Dil Ka Kya Kasoor

Directed by: Lawrence D´Souza

Starring: Prithvi, Divya Bharti, Suresh Oberoi

Released: 1992

Verdict: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - good – great – amazing

I could very easily have „I love me some 90s“ written on my forehead and it would be true. There is something about that period and movies that came out of it, that fascinates me. There is something in those movies that makes them work for me. Mistakes that are so painfully obvious, do not irritate me – at least as long as the film manages to offer me an experience, if it makes me feel something. Because that is what 90s Bollywood is about for me. Making you feel. If Dil Ka Kya Kasoor was made today, with the same flaws it has, in the same tone, it would probably be extremely cringeworthy. But as an early 90s movie it works. At least to an extent. It is not among the best films though. But I did cry at the end, and had maybe too many feelings to handle for a little while, and so, in spite of everything, I need to present it in a more favourable light (although I´m sure people who understand human body and medicine would have a lot to say on this movie...)

Divya Baby. This review is actually just an excuse to rave about her.

While the first hour pretends to be the been there/seen that teenage romance, it is anything but. Shalu (Divya) is known to be a very unpleasant and arrogant rich girl in her college, and the only one not scared of her is Mr. Scholarship from Dreamland of Just and Honest as well as Well-behaved – and Poor (Prithvi, whom I´ve never heard of before and who looks a bit like young Hrithik Roshan). Shalu promptly falls in love, as he is strumming his guitar and singing on stage – one of the songs she herself has written and published under a pseudonym. She doesn´t have the guts to tell him, and after a talk with her brother, who sensibly advices her to wait until Mr. Perfect manages to find himself a good job and reach something, she agrees, but decides to give her beloved a career boost. Under her pen name she writes songs for him, from her own money she pays for his shows and publicity. Thanks to her he becomes a pop star (who for whatever reason makes headlines on film magazines and is even keeping two Filmfare awards at his night table). He has become someone. Shalu can get married! Or no?

The story takes a rather unexpected twist when the hero gets married to another girl! He is not dating her, he is not even engaged, he is downright proper married and soon with baby on the way. And not even Yash Chopra was brave enough to tear apart a couple expecting a child, so you can guess there and then this may not really have a happy ending. In fact we are for some really depressing and even unusually gruelsome stuff.

While the story is interesting, the film suffers a lot from bad editing and did not age well (something not many films from that time managed to avoid). Of course, everything modern and cool in it actually WAS modern and cool back then, so in the end I just shrugged my shoulders and asked "Film Ka Kya Kasoor". In spite of that sometimes I just couldn´t help but laugh silently at the horribleness of fashion - and oh my, those stage performances!!! I guess nothing will make the dying girl you never loved more happy than you singing a mournful song with brides and skeletons dancing all around on the set intentionally made to look like a cemetery. The logic of the ending – or rather lack of it - I´d rather not go into.

There are only two notable performers in the movie, and Prithvi is not one of them. The hero had looks, but did not overflow with talent, and most importantly felt extremely thanda. He was completely overshadowed by his heroine and Suresh Oberoi. Shalu´s elder brother (because a man in his forties just cannot be an 18-years-old girl´s father) and his suffering was almost too overwhelming. Plus the man has one of the best voices in Bollywood. 

But ultimately Dil Ka Kya Kasoor is worth watching for Divya. She is the heart and soul of the film, and apart from several minor gestures, this is her most mature performance I have seen, probably her best. Two, three films of hers I´ve seen before showed me she had screen-presence and was beautiful (oh she was gorgeous!), and I did see she had potential, Dil Ka Kya Kasoor showed her to me as a good actress, who could easily become a great one. Shalu´s girlish dreaming, her hurting heart, her resignation as well as the utter happiness she gets upon a mere sight of the man she loves, all that was hurting me as a viewer as much as it was hurting the characters on screen. But it was not to be. Divya Bharti is locked within that short timeframe of early 90s for us. She belongs to it just as frilly dresses and big colourful plastic jewelery belong to her. Her death turned her from an aspiring superstar into a tragic Princess, almost a stuff of legends. Within few weeks it will be twenty years since she has passed. And yet immortal, captured by camera lenses, dressed in a ridiculous outfit and with overwhelming innocence in her eyes.

Raja Hindustani

Directed by: Dharmesh Darshan

Starring: Aamir Khan, Karishma Kapoor, Suresh Oberoi

Released: 1996

Verdict: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - good – great – amazing

When I think about it, it was not really Devdas, that was my first brush with Bollywood, but Raja Hindustani. A friend of mineshowed me a youtube video – for laughs, commenting on it as the song progressed. A seriously depressed guy singing his heart out while object of his desire sits all quiet with eyes bulging wide to the point of scary, a weird man dressed as a woman, a woman with so much paint on her face and drinking from the bottle being disturbing, and finally big finale with the girl falling into the boy´s arms and her father being apparently displeased. My friend thought the song was the movie´s finale. How wrong was she, unfamiliar with Bollywood ways back then. The song was Pardesi Pardesi and it signified only the beggining of the all the troubles for the on-screen couple.

Rich and beautiful Aarti (Karishma Kapoor who got rid of her mad curls and shaped her wild eyebrows which she sported in the early 90s) makes a sentimental trip to a small city of Palanketh, a place where her parents first met, before leading a loving marriage and having Aarti. Sadly Aarti´s mother died and her father married for a second time – a much westernized (read BAD) and greedy woman, who´s fake affection for her step-daughter is so obvious it hurts. In Palanketh Aarti, accompanied by a sibling duo of brother and sister who, for the sake of laughs, switched personalities and visage, meets a poor taxi driver Raja (Aamir Khan). Raja is not only poor though. He is honest, hard-working and obviously the director´s vision of a true Hindustani, unpolished and uneducated but with high principles of morality at heart. Principles so high I actually took offense because it bordered on completely sexist.

Mr. Morality has problems with guys liking her in dresses but standing under the same tree in a rain is obviously a completely moral opportunity to get seriously cozy.

A woman he has no relation to apparently cannot wear a western (read BAD) dress of her liking, because some other uneducated men make remarks about her then. She naturally gets angry, but apparently doesn´t learn her lesson, and instead of dismissing the taxi driver, she not only falls in love with him, but actually leaves her loving father for this man, whom she only knows for a few days, and who is an utter mismatch to who she is. I could never understand why would Aarti sacrifice everything she had – not only status and riches, but her own family and even education and ambitions – for a man who refuses to change in the slightest because of her. I foud Raja extremely selfish and Aarti lost her appeal once she actually took his side, leaving heartbroken father behind.

Although at this moment she apparently realized she really screwed her life up.

Once Aarti and Raja get married, their love story actually becomes hardly bearable. Raja turns out to be proud, uncompromising, even to the point of abusive (and later in the film he goes totally bonkers), while Aarti considers an occasional dance to a catchy song a solution for all marital problems. However evil plotting westernized step-mother initiates the „happy“ couple´s split up (by pointing out the obvious – Aarti is a sophisticated and naive girl and her husband a jerk who clings to his pride more than to his love) and while Raja returns to Palanketh to grow a beard Aarti gives birth to his child. By this point the film went pretty much insane with Raja stealing the baby (because obviously he on his own in his chhota hut can give his son a better upbringing than his mother in a bungalow) and fighting a bunch of goons while still holding the baby, throwing it into the air and stuff while beating everybody up. And finale? The insane dude forgives his weeping wife because everybody gathers around and sings.

"Kaun kambakht bardasht karnay ko peeta hai?"

"Sorry. Wrong film, wrong year. Wrong Khan."

Raja Hindustani is just horrible. Aamir Khan actually gives a good performance, but Raja is just too awful as a character, Karishma Kapoor, who created sensation with this movie, is objectively speaking very weak in this movie. I like Karishma, but a great part of her films never did her justice, and she has very few performances that could be really praised. I believe that it was really her looks and style, so different from any other heroine till then, what caused the rapture and gave her a real standing among the A-listers.

The plus point would be some of the songs, and in a strange, twisted way, the movie is actually enjoyable – if you deliberately decide to turn off your brain. At the same time it is one of those movies that can only do Bollywood more harm than good when shown to a person unfamiliar with Indian cinema.

Marital advice for women: "Hubby snooty? Shake yout booty! In Ooty."