Lagaa Chunri Mein Daag - A Journey of a Woman

I have always loved Manna Dey's rendition of "Lagaa Chunri Mein Daag" in the movie, Dil hi to hai. The title track of Pradeep Sarkar's directorial venture, "Lagaa Chunri Mein Daag" has Shubha Mudgal crooning the song, interspersed with Mita Vashisht's poetry, "Manva mein mere toofan uthe madmast khadi hoon main". The choreography of the song is the high point of the movie.

How many times have we come across the same plot in Hindi movies: poor village girl coming to big city, not finding any work, getting hounded by big city wolves, resorting to prostitution? And Pradeep Sarkar chooses the same plotline albeit some modern touches. The usual kotha is replaced by fancy hotels and high rise buildings. Rani Mukherjee becomes a high class call girl, hob nobbing with the rich and the famous. Till Rani's transformation into a call girl the movie is quite watchable. But then it goes downhill. In his zeal to be politically correct, Sarkar has gone overboard trying to show the characters as modern and broadminded. Abhishek and Konkona as the love interest and the younger sister respectively have very little depth. The fun part of the movie is the chemistry between Kunal Kapoor and Konkona. The only believable character was Jaya Bacchan as Rani's mother.

Pradeep Sarkar had a brilliant cast but he chose to play it safe. This is film that could have been one of the landmarks of great cinema but ended up as a confused venture....neither hardhitting enough to appeal to the intelligentsia (or the arty type) nor commercial enough to appeal to the masses.