'Chalo Dilli ' is a wake-up call for my family

Last Sunday, I watched the film Chalo Dilli with the wife and daughter. Starring comedian Vinay Pathak and the sensuous Lara Dutta, it is a paisa vasool film. Well, not for every paisa in your rupee, but certainly for 90 out of the 100. It is a film which makes you laugh and cry in equal measure and leaves you with a very valuable lesson.

The film is not completely original. I feel it is loosely based on the 2010 Hollywood rib-tickler, Due Date, starring Robert Downey Jr and Zach Galifianakis which is, incidentally, a must see just for its laugh lines. Here is a sample: Zach is standing at the edge of a cliff at the Grand Canyon, about to release his father’s ashes into the valley when he says, “Dad, thanks for being a father to me!”

The Indian version, if you want to call it that, is almost as funny, with the rotund Pathak excelling in his role as a loud, pan-chewing, Chandni chowk sari seller and the elegant, Lara looking very convincing as a propah, urban investment banker.
Pathak and Lara take the same flight to Dilli, which gets diverted to Jaipur. From here on, it is a roller coaster ride, which sees the duo take a night taxi that breaks down, hitch a ride with a genial truck driver, eat spicy chana bhatura at a road side dhaba and sleep under a starlit sky (separately, ahem). The next day, they hitch a camel cart ride to the village railhead, lose their wallets en route, travel ticketless, get arrested, survive a jeep ride with thugs who flick Lara’s laptop and nothing else (thank God) and end up in a town called Jhunjhunu. Here, a riot breaks out over a belly dance and a curfew is clamped.

Through all this apparent stress and turmoil (frankly, with the gorgeous Lara by your side halfway through Rajasthan cannot be termed stressful), Pathak’s non-stop refrain is, ‘Usmein kya baddi baat hain!’ (UKBBH). Car breaks down: UKBBH. Lose bag and valuables: UKBBH. Get looted by thugs: UKBBH.
By communicating the UKBBH mantra through his two-hour-long breezy flick, director Shashant Shah has wonderfully depicted the popular antidote for all worries, the oft repeated, seldom practiced philosophy of ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ (hakuna matata) or as my friend Richard Carlson says, ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff’.

Carlson’s Bible, ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff’ used to be my commode read for many years. However, I am guilty of not having imbibed all of Carlson’s nuggets. Most times, I am still guilty of sweating the small stuff.

However, Pathak’s genial character in Chalo Dilli seems to have been a wake-up call for the family. My stern, ‘check-list’ wielding wife has sworn to follow the UKBBH philosophy from  next Monday, (you see, we are already mid-week and UKBBH is on her ‘things to do next week’ list). 

Me? I have a simpler solution. I am planning to board a flight for Dilli, which will hopefully get diverted to Jaipur, thanks to my Air India pals. But where is Lara?  Psst, Mahesh, are you listening? Kindly text me Lara’s number please. Thank you.