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Chaman Bahaar — degeneracy and sexual harassment packaged as a small-town love story
Netflix released another Indian indie-flick last Friday, starring Jitendra Kumar. It was promptly displayed on the Netflix homepage and was trending at #1 in India.
The very first feeling that the preview of the movie evoked was that of a rustic love story. Jitendra has slowly evolved into a charismatic character actor with the uncanny gift to perfectly imbibe and bring out the unadulterated charm of rural India. Having recently finished Panchayat (a series chronicling the life of an MBA-aspirant who couldn’t clear the competitive CAT and decides to take up a job as the Panchayat secretary at a remote village in Uttar Pradesh), and having loved almost all of his earlier works, including Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (which didn’t really have a lot of substance but did highlight the very crucial issue of same-sex relationships in India), and Kota Factory (which was just perfect), I couldn’t resist giving Chaman Bahar a try.
But I wish I hadn’t.
Under the garb of another feel-good movie that is far removed from the formulaic, templatized Bollywood “chartbusters”, Chaman Bahar is just another B’wood flick, romanticizing sexual harassment and unrequited love stories of Indian “Romeos” where the girl is nothing more than a trophy, an achievement, a catch.
