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A sperm story

6/5/2012

18 Comments

 
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Vicky the donor
Difficult to say sperm (or sparm - as the good Doctor Chadda (Annu Kapoor in an..err.. seminal performance) pronounces it), without the mind travelling to  where it comes from. All right, I picked up that line somewhere. Yet, here is an entire movie from Bollywood that revolves around the word without making you go queasy in the stomach even once. For which itself, Vicky Donor deserves a standing ovation.

However, let’s start at the beginning. Vicky Arora is a virile Aryaputra (his genes have come all the way from Persia with Alexander the Great, having crossed the Hindu Kush to finally “sattle” in the Refugee Kalo-ny (get used to the Punjabi-isms) of Lajpat Nagar). He is spoilt, single, jobless with a dead great grandfather who sired 19 kids. The last is what makes the shrewd Dr Balbir shakal-dekh-kar-sperm-pehchaan-leta-hun Chadda sit up and incredulously ask: “Kinne?” Chadda runs a “chotta sa” infertility clinic and sperm bank in Delhi’s Dariyaganj. His clinic is facing shut down because his rich, infertile clients are going back unhappily unfertilized. He is quick to realize that if anyone can save him from going out of business, it’s the virile Vicky. Now he just has to convince the breezy Punjabi munda in tight jeans and bright Ts with 750 friends on Facebook and a “jitna mil jaaye kam hai”  attitude towards sex to not waste his “time” and “sperm” on girls and become a donor instead.  

Almost all the characters in the movie are perfectly pitched (including Mallu nurse who dutifully checks if Vicky has filled up the life giving bottle with an expressionlessly polite “Dane (done) sir?” and Biji (Vicky’s whiskey-guzzling aaj-chad-nahin-rahi-puttar grandmother) who ticks him off for getting her a “solah GB” iPhone (“Ae kee? Mainu 32 GB chahida see”). Or even the leading lady’s aghast Bengali father who tells his daughter (determined to marry a Panju), “But beta, they have no kaal-ture. They drink and dance at weddings. They don’t even remove the price tags on their clothes.” Or Vicky’s sardarni mom who tells her son, while furiously frying in the kitchen, that she will not tolerate a “machli khane waali, kaali Bangali bahu”. She wants a “gori chitti” Punjabi lass.

It’s not difficult to understand what the suave, stylish, independent-minded, divorced Bengali working girl Ashima Roy (a pretty Yami Gautam) sees in the unbelievably crude and crass, one stop short of sick lech Vicky. His ridiculous explanation for why her Bengali husband didn’t tell her that he loved another woman is: “Fattu hote hain, Bongs. Fat tee hai unki.” Yet she falls in love with him, just as we do, because his heart is in the right place. “Sperm se thoda upar aakar dekho, heart naam ki cheez hoti hai” – he tells Chadda in an emotional moment.

Yet, if you ask me, the film belongs to Annu Kapoor. It is in his paunchy, wide-smiled, untidy haired, fertility-obsessed paapdi/kachodi/golgappa gobbling Dr Chadda, that he brings alive the perfect Punjabi caricature. When Vicky drags him to his girlfriend’s house to discuss marriage, he gleefully nods his head to the girl’s dad’s “I hate Panj-bees.” (Han jee, haan jee, I under-istand. Ham thode diff-rant type ke log ho-tte hain).

The films tends to drag a bit after the interval in the emotional sequences but it can be tolerated and, yes, as always the songs were really not required. But I must tell you that the best part of my Vicky Donor experience was watching it in a hall full of whistling and guffawing Sardar families in Mogha, or Moghe as we call it in this part of the world. When we drove back home in the falling dusk, crossing the rustling wheat fields of Punjab, laughing over the exquisite one-liners, what we also marveled at was how the audience had taken the jokes so sportingly. The most endearing quality about a culture, just as a person, I feel, is the ability to laugh at yourself. Only when we learn to do that can we savour the flavours of India’s delightful multi-cultural society instead of letting these build walls between us. Full marks to Bollywood for tracking the trend. 

Script: Juhi Chaturvedi; Director: Shoojit Sircar; Producer: John Abraham;  Actors: Annu Kapoor, Ayushman Khurana 

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Dr Baldev Chadda, Infertility specialist
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Since I felt some of you might want to take a look at the comely leading lady, here she is...
18 Comments
deepak gera
6/5/2012 09:46:11 pm

brilliant review of a brilliant film after a long time...ek gal meinu aj tak samajh nahi aayi.....punjabi te dilli te inni sunni film bengali munde kis tare bana rene....KKG, OLLO and now VD (all by bong boys Dibakar and Shujeet...hats off to both of u)

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Mahendra
6/5/2012 10:29:47 pm

It may be a good movie (I havent seen it yet....), but I am concerned about the effect it is having (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Vicky-Donor-causes-flood-of-sperm-donors/articleshow/13026969.cms)

I believe India's problem is the opposite - there is too much sperm floating around.
Creating sperm donor role models is not something India can afford. Unless it is for export...(http://uk.reuters.com/article/2008/11/12/us-britain-sperm-idUKTRE4AB2P220081112)

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ajit
7/5/2012 02:17:48 am

having read a very interesting review we will certainly like to watch this movie in our small punjabi town with a sporting audience!

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prithvi
7/5/2012 10:35:34 am

Ha ! Ha ! Nice review Rachna. Will have to watch this movie now. Bong and Panju couple theme - wait a minuite, it sounds sooo familiar :)

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Anima Pundeer
7/5/2012 01:23:12 pm

Excellent snapshot of the movie... makes me want to watch it now...

Liked the 'seminal performance' pun...:)...

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Ashu
7/5/2012 01:41:01 pm

'Standing' Ovulation oops ovation (pun not unintended) to Vicky the Stud ... and also to all these people of India, who breed goodness & positivity in (& while watching) such movies ... with the tenacity of a sperm hunting for ovum under hostile conditions!!

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BIG B J B
7/5/2012 03:05:09 pm

Nice review of movie....I can't comment on the effect of this movie but it certainly gives food for thought..if sperm is like this..then what will be the effect..? ha ha MC BC...type...then ha ha...good analysis...once again a very good article...

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RITEN
7/5/2012 06:33:28 pm

An excellent review,Rachna.It was hilarious to hear,sperm based salutations like confused Sperm and what not.And that one last time Donor act,for the 54th the way this new bride gives a permission to the Hero was superb.Mahinder has hit the nail on the .........,This quality product demand in Infertility clinics was a revelation.
Now that u have seen the review,please go and view the film,friends.

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cecilia
7/5/2012 11:13:30 pm

Rachn , I loved Vocky donor, it was fun and emotional....I enjoyed it completely so well made, Sperm, Sex, Love, Marriage and sometimes bouts of infertility, that is life, the LIFE of Vicky donor. A seminal review my dear Rachna!!

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chotu
8/5/2012 11:00:36 pm

well written but lacking the usual creative humour, synonymous with your writting

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ather
8/5/2012 11:42:17 pm

wonder what the songs are: Dum maaro dum perhaps...

thanks for regaling us with your inimitable way with words Rachna

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noopur
10/5/2012 06:00:23 pm

Haha me like your review of Vicky Donor :) will surely give it a shot and it better be good or someone is going to have a lousy stay in KL in June :) By the way....you aren't being bribed to write good reviews ...just checking :)

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Ritha Hegde
11/5/2012 05:15:21 am

I have been wanting to see this movie, because I have liked Aayushman on MTV. But looks like there are other reasons too. I am waiting to get my hands or eyes on this movie through any medium here...and now with your verdict also out, I am even more eager now!!!

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subodh.nimkar@thermofisher.com
13/5/2012 08:09:53 am

Excellent job Rachna! Do you write reviews for newspapers? If not, you should consider that. How about writing for India Currents, a reasonably popular Desi magazine is US?

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Pushpa Bhandari Bisht
17/5/2012 11:47:13 pm

Don’t get to see films much but really enjoyed your review Rachna (read Noopur’s nasty comment too). Was shocked / intrigued (more shocked than intrigued) by the title of the film when it was explained to me. But then I’m always rather behind times. I remember being similarly shocked when I heard the song Jumma Chumma De De but since then have tried to keep pace. Another friend of mine couldn’t stop raving about VD so must ask her to read your write up. What a fantastic job you’ve done bringing the film alive in your blog, I laughed my heart out. The film people owe you girl !

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satyendra verma
22/5/2012 11:01:05 pm

Haven't yet seen the Movie, just wussy and avoided the barrage of questions that may follow from my 10 year old . But cant wait now.
I see a trend of you reviewing only the Movies which people usually enjoy more and talk less....:-))
Good Job

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Utpal Bordoloi
25/7/2012 02:43:38 am

Rachna Bisht !

I loved Vicky Donor. You see, my dear wife Christina passed away in September 2011 after being burnt in a fire - I was burnt in that same fire and spent 93 days in hospital - I had died twice and was each time revived and brought back from the dead. So I was terribly sad and depressed when, one day, my daughter Upasana comes home from Tezpur University - where she's doing her Masters in Sociology - and she gives me [a] a DVD of Vicky Donor and [b] a copy of Sajitha Nair's book " For She's a Jolly Good Fellow ' - about her days as a Commissioned Officer in the Ordnance Corps of the India Army. And for the first time in many months, I laughed ! That movie and that book brought laughter back into my life, though I am still sad at times !

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ovulation signs link
26/9/2012 01:16:57 am

very interesting story. It's good to be mentioned and female ovulation.

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    Rachna Bisht Rawat is a full time mom and part time writer. She is married to an Army officer whose work takes the family to some of the most interesting corners of India.

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