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Namastey London

Movie Namastey London Director Vipul Shah Producer Vipul Shah Music Himesh Rehsammiya Cast Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Upen Patel, Rishi Kapoor

Deepa Gahlot

Even though the confused desi abroad theme has been done to death, mostly by NRI filmmakers, there is always another dimension that can be explored. That�s why it is disappointing to see that Vipul Shah has taken the clich�d, flag-waving, �East or West India is the Best�, route in his Namastey London. And though Shah�s hero gives facts and figures about India�s progress to a snotty colonial prig, the version of India the filmmaker projects is a nostalgia for the large, rural joint family. It is actually more tragic than funny that Indians who have voluntarily decided to migrate to the West for a better lifestyle, stubbornly want to preserve their old way of life. Sometimes, they are even more backward than they were when they had left India. Manmohan Singh (Rishi Kapoor) is one such, who is appalled when his daughter Jasmeet (Katrina Kaif) prefers to be called Jazz and is comfortable with her British identity. She still submits to meeting with prospective Indian grooms with her sense of humour intact. Out of there, in the cab, she strips off the Indian togs and dresses like a normal young woman in London. She also dances at the pub and downs a few vodka shots�again like a normal London working girl. She has no confusion of ethnic loyalties, her father does; and so does his Pakistani friend, who is saddened by his son Imran�s (Upen Patel) decision to move in with an English girl. In 1970, when Manoj Kumar made his Purab Aur Pachhim, about Indians in England forgetting their roots, it was perhaps a plausible issue. In today�s increasingly globalized world, when people in London are eating chicken tikka masala, dancing to bhangra beats and wearing Indian couture, it�s foolish to harp on cultural purity. But Manmohan Singh drags Jazz to India on a holiday and makes her go through another round of meeting �boys� � all of whom are specimens from another planet! Finally he lands in his own village, and decides that Jazz must marry Arjun Singh (Akshay Kumar), to save himself from the trauma of getting a thrice divorced English son-in-law, with the silly name of Charlie Brown. If Charlie had been a really good guy, would the father still have objected? That�s not even a option, because with the same racial attitude which Indians keep flinging in the faces of the Brits (the Shilpa Shetty-Jade Goody episode, remember?), all �firangis� have to be bad people. The parents of Imran�s girlfriend insist not only that he convert to Christianity, but that he get a certificate to prove that he is not involved in terrorist activities. In trying to uphold Indian (or Pakistani) values, the film just underlines that Indians are more racist and parochial than the British. When Jazz refuses to accept Arjun as her husband since an Indian wedding is not valid in the UK, there is much grief all round and sympathy for the beleaguered father and husband, but Jazz�s freedom of choice is not even taken into account. It is decided by the men that she will be happy living in an Indian village, so she fulfills the prophecy by ditching poor Charlie at the alter and running after Arjun. With its limp wit and spurious emotions, the film would have been tough to sit through, were it not for Katrina Kaif�s considerable charisma.