That Shantanu Maheshwari ‘grows up’ to become Ajay Devgn — with the two looking nothing like each other — is not the most ridiculous thing about Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha. The film, in its entirety, seems to have been conjured with very little creativity or imagination.
Which is a surprise given the kind of names that are attached to it. Ajay Devgn and Tabu, both known for cinema of substance and quality, reunite for what is their nth film together. Their collective strike rate, a few minor aberrations aside, has been exemplary. Jimmy Shergill, known to inject adrenaline into any script, plays a brief but pivotal role. The film has fresh blood in the form of young actors Shantanu Maheshwari and Saiee Manjrekar.
Bringing them together is Neeraj Pandey, who has earned his stripes as a filmmaker with a versatile voice, one which has delivered MS Dhoni — The Untold Story, a rare Bollywood biopic which is not by the numbers, and bona fide edge-of-the seat thrillers like Baby, Special 26 and Special Ops, which merit repeat viewing.
And yet his latest effort has very little going for it. Think of over-the-top ’80s melodrama. Add grating background score (Oscar winner MM Keeravani cranks it up, in a not-so-nice way). Sprinkle it with the most atrocious dialogues. Fluff it up with situations that are absurd enough when watched once, but are repeated over and over again to reinforce their preposterousness. All of which sums up Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha, a film whose intrigue sadly starts and ends with its title.
Star-crossed lovers torn apart by fate is a story as old as storytelling itself. Pandey attempts it — purportedly based on a real-life incident in a locality in Howrah where he grew up in — relying on the unreliable narrator trope. The circumstances on a particular night that led to a double murder are replayed a few times to gauge what spurred the gruesome act for which Krishna (Shantanu Maheshwari/Ajay Devgn) has been in prison for 23 years. The incident caused the end of his love story with Vasudha (Saiee Manjrekar/Tabu).
The two went on to lead starkly different lives — with him, of course, behind bars and she being married to another — and the two meet once more the day he walks out of jail. All the while, the film switches between the past and present to focus on the selflessness of the love story. In the process, it also highlights the pointlessness of it, and of the film as a whole.
It is hard to believe that Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha comes from the ink and imagination of Neeraj Pandey, who is credited here for story and directing. The sets look like, well, sets, the artifice in the production design extending to other departments of the film as well. The love story — imagined on paper to be all-consuming — is vapid on account of the tepid chemistry between Shantanu and Saiee. To his credit, Shantanu puts in a lot of effort but one feels nothing for the doomed love story because of the unconvincing writing and Saiee’s one-note act. Tabu is luminous but even a 1,000W LED bulb couldn’t have saved this film.
To add to that, some parts of Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha feel like a parody. The dialogues are unintentionally hilarious, turning many a serious scene into an eye-roll one. Devgn, whose art and craft has never been in doubt, sleepwalks through his part. At one point, his character takes on a gang of goons inside the jail premises in what is supposed to be a serious fight. Except that it isn’t. This is the kind of hyperreal, comedic (not!) action that would fit best in the world of Kung Fu Hustle. In Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha, it is plain laughable.
At some point, Devgn says: “Main karta pehle hoon, sochta samajhta hoon baad mein.” That best sums up this film — overly verbose with little or no thought.
