दो दूनी चार : अध्यापक की ज़िंदगी पर बढ़िया फिल्म

Do Dooni Chaar review

By Yahoo! India Movies

Friday Oct 8 12:45 PM

Kunal Guha

If you're not a Delhiite, your first reaction on watching 'Do Dooni Char' would be, thank god for that! And this has nothing to do with the questionable infrastructure or the corruption. One of the most important revelations that this film quite unintentional portrays is the neighbourhood culture of Delhi. This abominable society dictates that your neighbours would always be clinging to your hair, passing judgments on your daily affairs and taunting you on everything (including your rather modest salary). This could lead you to question if man could avoid being a social animal. The film revolves around the middle-class life of the Duggals, who happen to reside in one such neighbourhood. The family includes Papa Duggal (Rishi Kapoor), Mummy Duggal (Neetu Singh), their cocky-yet-upstart son (Archit Krishna) and their brand-conscious-teenage daughter (Aditi Vasudev).

Being a super low-budget project, one can imagine it would be easy to furnish the middle-class-ness required to tell this story convincingly. So Algebra teacher, Papa Duggal's paunch is almost always covered under a filthy sweater and Mummy Duggal is perfectly happy confined to household chores in her simple nighties and salwar kurtas. This is a point worth mentioning as the Kapoors have never been seen in such a light (not even in a fancy dress competition). And both of them are a delight to watch, as they go about coping with their daily adventures of getting past life with limited means.

The plot of the film is wafer thin to discuss. And if you've seen the promos, you know that the film is about the Duggals' journey towards purchasing a four-wheeler. Predictably you know how the film would conclude. But while delving into why it's nearly impossible for Papa Duggal to afford a car, we bump into a serious issue- the state of teachers in our country. Although laced with comical incidents and satirical jabs, this film sensitizes us about the fact that teaching as a profession may offer a bundle of nobility but that's all that it offers. And whether we admit it or not, we've all had one teacher in our academic life who has moulded us into the people we've become. This would, in any society, be the most important function of all. Yet, the deplorable remuneration offered to teachers over time hasn't changed at all. So, despite resorting to tuition classes after school, Papa Duggal is seen struggling to make ends meet. The idea of purchasing a car on account of societal pressures seems too fantastic a dream to him. Yet, he has to give in.

So this film is not just about an everyman quest for purchasing a vehicle. It's about dreaming beyond what life offers you and throwing in the last punch in order to achieve it.