Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha

With Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha, Neeraj Pandey ventures into the emotional tapestry of a doomed love story built on the foundations of sacrifice. Sadly, the film’s moth-eaten, dated treatment never quite comes cohesively together and fails to emotionally resonate with us or make us care about the plight of the star-crossed lovers. Even as it explores the theme of seeking love as a universal human experience, Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha never manages to translate this effectively onto the screen.

Krishna (Ajay Devgn) is a prisoner in Mumbai’s Arthur Road Jail sentenced to twenty-five years of imprisonment for two murders. Due to his good behaviour, his tenure in jail gets reduced by two years but surprisingly, he does not want to leave the premises of the prison and re-enter the outer world. Through flashback, it is revealed that twenty-two years ago, in 2001, the young Krishna (Shantanu Maheshwari) used to reside in a chawl where he fell in love with his young neighbour, Vasudha (Saiee Manjrekar). Both of them dream of having a happy life with one another. But one unfortunate night, a heinous incident occurs involving Vasudha, the result of which had Krishna bear the brunt. Once Krishna is released from prison, Vasudha (Tabu) meets him and takes him to her home to meet with her husband Abhijeet (Jimmy Sheirgill)…

In Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha, Pandey’s very concept appears passé. It doesn’t help that he goes around in circles with trite tropes and emotional flat scenes that give actors like Devgn and Tabu no chance to rise above the muddle. There’s an excessive amount of soapy dialogue, and much of it is mundane. The film does make us initially curious as we wonder why Krishna does not want to leave the prison at the beginning of the film. But as the narrative unfolds through flashbacks, it stretches a thin, prosaic storyline with an underdeveloped screenplay that never seems to have progressed beyond its first draft. While there appears a delicate quality to Krishna and Vasudha’s relationship, one feels it got lost in translation from paper to screen. In fact, the film’s biggest shortcoming is the depiction of the developing  love story between the young Krishna and Vasudha. The love story never has any intense moments that make us root for them. Hence, it never takes flight or stirs things up. Even later, as the adult Krishna and Vasudha meet each other after two decades, their pain and longing rely much too heavily on verbosity telling us rather than us feeling what they are going through.

One senses a lost chance to give the film some depth with the characterization of Vasudha’s husband, Abhijit. While thankfully the film does not follow the well-worn trope of him being the villain standing between fated lovers, the character does not add much-needed complexity to the story. Similarly, the gangster, Mahesh Desai (Sayaji Shinde), seems forcefully thrust into the narrative rather than being included organically. The three young characters – Krishna, Vasudha, and Jignesh – are played by different actors in their adult roles but the antagonist Pakya is portrayed by the same actor, Hardik Soni, in both his young and adult versions adding to the inconsistency of the film. To make things worse, the action scene between him and Krishna in the jail compound is so unimpressive that it almost looks like a rehearsal scene rather than a final take.

Ajay Devgn embraces the overly melodramatic tone of the film and to his credit, he does make us empathize with the adult Krishna. Tabu compliments him well, using her eyes to great effect in communicating her character’s inner turmoil. As for their younger avatars, Shantanu Maheshwari handles himself nicely making us eager to see him in more films but Saiee Manjrekar gets defeated by the impassiveness of her character.  A fine actor, Jimmy Sheirgill does not get much opportunity to stretch his acting muscles while Jay Upadhyay, as the adult Jignesh, is effective as a helpful character who brings the film’s only genuine comic moment by playing the song Jeeta Tha Jiske Liye from Devgn’s earlier film Dilwale (1994) to comfort the downhearted Krishna.

Sudheer Palsane’s camerawork lifts the film a notch. The cinematography exhibits a suitable kinetic energy while capturing the exuberance of youth and gives the characters their space to breathe as well when they have their moments of contemplation. The editing by Praveen Kathikuloth shifts effectively between the various timelines of the film but fails to save the film from its narrative drag. The overpowering background score MM Keeravani (MM Kreem) is more rousing than emotional while the songs make no special impact in the film.

Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha is a tiring effort that never reaches anywhere near the heights of Pandey’s earlier films. It attempts to capitalize on the nostalgia factor of the Devgn-Tabu duo but suffers from a lack of cohesive story or purpose. Bogged down by excessive verbiage and a lack of substance, the film underscores that this is simply not the filmmaker’s genre.

Hindi, Drama, Color