Friday, September 6, 2019

ChhiChhore : Live the Moment !


What an endearing sight it was to wake up and see the Prime Minister of the country consoling and giving courage to the ISRO chairman after the chairman broke down following the failure to communicate with Chandrayan -2’s Vikram Lander. But in a country paranoid with success , where winner takes it all and no one remembers the runners up , this unfortunately is an aberration and not the norm.  And hence student suicide is an epidemic that claims one life, every hour , in this country. Personally , I grew up in a set up where failure was simply unacceptable and was treated as the end of the road . Yet ,in life , I have failed more often than any of my contemporaries . While I had the tenacity and resilience to fight back after every single failure with more vigour to prove myself and to not give up , often these struggles end up being long and lonely. And in vulnerable moments like these the  parents or  the partner or the friends or the family play a crucial role in explaining the inevitability of failure in life and the importance of effort . Failure is an integral part of life and every failure should be treated not as the end of the road but as the beginning of yet another exciting journey to explore one’s potential. In our quest to win we must never forget the joy of living.

Nitesh Tiwari’s Chhichhore is a film about friendship, failure, fun and nostalgia all rolled into one. Tiwari beautifully fits the story into the frame of its genre , straightaway transporting you into a nostalgic world full of unbridled optimism .  If you have ever lived in a campus , you will readily identify with Tiwari’s characters . In fact you may end up being reminded of the Anni, Derek, Acid , Sexa or Maya from your batch. Chhichhore depicts the unhinged, carefree campus life when life was a tad more than just chasing daily targets or making those ugly spread sheets .


Tiwari keeps the story simple and packs it with lots of punchlines using the campus lingo. The film opens with a water war in a premier engineering campus in Mumbai and time travels twenty years ahead when Ani and Maya’s adolescent son Raghav attempts suicide and lands up in an ICU. From there on it cuts between past and present , imparting some life lessons ,packed with some fine punchlines and whacky humour . The enduring friendship that one makes during college life is portrayed beautifully . The actors are brilliant while playing their youthful characters.

However what pulls down Chhichhore is some really sloppy make up and Shraddha Kapoor. Even the constant shift between a glorious past and a gloomy present looks a bit contrived . However these misfires seems forgivable thanks to Tiwari’s earnest attempt at story telling.

Chhichhore is not about winning . It is about the attempt to win and in the process  living those moments and making lasting memories . Life is never about winning and losing , its all about living . So once in a while step aside , put that feet away from the accelerator , give expectations a break and take a moment to live and yes don’t burden others with your expectation . Let them live too. They will figure a way out ! And yes there is no shame in losing as long as one has given his best and had enjoyed the process.

I will go out with 3 out of 5 for this bunch of losers , who may have lost a match but ended up winning million hearts !

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