'Welcome' to Sajjanpur

Welcome to Sajjanpur was the "surprise package" movie of this year. It was as surprising and even better when it came to surprise-factor than Manorama Six Feet Under from last year. Me and my brother had read good reviews about the movie but the movie never had the hype to make us look for its DVD immediately. It was only after one of my good friend mentioned it, that we looked for the movie. The movie turned out to be sweet, funny, sad, cute, authentic all at the same time but it was the final twist in the story that turned the movie upside down.


Me and my brother are fond of movies, especially Indian cinema and the best part is that we have similar taste atleast when it comes to movies. But we have found that our taste don't tend to match with other people most of the time, so we have to be politically (or movietically ??) correct when talking to people about movies. After we saw one of the worst movie last year, we came up with a process to find if our choice of movies may match other people's. The process is very simple, we ask one question and the answer determines the similarity (or dissimilarity) of our taste of movies. The question is:

Q. Did you watch and if you watched then did you liked the movie, Welcome (Akshay Kumar-Anil Kapoor one) ?

There can be only three answers, loved it, it was okay, what a crap

If the answer is:
a. loved it (you need a mental check up, since you forgot your brain cells somewhere)
b. it was ok (you may have gone drunk to watch that movie)
c. what a crap (you have good taste in movies, join the club)

Coming back to Welcome to Sajjanpur, it takes place in rural India, an India which seems to have been forgotten by Indian cinema-makers, an India which sustained the movie industry till late 1990s, an India which is the real India, an India where most people still cannot read but love using cellphones, an India where people are killed like animals because of their caste (or religion, like recently in Orissa), an India where girls are married to dogs because she is manglik, an India which young people are leaving to seek "good" life in the other India.

The movie is acted excellently by Amrita Rao (her every shot is worth a watch), Shreyas Talpade (look out for his pre-climax shot to know his range as an actor), Ila Arun (she is hilarious), Yashpal Sharma (as local sarcastic goon), Ravi Jhankal (as the hijdaa). After watching the movie it is almost unbelievable (and yet believable) to think that the movie is directed by Shyam Benegal of such fame as Ankur, Junoon, Sardaari Begum and Zubeidaa.

If your answer to the "Welcome" question was 'c', take a trip to Sajjanpur.