Dharam Sankat Mein Hindi Movie Review

The film is pivoted around Paresh Rawal. It showcases how an innate listless script can still be a watchable if it held together by a sincere performance specially by an artist of immense talent. The film has things going as long as Paresh is around. You do not mind the trite, the bombastic, the loud and achingly formalistic as long you have him on screen. Rarely in recent times has a film actor single handed taken the script and navigated it with his credibility and repute.
Based upon David Baddiel’s Infidel. While the original script dealt with a British Muslim who goes through an identity crisis when he discovers he was adopted as a child and born to a Jewish family, we have the protagonist here – Dharam Pal Trivedi (Paresh Rawal) who is a leading caterer in Gujarat with a family in place. Things begin to fall apart when he realises that he is born to Muslim parents, adopted by a Hindu family.
His ongoing feud with neighbour Mehboob Nazeem Ali Shah Khan Bahadur (Annu Malik) an advocate goes through a need based metamorphosis and the warring two some become friends. In the backdrop is a God man Neelananda Baba (Naseerudin Shah) who is making good commercial use of societal shortcomings and is making hay with the naïve and the weak. There is Dharam’s son in love with Shradha (Aurita Ghosh) but the marriage can take place only with the ‘blessings’ of the swinging Baba.
Dharam Pal faces a serious identity crisis in a social order that denominates you by your religion. He apes the new found Islamic roots, but fights hard to hide it from his friends and family. He tries real hard to learn the tehzeeb from the new found friend Khan Bahadur and impress upon the local Movlvi (Murali Sharma) that he is Islamic enough to meet up with his ailing biological father. Digs galore at religious practices, hues aplenty of the cultural variations are the constructed cat walk of the script. The script is a fine opportunity to take a good look at the crisis of identity. It could be fearsome to wake up one morning and be shaken at the roots of your route this far. Mentally, emotionally and perhaps even physically it could drain and challenge you. It could have thus been dealt at that level. It could also have been a cultural journey of self discovery a la Alex Hailey. It could have been a critical reflection of how the gloss has taken over the crux. It could have a myriad of wonderful layers. Yet it meanders into a crass take on God men and the religious divide. Fawad Khan fails to convert a great opportunity and walks a very predictable – nay clichéd road.
Naseeruddin Shah is name enough for the connoisseur to head to the theatre. He delivers back to back thuds. Dirty Politics and now this. He is completely out of sync and hams beyond acceptance. Yet the film is worth watching without too many expectations, thanks only to the brilliance of Paresh Rawal. He proves that he is by far the best that has happened. Watch the film for him, if nothing. Without him the audience would be in the mental state the film’s title suggests.
Rating : 2 stars.
+ Paresh Rawal
– Cliché ridden.
L. Ravichander.