Nothing works in Indian households until certain compromises are made. “Ghich Pich,” by debutant director Ankur Singla, is essentially a coming-of-age film about three teenagers in tempestuous relationships with their fathers. However, it can also be seen as a very personal look at the small adjustments that need to be made in order to bridge the generation gap.
Set in a pre-smart phone era – a visible 90s Chandigarh where Chandruchur Singh and Sonali Bendre were all the craze, the camera opens in a chaotic classroom and introduces us to the three best friends Gaurav (Shhivam Kakar), Anurag (Aryan Singh Rana), and Gurpreet Singh (Kabir Nanda). The kids are neither from the popular bunch at school, nor do they belong to the ones that nerd out every chance they get. In a way, they are the in-betweeners, whose only aspiration is to keep their parents, but particularly their fathers, happy.
Director Singla offers each one of them a very strong conflict that feels organic to their personalities, and to the overall progression of the film’s overarching arc. Gaurav, who runs a local optical shop with his father, is suddenly thrust into the realization that his father, Rakesh (played by the late Nitesh Pandey), is gay. Anurag’s father, Naresh (Satyajit Sharma), is an overbearing and superstrict father who wants his son to step out of the orbit of mediocrity and do something that allows him to take the leap. And Gurpreet’s father, Lakhpal (Nishan Cheema), is someone who feels so indebted to traditional Sikh values that he wouldn’t want his son to go against them by getting his hair cut.
All the while dealing with the anxieties of being a teenager, trying to build a personality that is both known and respected, but also very close to their own. Of course, getting the first taste of love (or in some cases infatuation), fighting the fight to be yourself, are an integral part of the narrative, but the film is aware that these can’t be the major conflicts that drive the film forward. Additionally, the conflicts are not the only thing that Singla puts at stake. He also allows you to be swept up into a nostalgic throwback. It’s the kind that sticks and earns being called pieces of memories – served not just for the sake of bait, but to establish that there are far more pertinent things at play here.
The Viral Fever (TVF) has juiced the entire middle-class being middle-class bit to such an extent that anything else that is thrown on the screen to replicate a time always feels like it’s being shoe-horned for you. Singla basically filters out the preachiness of the nostalgia to offer you a time capsule that might as well be the present time. What it does for “Ghich Pich” is allow it to exist beyond the time it wants to represent. I feel, achieving this finesse is one of the strongest pursuits that the film takes, making these people feel too close to home and their conflicting personalities all too personal to just forge it as ‘been-there done that.’
Apart from the mostly one-dimensional female characters and an ending that feels rushed despite all the build-up, the incredible line-up of young and veteran performers also helps build a steady moment, making this rather simplistic ‘slice-of-life’ family drama memorable. The late Nitesh Pandey shows great range playing a gay man living his most vulnerable moments in complete seclusion while putting up a brave lie to sustain in the society at large. However, the standout for me was Satyajit Sharma, whose fierce, disappointed eyes evoke the same sense of fear that Ronit Roy did in me back when “Udaan” came out. Although these characters are not as complex as Vikramaditya Motwane’s masterful film, the three kids feel like fully developed humans instead of just stick figures. All of this helps build a nostalgia-dipped slice-of-life dramadey that is more about the push-and-pull for small adjustments in life than anything else. What really makes it stand out, though, is that sometimes those adjustments don’t fall through, and that’s alright too.
![Ajeeb Daastaans [2021] Geeli Pucchi Review: The Colors Missing In Our Rainbows](https://79468c92.delivery.rocketcdn.me/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Ajeeb-Daastaans-768x509.jpeg)
![Till Death [2021] Review – An insipid film devoid of any tension](https://79468c92.delivery.rocketcdn.me/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Till-Death-1-highonfilms-768x525.jpg)
