What’s for desert?—— Nanhe Jaisalmer

Cast: Bobby Deol, Dwij Yadav
Direction: Samir Karnik

Really, it’s enough to blow your pressure cooker. His novella is actually awarded the International Booker. Yup, the same literary prize snagged in recent years by Kiran Desai, Arundhati Roy and the patriarch-turned-prose-genius Amitabh Bachchan in Baghbaan. What a yarn!

The new winner is Vikram Singh aka Nanhe Jaisalmer; directed and written (oh oh, what about those allegations of snitching by another writer?) by Samir Karnik. Kyun controversy ho gaya naa?

Alas, there’s nothing remotely literary or controversial about what you eventually sample in this flash-bukbuk by Vicky Singh. No zing, Vicks just catches hold of a shocked electrician at a hotel’s banquet hall to narrate his memoir. Hmm, it’s about a camel-riding Rajasthan tourist guide kiddo (Dwij Yadav) who looks as if he’d be happier at home playing Ludo.

Anyway, the 10-year-old desert boy knows a smattering of French, German, Latin and fenugreek. Snag: he’s uneducated in ka-kha-ga-gha and so goes duh-duh. This despite the militant attempts of his morose mum, didi and a heftier version of Gayatri Devi, to make him attend night school. Incidentally, this masti ki paathshala is populated by an ancient gent who goes haw-haw-haw and dear old Sharat Saxena who keeps drinking from quarter bottles of rum? Life’s glum.

But there’s a tinsel lining. Camel boy is Asia’s biggest ceiling fan of Bobby Deol the actor (played by Bobby Deol the actor). Next: you’re subjected to teasers from Abby-Mustan’s Soldier; the kid claps, whistles and generally goes berserk till Bobby D shows up in person. Gratifyingly, the bonhomie between the two is life-affirming. How wonderful- a star and a desert boy actually bond as equals! Sweet.

If only Karnik’s writing had developed this emotional aspect of an otherwise gaga screenplay. Alas, there’s something much too gratuitous about the kid giving up his gutka chewing habit, beating up a junior Gulshan Groverish bully, exhuming his fear of mice (how nice?), becoming an exemplary scholar and heavens, growing up to become a purely wooden Vatsal Seth (from the forgotten Tarzan : The Blunder Car or something). Oof. And for the last straw, there’s that cracko-wacko Booker acceptance speech.
Please!

Like it or not, the boy is even turned into a stereotyped angry child-man, what with the Deewar like humiliating tattoo emblazoned on his hand. Surely, Karnik could have stressed upon the innocence and guilelessness of the boy instead of making him a cross between Bachchan and Guddi. Oh well.

If you don’t sprint out of the auditorium, it’s only because of the emphasis placed on the need for a national literacy programme (girl children are conspicuous by their absence though).

Plus, Dwij Yadav is endearing; the child has the most fluorescent smile since Madhuri Dixit’s. Bobby Deol too, invests a glowingly warm quality to his part, almost as if he were reliving moments with his own son.

On the debit side, Binod Pradhan’s cinematography of the magnificent Jaisalmer vistas is ordinary. Himesh Reshammiya’s music is unhummable. And the direction relies far too much on swooping crane shot takings.

Bottomline: This odd enterprise is neither a children’s film nor an entertainer for spectators of all ages. It’s not worth losing your pressure cooker for its bizarre Booker.

BOMEN IRANI: Mr. Bombastic

Actor Boman Irani enjoys every ball in his court and pulls every gig to the hilt.
He may have been a potato chips seller and a professional photographer, but Boman Irani, today, is only and only an actor, inside out, upside down, in every pore of his massive being-an actor. That’s why he grins when he sees himself act out in the Tata Sky advertisement; that’s why he makes faces, winks an eye, and chuckles, “click-clack-click-clack” to photographers who shoot him; that’s why he mockingly pleads with the company manager to give him a free dish antenna.

The actor oscillates, becoming the character and Boman again. And he watches himself all the time, his every swagger in the brown cowboy boots, each sway of his jacket and jeans, his radiant face, his husky voice.
Boman is his own 70 mm. “I enjoy the process of acting. But I have to prepare (for the varied roles he plays). I come from south Bombay. I am a Parsi. I have to put on layer after layer (to create an authentic character.)” Boman’s point of reference was the comical-villainous medical college dean in Munnabhai MBBS and the unscrupulous property dealer in Khosla Ka Ghosla. Maybe he is Peter Sellers himself (the late comic actor from Britain.)

About being fearless in his choice of roles, like accepting Farhan Akhtar’s Positive, a film on AIDS that others had refused. Boman explains it in the filmi way. “I’d feel scared if I have to plunge into river from a cliff. But I will jump when I know there are policemen chasing me. Who are these policemen? My creative boredom.”

Should actors have egos? “Yes. Actors should have good egos. It’s what you think about yourself. It’s like challenging yourself.” But Boman is strangely too humble for comfort. He says his son just graduated and did odd jobs and that he dropped him in New Jersey for an MBA course (as if it’s still all middle-class). He knows it’s not. It’s just the pretension, the deception unforeseen success brings. It even makes others feel good about you, not jealous.

Which future role excites him, when asked, “You see it’s not about excitement.
You return home after work and you feel satisfied. You say: ‘Aaj kuch achha kiya!’” He says the film is Goal. He plays a football coach. The film taught him strategy, he says.

But the questions loops back to Chak De India. “People don’t make films to mobilise people. When we made Munnabhai, we didn’t think it would start Gandhigiri. Someone might have said: ‘Woh takla kaun hai? (Who’s that bald man?)’, seeing me in the film’s poster. Not any more.

“Is he turning into a director?”I don’t know.
One fine morning I might wake up and feel the audience is bored with my acting and I might turn a director. I don’t know.”