‘Bawaal’ Makes No Sense, But is Earnest in Delivering a History Lesson

Bawaal

Cast: Varun Dhawan, Janhvi Kapoor, Manoj Pahwa, Anjuman Saxena, Gunjan Joshi, Mukesh Tiwari, Arnob Khan Akib

Direction: Nitesh Tiwari

Rating: *1/2

Streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Sometime in the early 2000s, I was traveling to Istanbul and was sitting at a restaurant, eating and smoking. An American couple sitting behind me muttered something to the effect that the smoke was bothering them.  

Smoking was allowed at the restaurant, but if frowned upon, normally I’d be sheepish and either stub the cigarette out or go outside. 

But that was the time when America was bombarding Iraq and I had no time for America or Americans. So I turned around and growled in earnest, “When you stop bombarding other countries, I’ll stop smoking.”

I am mildly embarrassed and amused by my idiotic comeback, but am not repentant. Because sometimes even if something is said out of context, it feels right.

And so it is with Bawaal, written by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and directed by her husband, Nitesh Tiwari.  

Bawaal’s plot is terribly contrived and pretentious. In fact, it feels like the duo took two completely different films, pulled out bits and with those disjointed scenes made a third film. And by different I really do mean different — one is a film about the Holocaust, the other a dull Bollywood melodrama about a newly married couple.

The end result is a film whose agenda is split between using the horrible, bloody events of World War II to deliver humanitarian lessons and using those very events to dole out silly marital advice. 

I was either bored by its stupidity or offended by it. Yet somewhere behind its fabricated plot, I sensed a childish attempt to comment on the importance of studying history and learning from the mistakes of megalomaniacal leaders who caused the deaths of millions. And though in the context of Bawaal it made no sense, it felt good.

Bawaal (Commotion) opens with a cute-wala voiceover that introduces us to Ajay Dixit urf Ajju (Varun Dhawan), a history teacher in Lucknow who is a full-time wannabe.

The only son of the middle class parivaar, Ajju wanted to be someone important. But since he couldn’t, he’s been living a life created out of lies about how he could have joined NASA, become a collector, an Army officer and other such. 

Ajju is neither interested in teaching nor in history, and yet he gets by because, as he later explains to his friend (played very nicely by Arnob Khan Akib), “Mahol aisa banao ke logon ko mahol yaad rahe, result nahin”.

Bawaal takes its time to introduce us to Nisha (Janhvi Kapoor), Ajju’s wife. Before their marriage, Nisha told Ajju about her medical condition — epilepsy since childhood — and at that time, he seemed okay with it. But after marriage he decided that she doesn’t quite fit the image of the wife he wanted. So he barely talks to her, they sleep separately and when she tries to ask him what the problem is, he talks about her “vibrating pose.”

Ajju is that typical creepy guy who puts on the act of being nice and decent. Nisha, on the other hand, is a bright young woman whose mother suggests the option of divorce instead of being stuck in a loveless marriage. But Nisha, for some reason, wants to make the marriage work.

All is going aise hi, latakte-bhatakte, when Ajju one day loses his temper in class and slaps a student who mocks him for not knowing the answer to a question about the Holocaust. That kid turns out to be the son of an MLA. The MLA, it turns out, has a lot of clout and gets Ajju suspended.

While a disciplinary committee is deciding his fate, Ajju decides that to save his job and salvage his image, he will travel to Europe, specifically to cities connected to Hitler, World War II and the genocide of Jews, and from there he will deliver history lectures via video to his students.

So Ajju and Nisha pack their bags and set off. En route they meet a Gujarati tourist gang that is playing passing-the-parcel on flight — moving boxes of khakra, dhokla, etc — with Ajju’s help. I don’t know how, but this leads to a mix-up of check-in baggage and Ajju is stuck with embroidered shirts and crotch-irritating jeans. This, in case you are wondering, is the film’s comic track.

As they begin their tour of Paris, Normandy, Amsterdam, Berlin and Auschwitz, Ajju shares gyaan with his students about the perils of war and lying leaders like Hitler who misled an entire country and killed millions. But on each city tour, either Ajju or Nisha have an epiphany and there is a shift in their relationship. Almost all of these don’t make any sense. For example, after they visit Anne Frank’s house, they end up realizing that we all desire too many material things, which we should not. I was still processing this mind-boggling lesson, when they enter the gas chamber in Auschwitz and the film turns it into a mele-mein-meri-biwi-kho-gayi moment to arouse some concern in Ajju.

Bawaal is a boring, badly made film, which is unexpected because Nitesh Tiwari wrote and directed Dangal, and Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari made Bareilly Ki Barfi.

Yet, the purpose of their collaboration, Bawaal, is so scattered between trying to save a shaadi and saving humankind that the film ends up turning one of the violent chapters of history into that most insufferable thing — a couples’ therapy session being conducted by an eager uncleji.   

And yet, as I said, somewhere between all its cringy stupidity and offensive, low-IQ reduction of one of the most tragic events lies its earnestness to share the conclusion it draws from Hitler’s life and his place of death where an ordinary car park was made — that at the end, people will remember your truth, not the lies you told them. 

I suspect that the Gujarati comic track and theplas are meant to balance out the subtle hints the film was throwing.

Bawaal is made somewhat bearable by its fine ensemble of actors, especially Manoj Pahwa and Anjuman Saxena.  

Janhvi Kapoor is not bad either. A very intelligent actress, she can usually work with very little. But here, her character is saddled with low self-esteem. Her Nisha is so grateful that a man has accepted her despite her medical condition that she accepts his crassness and constant humiliation. When a character is written like this, there’s not much an actor can do. Yet, Janhvi gives Nisha some dignity and substance.     

By now I have learnt one lesson, that with Varun Dhawan you always get both — Varun Dhawan himself and the character he is playing. In Bawaal, his accent is that of a Bambaiya lukkha and his acting ebbs and flows. Mostly he keeps doing his usual Varun Dhawan-giri, and in between he sometimes plays the character Ajju. The problem is we get both of them at the wrong time.