DIRECTOR: Samir Karnik
Hero worship can do strange things to people, both to the worshipper, as well as to the idol. Nanhe Jaisalmer has a fairly unusual subject for a Bollywood project. But the film falls way below expectations. And that’s got to do with a banal script and direction.
Ten-year-old Nanhe, a little boy who lives in Jaisalmer, thinks that the sun rises and sets with Bobby Deol. The day he discovers that the filmstar is coming to his town for a shooting schedule, he is besides himself with joy. On other days, Nanhe charms firang tourists by speaking in tongues and taking them on safaris, but on this day, he races back home, where he lives with his loving mother and sister, all agog. His dost aka Bobby is coming, and even if he hasn’t replied to even one of the hundreds of blue inlands he’s been mailed, Nanhe just knows that his pal will seek him out.
First-time young actor Dwij Yadav is a find. He plays his part to the hilt, and conveys feelings through his expressive eyes. One can’t say the same for Bobby, though. In the first place, for Bobby to be chosen over the more popular stars, even in a film, and even if he is the producer, is a bit of a stretch : whatever happened to SRK, and Hrithik? And then director Karnik, whose second feature this is, after Kyon, Ho Gaya Naa, doesn’t really present with him with any discernible difference.
Nanhe Jaisalmer could have been a heartwarming parable, underpinned by real concerns: the film does raise the issue of the importance of education (Nanhe may be able to say ‘bon jour’, and he may be savvy enough to attract tourists, but he is illiterate), but entire repetitive sequences of night classes where Nanhe and his older anpadh pals are made to sit and learn the ka, kha ga are tedious.
Sorry Samir, phir se nahin hua.
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