The re-release trend is on the bend. There is little interest in films from the past, and one Sanam Teri Kasam or Laila Majnu proves nothing. The bulk of re-releases have flopped en masse, the latest being Vipul Shah’s 2007 NRI rom-com Namastey London.
A question for producer-director Vipul Shah: Why add to the harvest of Akshay Kumar’s flops with one more thanks-but-no-thanks offer?
Namastey London is not a bad film. Vipul Shah’s is a neatly-written film about a mal-adjusted British-Asian family in London grappling with the vagaries of a socio-cultural system that makes children of Indians and Pakistanis more Britons than the British. Or so believes Katrina Kaif, whose character is similar to that of Saira Banu in Manoj Kumar’s ‘Purab Aur Paschim’. Katrina brings into play all the uncertainties of a generation that’s caught between Indian tradition and the pubs of Britain.
Vipul Shah keeps his story of a British Indian girl’s journey into the heart of Punjab and a Punjabi lover-boy tightly reined-in. It highlights the cultural conflicts that Britain throws up for migrants.
London is captured not as an exotic city but the hub of a hectic cultural conflict, which sometimes reminds us of Gurinder Chadha’s ‘Bend It Like Beckham’. At times, Shah takes off into a world of comic candour, portraying the nuclear British Asian family in all its parodic glory.
Suresh Nair’s writing skills are on display in almost every scene. He brings parody and poignancy into picturesque play. Watch Rishi Kapoor and his Punjabi son-in-law Akshay Kumar bond over beer and giggle at the dining table.
The narration moves into the streets of London with as much fluency as the dusty gullies of Punjab. Bringing Indian and British cultures together are the outstanding technicians and actors. Jonathan Bloom’s camera captures London’s ethnic underbelly well.
Rishi Kapoor as the worried father of a spoilt London lass is terrific, as usual. Katrina finally comes into her own. She’s the portrait of bubbly brattiness.
Shah, whose earlier films relied heavily on Gujarati theatre, comes into his own too. He takes gentle but stinging swipes at the rootlessness that characterizes the torn lives of Indians abroad.
The Indian Diaspora becomes the subject for a strong, drama-driven celebration of music, songs and an ironic humour that pokes fun at conventions that irrigate and yet retard the growth of Indian cinema.
Only the Pakistani sub-plot, with Upen Patel, doesn’t gel with the plot. Shah tries to give the film darker shades than the genre permits. Thankfully these lunges at socio-cultural profundity do not scar the narrative.
Watching this film is like chewing on a gum that retains its flavour much longer than you expect.
Katrina Kaif Speaks About The Film And More…
At the time of release, Katrina Kaif gave it back to the trolls, who questioned her for the mispronunciation of several Hindi words. “Some reviewer in Mumbai commented that I pronounced words wrongly. Hello! This is probably some guy who has spent his life in Mumbai. I lived in London and know how to speak like young Indians out there. I’ve a good mind to dash off a letter to him,” she shared.
In fact, one of Katrina’s chief attractions in doing Namastey London was that she had the chance to finally dub her own lines. “But you won’t believe this, I finally wanted to chicken out of dubbing my own lines. I had this lengthy 45-minute discussion with Shah, convincing him why I couldn’t dub. He heard me out quietly. I think, secretly he had decided I’d do the dubbing. I finally relented. But I made the sound recordist’s life miserable. He finally told me to get out of the recording studio and return only during my next film. Thankfully, it’s turned out well now,” she shared.
She was grateful to Akshay Kumar for agreeing to do Namastey London with her. She remembered,”Not too many actors in his position would want to do a female-oriented subject. But Akshay had absolutely no qualms. I like that. People are talking about the compatibility visible between us in Namastey… but it was the other film where we really had all the fun. This time it was a far more serious business. Off-camera we were discussing scenes, getting our stance right, and so on. In Namastey…, Shah and I had more fun.”
Katrina and her director Shah have now established a gratifying comfort zone between them. “Before the film released I’d ask him the same question twenty times. I guess I was just nervous. He would patiently answer the first few times and then cut me short saying, ‘The answer isn’t going to change, no matter how many times you ask me.’ Thank God for his patience.”
