghav whose dreams of domesticated bliss are forever clouded by the sounds of gunshots and looming cops. Circumstance and dubious writing throw this odd couple, one on the run from boredom the other from the long and rather incompetent arm of the law, together. Madhu, intent on exploring her wild side, allows herself to be led on a wild goose chase by Raghav. And over the course of their misadventures we are expected to believe that a completely above board affection, founded entirely on the golden heart of a gangster and the angst-ridden antics of a housewife, develops between the two. The emphasis is largely on the screen chemistry between Bose and Shah, but the paces they are put through ends up being the acme anchor that breaks the camel’s back. As the film trudges through tedium and arrives finally at its conclusion, we have lost all sympathy for Madhu and are downright happy to see the gangster get his just desserts. So, despite a promising start, Kuch Love Jaisa accomplishes exactly the opposite of what it possibly set out to do. 

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express. Link here.