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It's a director's special No blast from this bomb!

CASTING A SPELL: Anuj Sawhney and Sushmita Sen in Chingaari

Chingaari (Hindi)

Cast: Sushmita Sen,

Mithun Chakraborty,

Anuj Sawhney and Ila Arun

Director: Kalpana Lajmi

She has never been an express filmmaker - half a dozen films in nearly two decades is not the resume of a prolific being. Kalpana Lajmi - now for some reason Kallpana - has never really been in the limelight for the popularity of her craft. Box office delights have often eluded her. Her fleeting "Darmiyaan" moments offset by a "Kyon" or a "Daman". Now, finally, she casts the past aside, and comes up with a film that makes no compromise on artistic value, yet manages to appeal to an audience that is many times more than those who would have seen any of her other films. Kudos! And almost three cheers! And gives us a film that may be on the mantelpiece for a long time.

Cast shines through

Yes, "Chingaari", that tale of a prostitute in love with a postman, and sought after by a priest, is beautiful. Sushmita Sen is bewitching, Mithun Chakraborty packs in more than a punch, and Ila Arun - she is the matriarch of the vice den - shows the virtues of many seasons at fall. But Lajmi deserves greater credit - for taking on a patriarchal system where a woman who gratifies the high and mighty can have no aspirations of a nuptial bed. It is in her brutal exposure of the priest, godman by day, Satan by night, that she shows the spark that made many a head turn way back in "Ek Pal". Her panda here, a parambhakt of Kali Mata, seeks pleasure, nurtures a grouse. Amorous meets, furtive kisses, beastly assaults. He does it all. Then he comes back to the deity. Not to confess, but to keep the deity from the devotees, the divine almost a prisoner to his profanities.

If Mithun is stately in his physical appearance here, and almost repugnant with the hate and vendetta he brings to his role of the panda, Lajmi gets an even better performance from Sushmita. She stumbles, she is given to foibles at the beginning. Then she takes control over herself, banishes the public school educated girl and slips into the character of Basanti, a woman of many virtues, who operates from the forked lanes of passion. Her body language changes, her attire complements. As the victim of the priest's passion, she brings both fear and helplessness to her craft Not a woman of tender charm, poise or grace, still in her dimples reside abiding joy for many a man.

That is until the Mother in her is roused. In life, for her, there may be few to sob, or sigh. In death, anonymity takes leave as the devotee meets the deity. It takes a long time coming, and we do wonder if the film could be better edited.

The weak link

It is not her fate to meet the mate - Anuj Sawhney as the postman, the weakest part of the film by some distance. Never mind. By the time it all ends, Sushmita would have won over new admirers and Mithun would have proved a few doubting Thomases wrong. And Lajmi would be smiling. She has delivered a film that is exhilarating, thrilling. All this despite a predictable storyline, and a hero who is little more than a sidekick!

Ziya Us Salam

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