With Raksha Bandhan, Akshay Kumar is forgiven for his recent trespasses

There are three heroes in Raksha Bandhan : Akshay Kumar , Chandni Chowk and Gol Gappas.

Gol Gappas play a very important part in Aanand L Rai ’s Raksha Bandhan, as they do in this week’s other purported blockbuster Laal Singh Chaddha . In both, the hero loves gol gappas and hates the humdrum life that destiny has in store.

In the unmistakably sentimental and gloriously goofy Raksha Bandhan, Akshay Kumar plays Lala Kedarnath a gol-gappa seller in Chandni Chowk, Delhi, with four marriageable, and quite unmanageable, sisters. It is a plot that harks back to the golden era of Hindi cinema when Balraj Sahni in Raj Khosla ’s Do Raaste and Raakhee Gulzar in Anil Ganguly’s Tapasya, whittled down their energies into giving their siblings a good life.

Making a straightforward tearjerker about a self-effacing all-sacrificing guardian is relatively easy. What director Aanand Rai and his leading man Akshay Kumar have done in Raksha Bandhan is to tease open the family drama, bring out the very seriously funny aspects of the dowry system and upturn the genre on its head. All this without toppling over.

The end-result is a film that celebrates family ties and is unapologetic about tapping into the melodramatic elements in the joint-family arrangement. Yes, Raksha Bandhan is loud, the characters are constantly chattering about mundane matters, fretting over where the next meal or the groom for a marriageable sister/daughter would come from.

That’s the beauty of diving deep into the smalltown psyche: an endeavour that Anand Rai patented with Tanu Weds Manu . In his last film Zero for reasons unknown, he took off for the Outerspace. How wonderful to see him back on terra firma in this grounded fable of a father-like brother and his four sisters(Sahejmeen Kaur, Deepika Khanna, Sadia Khateeb, and Smrithi Srikanth).

And how reassuring to see Akshay Kumar back in form after two back-to-back projects ( Bachchan Paandey and Samrat Prithviraj )where he looked distinctly ill at ease, as if his clothes were sizes too tight. In Raksha Bandhan, Akshay Kumar is back doing what he knows best: playing the solicitous family man. His Lala Kedarnath is burdened with debts and the backbreaking responsibility of accruing enough dowry to marry off his sisters.

Initially, it seems surprising and a little disturbing that the progressive co-writers Kannika Dhillon and Himanshu Sharma have written a screenplay where the sisters are constantly body-shamed by their patriarchal brother, or that Bhumi Pednekar (who makes the best of her limited space) spends her lifetime waiting to marry the man whose sisters are his only concern.

Be warned: Raksha Bandhan is not a politically correct film. It doesn’t strive to be. Its aspirations are a little left from the South, somewhat off-centre. Aanand Rai’s film gives us a bird’s eye view of an India that doesn’t exist on Twitter or Instagram.It is a world where survival is the only daily target. Rai occupies that world with an emotionally abundant worldview. He gives his leading man the room to let his character fool around creating sibling goal-gappas while masking a genuinely serious concern for those at the grassroot level who are so economically challenged that any respite is a dream.

Akshay Kumar plunges into this world of daily heartbreak with a remarkably sincere performance. His laughter often aimed at himself, rings as true as his tears towards the end when he gives an emotionally naked performance as a broken man.

Raksha Bandhan is an old-fashioned high-pitched melodrama whose staying-power is sincerity. You may not approve of some of the decisions that the film’s hero Lala Kedarnath takes, and the film’s co-writers and director take on his behalf. But you have to agree that this world of daily despair exists. And the sooner we acknowledge it the better.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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