Duniyadari: Mix of Flavors

Reviewed By Praveen Lulekar

Many of us learn the way of the world…the Duniyadari in that age of romanticism, transition and spontaneity. The shell we lived in all these years is broken, the board exams are history and we are exposed t a new world – college. But college is just a platform. The real teacher is a (failed!) love affair. Eminent writer Suhas Shirvalkar’s novel captured all these emotions back in the ‘80s with a deep understanding of the human nature. Sanjay Jadhav’s film misses the essence by overooking the strength of any good novel – detailing.

Shreyas Talwalkar (Swwapnil Joshi) enters Pune’s SP College and becomes a member of the rowdy Katta Gang after a filmy raadaa. An introvert by nature, Shreyas is an odd man among these taporis. The character comes with a weight of unhappy parents and finds himself breaking free in the company of Digya (Ankush Chaudhari). Not only are the scenes capturing this transformation clumsy, but Joshi’s character graph also slips slightly in this process. Dialogues like ‘Pehli Cigarette, Pehla Mitra’ extract claps but the relief of Shreyas, venting out his hesitations with the smoke, is never felt. His complicated backdrop is conveyed in an over the top scene with the unnecessarily arrogant Varsha Usgaonkar (as Shreyas’ mother) playing Piano while her husband (Uday Tikekar) is scolding their son.

It is difficult to pin-point the culprit here. It is a combination of average screen-writing and un-detailed direction. Luckily Jadhav is the man involved in both. The approach he takes for the film is that of a masala of the ‘80s where his lead men are Jigri friends that swear over their friendship every now and then and his lead couple’s kiss is shown by the lady’s hands holding the man’s hair tightly. Costumes are the only element that convey the period and even that gets too organised on occasions. The second lead lady (Urmila Kanetkar) always has a flower pinned at her ear and its petals refuse to flutter. Shreyas is always wearing a sleeve-less sweater and Digya’s appearance is modelled after Sholay’s Bachchcan for the whole film.

The most pleasant surprise of the film is Sai Tamhankar. The character, among changing sub-plots arranged lousily, comes out with immaculate consistency. Her dialogues like ‘tula cadbury haatat astana hi biscuit sodwat nahi’ speak more about Shreyas’ character than Shreyas himself. Though with effort, Tamahnkar effectively portrays an extremely complex character. Jitendra Joshi does his job effortlessly in the negative character of Sai. His tongue moistening his lips captures his evil moods precisely. His cynical act also comes with a definite control. The film is for and of Swwapnil Joshi. But in an attempt to make him an Anand, the writers have missed the nuances of his character.

What works throughout is the beautiful story by Shirvalkar that keeps you engaged with intelligent twists. The irrational behaviour of lovers, the meaningless pursuits of college youth have the gravity of consequences that truly teach Duniyadari to its characters. It is Sandeep Kulkarni’s two-scene cameo that has that feel. Some crafty editing also lends its weight when all the ladies flash in front of Shreyas’ eyes after hearing his mother’s story. The rest of the film brings about the colours, the hair-styles, the bell-bottoms, the Royal Enfields on screen, but not the feel. A college group would definitely enjoy it, but a fan of the novel – doubtful.    

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