A hurried climax and a sugarcane-juice-spiked ending of all the three love stories makes ’Teri Meri Kahani a perfect case of a novel premise, fine acting by the lead pair, engrossing dialogues-n-situations, crafty music score but the director is unable to wrap-up the film convincingly. Sunil Patel’s camerawork is praiseworthy for he captures the varied shades of the three eras (1910, 1960 and 2012) with just-the-right colour tone. Editor Amitabh Shukla incorporates the editing-chops as per the era that he is dealing with. Simple-yet-hip (sign of the Independent times) editing swipes in the 1960s, straightforward cuts in the 1910 era while stylish-n-exuberant cuts in the 2012 story. Let me talk about each era individually.
1910: Javed lusts after beautiful girls, charms them with his shayri and then he falls in love with the Punjabi kudi Aradhna. Javed is a riot. I saw the film in a single screen theatre and people freaked out as he flirtatiously doled out his theories on love, freedom movement and why the Angrez are good for India. The two songs of the era, ’Humse Pyaar Kar Ke Tu’ and ’Allah Jaane’ are the highpoints of the film. One wished that maybe Javed shouldn’t have fallen in love and continued with his philandering ways. He was so much more fun then ("Ma pe line maar raha hai ki beti par, " a friend says. You can imagine the fun such situations created).
1960: They eat jaamun in the train and he brings kachcha aam for her on the film set. Govind-Rukhsar’s love story has a classy ’nafasat’ (its an Urdu word and its translation would be ’sophisticated’). Govind says ’mujhe maaf kijiyega’ in the typical manner in which a Dev Anand or Shammi Kapoor would have said. They break into ’Jabse Mere Dil Ko Uff’ and it is apparent that Kunal Kohli loves this era for he has picturised the song as a wonderful homage to the likes of Shammi Kapoor, Joy Mukherji, Biswaji, Dev Anand, Asha Parekh, Mumtaz, Saadhna, Sharmila Tagore etc who exemplified the aao-twist-karein culture of the 60s. The detailed Art Direction of the era is commendable. Right from the trams to The Bombay Dyeing poster, the clothes, the hair styles, a close attention has been given in recreating the 60s era. Vrajesh Hirjee has a delightful cameo as a snoopy reporter. There’s a cute track between Prachi Desai and Shahid but sadly it isn’t developed properly.
2012: Now, this story is the weakest link. Krish and Radha are hell bent on exemplifying the yuppy age that is eager to change their relationship status. The facebook goof up and the ’purani jeans’ theory is not happening. Shahid does offer some fun moments in the bar when he holds the hand of a random girl and tells her about his break up stories. This story has two frothy-n-melodious songs in ’That’s All I Really Wanna Do’ and ’Muqtasar’.
As I said in the beginning, Kunal Kohli has tried something different but maybe he should have opted for a different trajectory for the way he would have wanted to wind up his film. In the recent times, films like ’Ek Main Aurr Ek Tu’ have surprised the audience with its unpredictable ending. The what-must-have-happened-thereafter feeling lingered on there.
’Teri Meri Kahani’ is not the ultimate love story but it is watchable for sure.