Yamla Pagla Deewana

Yamla Pagla Deewana (Samir Karnik, 2011)

It’s a really good sign that despite the terrible sound issues that plagued my screening of YPD – at one point the increasingly choppy sound cut out entirely and the film’s dialogue was replaced for several minutes with, surreally, Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run – and although there was ONE ANNOYING PERSON IN THE THEATRE WHO DIDN’T TURN THEIR FREAKING CELLPHONE OFF even after they got their 17^th message – I still walked out of Yamla Pagla Deewana with the biggest, cheesiest grin on my face.

If there’s a filmi definition of “feel-good”, I’m pretty sure Yamla Pagla Deewana, a goofy, colourful masala celebration of the glory of the Deols, of Punjab, of oldschool Bollywood before it apparently wanted to be just like Hollywood, is definitely it. Yamla Pagla Deewana is EVERYTHING I wanted so badly for Tees Maar Khan to be. It has the same basic elements – the riotous colour, the music, the conmen with hearts of gold, even a Munni-esque item number:



but YPD grabs me and hooks me and reels me in where TMK fails. What Yamla Pagla Deewana has that TMK doesn’t is a big, beating masala dil – an emotional core that is all at once bittersweet, romantic, sorrowful, nostalgic, hilarious, joyous, and above all, deeply, deeply satisfying.

And of course, part of that heart is the palpable enjoyment the three Deols display at being onscreen together. Bobby and Sunny have never made it a secret how close they are to their paa - Bobby especially; everybody remembers the time he cried when Dharam-ji won an award. The three Deols have a reputation for being super loving and supportive of each other, and this ‘family is everything’ message is the backbone of YPD. Only it’s given added resonance when you see the tears glistening in Bobby’s eyes when he tells his real-life father, playing his screen father, how much he loves him and how much he means to him. Or in just how much Sunny – who I always (apparently erroneously) thought was kind of grim and serious – looks like he is barely suppressing his joy when he is dancing alongside his brother and dad. 

Instead of trying to fit square pegs into round holes, the clever writers and the director have crafted a film that plays to the three Deols’ strengths. Dharmendra gets to be…the superstar he is, actually, a ladykilling, superawesome septagenarian, while Sunny is a gentle giant who is preternaturally good with his fists (but prefers not to use them); Bobby, of course, is both comic relief and romantic lead.

Basically, YPD is a “lost-and-found” film: Paramveer Dhillon Singh (Sunny Deol) is an NRI living in Canada with his Canadian wife (Emma Brown Garett), his two kids, Karam and Veer, and his mother (Nafisa Ali). Paramveer discovers that his father Dharamvir (Dharmendra) and his younger brother Gajodhar (Bobby Deol), both of whom left him and his maa when he was a child, are living in Banaras and making a living as master con-men. So he goes to Banaras to find his long lost family and try to persuade them to come back and reunite with his maa. Once in India, though, just as Paramveer’s wife warns him, things go a little crazy.

Not only is it crazy, it’s SMART and FUNNY and TOUCHING. You can tell how much I loved it because I can’t even coherently tell you why: I’m reduced to mush, giggling and swooning and thinking about THIS:

Yeah. I went into the film claiming I didn’t have a crush on Bobby Deol. NOW I DO. And now…I’m kinda crushing on Sunny too.

Okay fine. You want specifics? The film is ripe with cute in-jokes and role reversals, filmi references, spoofs, and sometimes just…joyously nonsensical, surreal, hilarious lunacy. My favourite scene in the whole film (aside from the GLORIOUS climax) involves stereotypically romantic Bobby Deol clueless about how to woo the girl he is in love with…so he buys her eggplants. There are bittersweet moments too: Dharamvir is confronted with a picture of his younger self (e.g. a young Dharmendra – one of the handsomest men in the world)

 Dharmendra really was the handsomest man in the whole world. 

– and his response is a wistful “there was a time when every girl would sleep with my picture under her pillow”, bringing his sometimes frail , sometimes tired appearance (and the fact that the film’s production was halted due to his hospitalisation) into a harsh spotlight. But there are more than enough nutty, pagla moments, from all the Deols, that Yamla Pagla Deewana just…made me feel really good. This is an entertainer, all round, with action, drama, romance, and comedy, and more than anything, it will make you feel all warm and fuzzy and squishy in your dil.

I can’t ask for much more than that from a film, and I feel like this one, clearly made with buckets of affection and loads of enjoyment rather than a cynical view of “what will get us ahead or get us awards?” comes from the right place – straight from the heart.