Kya Kehna!

LET’S ALL FALL IN LOVE

Today’s girls, most of them, are not like the girls of the good old days. They are not like the girls of old who took whatever their elders gave them, the traditions and values handed over to them by their elders and to their elders by their elders before them. Today’s girls (and their

number is growing) are going all out to break all those obstacles which come in the way of their beliefs, beliefs when it comes to anything, any problem that comes in the way of the way of life they want to live, they would love the girls of the future to live - in a world governed by traditions and values formed by them. Tips Films’ Kya Kehna is a story of one such girl, today’s girl, determined to stand by her beliefs and build a future, generations to come will be proud of.

These girls will be the hope for the future. That’s what director Kundan Shah wants to say in Kya Kehna in a style which is all his own, Kundan Shah’s style which made films like Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa and outstanding serials like the pioneers among TV serials, Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi, Nukkad, Manoranjan and Wagle Ki Duniya among others.

The story of the heroine of Kya Kehna! could be the story of any modern young girl today. A girl who wants to follow a path built and set by herself for other girls to walk on. She is the kind of girl who is determined to defy all the demands that asks her or even forces her to surrender to the norms and forms of the kind of society which refuses to change.

Priya (Preity Zinta) is a pretty lively young girl, the only daughter of her parents (Anupam Kher and Farida Jalal). She has three brothers. And then there is Ajay (Chandrachur Singh) who is her childhood friend but who grows up only to fall in love with Priya - madly. Ajay wants to marry Priya but Priya is lost in a world of her own, a world of beautiful dreams and glorious feelings, blissfully unaware of Ajay’s love bordering on adoration.

Priya goes to college. She makes new friends but she is totally enamoured, bowled over by Rahul (Saif Ali Khan). He is well-known as the Casanova of the college. Flirting with girls is the only subject he specialises in, the only periods he attends more regularly than the more studious students. He sees Priya, falls for her, charms her and even chases her in her dreams. Her family, her friends, even her rivals warn her. They ask her to keep away from him if she has some respect for herself and feelings for her highly respectable family. Her love for Mr Casanova makes her grow deaf, blind and even foolish. She refuses to listen to anyone. She gives her senses a grand holiday and surrenders to every sense of Mr Casanova. And then comes the crisis in her life, a crisis she has to face and fight all on her own. This crisis can shatter her own world. It can destroy the reputation of her respectable family.

Priya stands at the crossroads first, then on a cliff and finally on the brink. The girl who was the darling of everyone all around is now left alone defenceless to fight the most diabolic designs of a society which is seeped in hypocrisy. But there is hope. There is one man who can still give her back all that she is losing little by little, making her life "little", small. There is Rahul but to her shock Rahul too turns her down. What will Priya do now? How will she live in a world which is all against her?

Priya, however, is made of sterner stuff, the kind of girl tomorrow is going to be proud of. She plans to fight back on her own, all on the strength of her own beliefs. Will this little girl succeed against a whole wide wild world waiting to pounce on her? She will, she says and knows how. How she goes about her fight, how her self-made beliefs help her battle all the battles in her way is what Kya Kehna! is all about. "It’s a message movie but even the best message movie entertains. And the best entertaining movies give a message - they fill you with exhilaration and make life worth living", says Kundan .

The film is based on a story and screenplay by Honey Irani and has dialogue by Ranjeet Kapoor (brother of the actor Anu Kapoor). Lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri, music by Rajesh Roshan and cinematography by Rajesh Joshi are other credits.

Clearly, a film for today, for boys, for girls, for families, for society, for the country and the world in the millennium to come.

Ali Peter John