Tell me o Khuda

Remember Dil Aashna Hai – where the girl goes in search of real Mom (Dimple, Amritha, Sonu Walia) This time round she goes in search of Pappa (Vinod Khanna, Rishi Kapoor and Dharmendra). Beware next time Hemamalini decides to make a film the protagonist the story would go in search of siblings, grand parents and who have you!! Some fixation this.  The problem with being a matinee idol for two decades is that you cannot think beyond the formula of our cinema and the variations are making a Seeta aur Geeta out of a Ram aur Shyam.

          The film that is aimed at reviving the career of Esha Deol is a non starter.  There is no way this film is going to attract the audience much less have them revisit the theatre.  It holds out nothing. It contains even less.

          Tanya (Esha) is living a happy creative (?) life with Dad Col Ravi Kapoor (Farookh Sheik) and Mom (Deepti Naval) Ala, Anu Malik searching in the attic for inspiration for her next bout of creativity she finds newspaper clippings that reveal she is the adopted child of her parents. With tears as natural as glycerine and resolve as hard as a sandwich she gets the assistance of her fiancé Jai (Arjan Bajwa) and his friend Kuki (Chandan Roy Sanyal) to accompany her on the search.  First at the hospital, she has Pandurang Potfute (Johny Lever) in charge of the records.  She heads to Pratapgarh.  Living in a studio set of Pratapgarh are a whole lot of seeming Rajasthanis who seem unaware that India has since become an independent nation. Abhay Pratap (Vinod Khanna) is royalty and has nephews and nieces living in grandeur.  The area is against female children and indulging in foeticide of female children.  In the midst of searching for Pappa and touching base, Tanya is busy winning camel races, advocating gender equality and is finally told she got the wrong address.

          From Rajasthan she now heads to Turkey and meets up with Altaf Zardari (Rishi Kapoor) and his wife (Meltel Cumbul) who is caught a time wrap after she lost her daughet in a fire mishap. Altaf accepts Tanya as his daughter and matches her loss with his and says that all is going to be fine in Heaven in Turkey when Mamma is out of the time wrap.  However once she is out of it all, he announces with near grandeur that Tanya cannot be his daughter as he had in fact buried his daughter with his own hands.  Second time unlucky.

          Destination Goa is next where the possible dad in hiding is Anthony (Dharmendra).  He is the aged “mein tera Khoon pee jayoonga types” still.  Oh yeah, with age and wrinkles he has also acquired side burns that need a geometry box at the barbers and a ear top to match!! Since the father search in this Google search mode had a “I’m feeling lucky” factor, the search ends and we are told of how all good people do a couple of bad things and the audience has to pay the price.

Rishi and Vinod Khanna are vintage stuff.  The rest are not worth talking about. The film is better titled Save me O Khuda.