Chhalaang What A Leap For Hansal Mehta

Hansal Mehta’s films are anything but soft  and gentle. His  propensity for  harsh home  truths  is about to change.Chhalaang seems to be his breeziest  show to  date, slyly  romantic   slightly mushy,  fully benevolent.

 The  dark edges and the  sunless interiors  of Hansal’s  celebrated  bio-pics are  for now forgotten as we  meet  the smalltown  sports teacher  Rajkummar Rao who falls for  the  new ‘computer’ teacher played  by Nushrratt Bharuccha who looks lovely.

The hero is  indolent insolent work shirker  . The  heroine is sharp and  saucy.

 “Daru  pilayega?” she  challenges  our lazy sports teacher who when woken by his mother to attend to  his  educational duties as  a  sports teacher mumbles, “I don’t  want children  to spend their time in recreational activities. That’s why I’m bunking.”

 There is an outstanding array   of  supporting players all   pitching  towards  giving the  presentation a supple synergy, actors like Mohammed  Zeeshan Ayyub, Saurabh Shukla, SatishKaushik and  Ila Arun who  never fail to bring something special to the table. 

But it’s the  gentleness of the presentation  that caught  my attention in  the trailer.  From  Chhal  in  2002 …what a chhalaang  for Hansal Mehta.  He describes  it as  ‘Hansal 3: 0’.

Chhalaang  has  3  ‘a’s  in the titles,  the hero  Rajkummar Rao has 2 ‘m’s  in his name , and the  heroine  Nushrratt Bharuccha has 2 ‘r’s  2 ‘t’s  and 2 ‘c’s in her name. Surely that  must mean something.