Producer: Kamal Kumar, Rajkumar and Ajit Kumar Barjatya

Director: Kaushik Ghatak

Writer: Ashapurna Devi,Shashi and Sumeet Mittal

Stars: Eesha Koppikhar, Sonu Sood, Alok Nath, Smita Jaykar, Vishal Malhotra

Creative Quotient:
Rajshri Productions reproduces another one of their past releases - Tapasya (‘76) - and their favourite topic of wedding comes up in another format yet again. Bhopal collegians Prem (Sonu Sood) and Chandni (Eesha Koppikhar) make it to the final rounds of a national singing competition and fall in love. Chandni’s father succumbs to a cardiac arrest on the eve of their engagement and now Chandni has to fend for her younger siblings as she drives her cunning chacha and chachi away and takes charge. She starts a music school at home and brings the siblings up while her suitor waits for both her brother and sister to grow up. All this while Prem has become a well-established singer with several hit albums to his credit. Strangely Chandni does not join him in his singing profession; she prefers toiling away and staying home with her siblings!

The film is replete with family drama and marriages galore - all of Prem and Chandni’s friends get married, as do Chandni’s brother and sister and finally the long-pining lovers also tie the knot. Sooraj Barjatya, credited with the conceptualising the project really, hasn’t resorted to any creative forces - he just re-runs his pet Vivah theme for the umpteenth time. The film should have been called Anek Vivaah...

Technical Expertise:
Tacky sets, jaded styling, ancient havelis and dated concept of fidelity - not much to start with really. Debutant director Kaushik Ghatak is further handicapped by lack of initiative and innovation. Sonu Sood and Eesha Koppikhar as collegians and eternal lovers are not convincing enough. The a la Pakeezah train song sequence, wherein the hero is inspired by the sleeping beauty of the heroine is simply ludicrous. The silent suffering heroine and the devoted suitor are saccharine sweet and unreal.

Considering the fact that the film is a musical with as many as a dozen songs and the lead pair being singers - Ravindra Jain’s music falls short by light years - it is intolerable.

Camera, editing and costume departments are completely incompetent. Rajshri, the revered makers of family films, are on an overdrive this time. They have got a rethink coming.

Verdict:
One Star for purveying Indian culture and values. Another for highlighting the brother-sister bond through the raksha bandhan sequence.