Painter & non-resident Indian in England Nitin Chandra Ganatra is devastated because his
girlfriend left him when he didn't want ot make a commitment & marry
her. But living up to his motto - "People handle breaking up in
different ways ... Me ? I cope by getting laid" - he soon has a
series of meaningless sexual encounters, leading his friends to challenge him to
become a guru - which in this context means to shag 7 different women in
7 days. Very soon though things get out of hand when his parents - still
rooted in Indian tradition - want to marry him of into a good family, a
local godfather has placed a wager on him becoming the guru, he
shags the fiancee of a friend while drunk at a party, his exhibition at
an art-gallery does not prove to be the expected success, & at the worst
possible moment, his ex, who he wanted back really badly, does indeed come back
...
A clever & highly entertaining comedy about a non resident Indian in England,
who does seem to be, in intellectual- & art-circles, the token
exotic,
even though (as the ending reveals) he does feel as
alienated (or more so) in Mother India as in England ("I went through my George
Harrison-phase", Nitin Chandra Ganatra comments on his journey to
India) & his cultural experiences are at least as rooted in the Western as in the
Eastern culture (the painter who influenced him the most is Rembrandt,
for example). If this sounds overly intellectual now, rest assured, the
film does work as a perfectly funny & light (but not supid) comedy -
after all, it is about a man who has to shag 7 women in 7 days ! |