Shreyas (Swapnil Joshi) and Digya (Ankush Chaudhari) become friends after an initial misunderstanding. Shreyas is drawn into Digya's group of 'Katta' friends - a motley group with many quirks. Shirin (Sai Tamhankar) and her brother Pritam (Sushant Shelar) soon join the group, and Shreyas finds himself falling in love with Shirin. Meanwhile, Minu (Urmila Kanetkar), another newcomer to the gang is drawn towards Shreyas. Will Shreyas find his true love? Will the creepy Sai (Jitendra Joshi) stand in the way of the Katta gang's happily-ever-after? Will this friendship stand the true test of time?
I really wanted to like this movie - on paper, all the ingredients are perfect - but the end result is dry and insipid! The college setting is an ideal way to tug at heartstrings - who doesn't remember their own 'Katta' days, that brief golden period full of possibilities? That first love - and heartbreak, the endless cups of tea, the camaraderie and the pranks - how wonderful would it be to relive all of that on the big screen? And this is where the film hits its first snag - none of the actors look a day younger than 30, if that! They just don't appear right as college going students! Swapnil Joshi with his weird hairdo (is that a wig? - sure looks like one!), Ankush Chaudhari, who appears to have ransacked Bachchan's wardrobe from Sholay, Jitendra Joshi channeling Manoj Bajpai from Aks - and don't even get me started on the girls! Granted, the setting is in the 70's when bell bottom pants, beehive hair and polka dots were all the rage - but I cannot believe for an instant that students of SP college, one of the most conservative campuses in Pune even today, would be dressed like this! Not plausible at all!
The plot loopholes, too, are quite jarring! I never understood why Digya and Sai were such deadly foes, or even why Shreyas and Digya would become such close friends - so much so that Digya would antagonize one of his childhood friends in favor of Shreyas. I'm sure sharing your first cigarette with a friend is special (rolling eyes here), but shouldn't there be something more concrete too? I get that Shreyas and Shirin are attracted to each other, so why bother with the whole Minu track - especially when a love triangle has already been established with Sai? It would have made more sense if Shreyas had been torn between the contrasting personalities of the 2 girls - but there's no conflict, no tension - Minu adds zilch to the story! Also distracting was all the parents' back stories - how did it help to know that Shreyas' mom had loved and lost? Or that Shirin's parents were estranged or that Minu's dad was a widower who had raised her by himself?
The whole medical thing, too - seems like such an afterthought! Is an early death really necessary to establish a protagonist as a good person? Besides, Shreyas' illness is handled so cavalierly - right from the first frame, with the first nosebleed to the soundtrack of a beating heart - Shreyas' destiny is crystal clear. So where's the drama, the anxiety, the gut wrenching sorrow when his friends find out? When Shreyas speaks of his imminent death, he sounds like he's moving to the USA for a couple of years - his only concern is that his friends remember him on his birthday. And we see them do exactly that - remember Shreyas some 25 odd years after his death. What I would have liked to see was how these people have fared in all these years - did Shreyas' death bring them all closer, did they all rally around Shirin, most importantly, did they even stay friends? Without this depth, the final scenes of the movie are as artificial and contrived as the greying hair and glasses of the gang!
'Duniyadaari' loosely translates as 'worldliness' into English - 'yaari before duniyadaari', friendship before anything else, is a very pretty catchphrase - but I wish this movie had shown what friendship really means in the real world, in the world after college. True friends who stand by you through thick and thin, not just for the laughs - but also through the tears. I wish this movie had shown that although love is a very important part of life, it is not life itself - and again, in life, it is true friends who not only comfort you after heartbreak, but also help you get back on your feet. Oh well, it is only a movie after all - don't expect it to be insightful and heartfelt like I did, and you might just enjoy it!
