Cheeni Kum

Older men marrying younger women happens all the time ,we see it in countries like India because of poverty or by customs at least in our villages still ,rich arabs marrying nubile girls from Kerala and Hyderabad was in the news sometime back ,out in the west rich old men are great catches and svelte models would marry them for thier money and wait for the inevitable to happen to land thier millions !

But here in cheeni kum we have a sixty four year old Amitabh Bhachan wooing a petite Tabu half his age and strangely suceeding in his quest

( look guys dont fret and fume that is Amitabh Bhachan )

One has to accept that the big B at this age with a swinging pony tail would give a run to many younger stars because he carries himself with such aplomb and style ,that man is incomparable .

He finally manages to woo Tabu from his Indian restaurant in London where he is also the master chef and a good one at that ,

(now you know where the cheeni bit came to director Balakrishnan .)

Bachan lives in the city of the stiff upperlips with a boisterous mother played brilliantly by Zohra Sehgal and an eight year old precocious little girl suffering from leukaemia whom he loves dearly .

he follows Tabu to Delhi to meet her dad paresh rawal to ask for his daughters hand .

this is where the fun begins ,paresh a firespitting Gandhian and a fanatic cricket fan initially unsuspectingly is friendly to this man from london and a friend of his daughter not knowing his motives but is horrified when he comes to know this man who was four years older than himself would dare to ask his daughters hand !

He withdraws into a shell and when tabu insists she too loves the old man he uses Gandhian tactics and goes into a fast unto death holding his daughters arms tightly to himself .

The fasting scene is made to resemble to that in the movie Gandhi with a crowd outside waiting with bated breath for the result and AB by this time joined by his mother reaches there and walks in with some gangajaal to break the fast ,paresh doesnt budge and AB gives him a bit of his mind and finally diagnoses jealousy as the cause for his stubborness and moves away from there .

by now he gets news that his beloved little one in London has died and is heartbroken and the scene ends with Tabu comforting him after getting permission from her dad for the marriage .

The last scene is where AB give a dinner to his mother ,Tabu and his F in law (who by now has grudgingly accepted the budda as his son in law )in his posh rstaurant in London ,

cricket does the trick of breaking the ice as paresh opens his eyes on mention of the oval and a match the next day .

Music by ilayaraja though hashed tunes from his other movies is eminiently listenable

A reasonably watchable movie .