Paanch Ka Punch : Watch It For Kay Kay And Tejaswini

So, finally watched the infamous and controversial “Paanch” by Anurag Kashyap. It was a preview copy released by Anurag on torrent sites and I think was reduced in length by cutting the maha-controversial scenes.

Sunday 13th June, 4 am to 6.30 am. What a time to watch any movie but my insomnia never allows me to sleep for long so after crashing at 12, I peacefully woke up at 3.30 and then got hooked to watching “Paanch”.

Seriously, it was a fairly interesting movie but nowhere close to Black Friday, No Smoiking or my all time favorite Anurag Kashyap film Dev. D. Two things in the film stood out clearly. First, Kay Kay Menon. Grossly under-rated as an actor. He is more violent than most of the macho heroes and villains that we ever produced in Hindi film industry. He is cruel, brutal and has a raw power that can scare the shit out of anyone. He is not mean, he is just raw power. He is just animal. He is raw. Second actor which bowled me over was Tejaswini Kolhapure. She is convincing as a quite honestly conniving woman. The moment she entered the scene, each of the frames the equation between actors on the scene changed Her face has traces of Padmini Kolhapure yet, she is a gazillion times better than her. And to be honest, I hate Padmini for the dumb and helpless woman that she must have portrayed in one of her films that I had the misfortune of watching.

What is unique about Paanch? I am told that it borrows heavily from the life of Channel V VJ Luke Kenny and his friends. I have met Luke once in my life when he had come to our studios promoting Rock On. I doubt that he has any trace of the character that Kay Kay played. He is too simple, well spoken and humble a person as opposed to the animal Luke Morrison. I think this is one of the earliest films for Aditya Shrivastav (more prominently known as Inspector Abhijeet in one of the longest running TV series CID) , Vijay Maurya ( another favorite actor of mine – the honest cop struggling to understand the nuances of life in Mumbai Meri Jaan). The film also had Pankaj Saraswat as an actor but for the lesser informed, Pankaj Saraswat is the brain behind all Laughter Challenge shows in India and is a terrific human being. I was in for a pleasant surprise because though small, he had a powerful role and he acted really well. So that makes two people involved in the film who are known to me – Anurag himself and Pankaj.

Paanch is not cinematic excellence, or an example of how coming of age the Hindi cinema is but it is a tight and good film. Since it was Anurag’s first film, critics have been quite vociferous about shortcomings and some continuity breaks but to give it to the brave film maker, he made this film with so much of passion and even more struggle that if it was anybody else in his place, he would have bent his back and allowed Censor to edit his way through but he did not relent. Hats off to the producer Pradeep “Tutu” Sharma (Padmini Kolhapure married him and Tejaswini is his sister in law) who for some strange reason put in money on this project fully aware of the fact that the film may never see the light of the day. He also plays a cameo in the film as the honcho at music company.

The strangest part of the film, is the haunting music done by none other than Vishal Bhardwaj. Him and Anurag go a long way back that means. Sar Jhuka Khuda Hoon Main is Abbas Tyrewalla’s acidic expression on screen and makes him rise several notches above as a lyrics writer. Superb song and an equally superb composition. My favorite is “Kya Din Kya Raat” the club song shot on oomph queen Tejaswini setting the screen on fire. Ek Din sung by KK (singer KK) will haunt you to grave. The music is outstanding, but unfortunately the movie never released and hence the music despite of getting released well in advance found very little takers.

For fans of Anurag, Paanch may come across as a let down because it doesn’t have the realism of Black Friday nor has the existentialism of No Smoking or the work of art like Dev. D nor as acerbic as Gulal. But it is an honest first attempt at film making by him. Though he has come of age and grown as a professional and is making Bombay Velvet and Girl in Yellow Boots and other films as producer/ director; Paanch will be close to him. Just as a mark of respect and love we all have for Anurag for giving us the classics after classics and becoming the harbinger of change in the language of Hindi cinema, lets give him a round of applause for creating Paanch and giving us actors like Kay Kay Menon, Aditya Shrivastav, Vijay Maurya, cinematorgrapher like Nataraja Subramaniyam and yes, super talented Tejaswini Kolhapure. Oh, and by the way, I totally doted on her when she did Raja Bundela’s TV series “Mujhe Chaand Chahiye” as Varsha Vashishth – one of the rarest confident and bold women protagonists in Hindi literature. The novel was awesome and so was she.

Stop press : Tejaswini Kolhapure is married to Pankaj Saraswat! Awesome Pankaj da!