Maanvi’s apparent affluence removes money as one of the biggest obstacles for people who have to undergo numerous and complex surgeries. Unlike Hitesh Kewalya’s Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (2020), in which Ayushmann Khurrana and Jitendra Kumar played a gay couple, Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui takes some convenient short-cuts on its road to subversion.
While Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui seeks to normalise Manu’s crisis – one of his big fights with Maanvi takes place in the children’s section of a mall – the 117-minute movie also soft-pedals some of the important challenges faced by people who want to transition. Except for a latter section that drags on longer than it should, Abhishek Kapoor deftly and smoothly rolls out the miracles that love makes possible. The social messaging is urgent but rarely preachy. Play Kheench Te Nach, Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui (2021). Firm on her choices and comfortable in her skin, Maanvi deflects Manu’s rage with calm and dignity. Manu predictably reacts with disgust and refuses to accept Maanvi on her own terms. Kapoor and screenwriters Supratik Sen and Tushar Paranjape simplify the complexities of transgender identity to the extent that is possible in a movie of this nature.
The clash between orthodoxy and free will is based on a story idea by Simran Sahni. The decision to use a bankable non-trans actor to play a trans woman is presumably part of the conceit. Using the devices of the average mainstream Hindi movie – soft-focus glamour, choreographed songs, a loud and quirky family, situational humour – the movie comes out in support of people who dare to break out of the boxes into which they have been trapped since birth.
This is a massive update on the Hindi films of yore, in which heroines would conceal their pasts (an old boyfriend, a forced marriage) minutes before the interval.Ībhishek Kapoor’s Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui is a thoughtful and often carefully plotted exploration of prejudice against assigned gender identity. It’s balle-balle all the way until Maanvi throws a googly: she is a trans woman. The sex is good, even better than normal, Manu says (whatever that means). Gym owner and bodybuilder Manu (Ayushmann Khurrana) and Zumba trainer Maanvi (Vaani Kapoor) are a match made in heaven. It’s an apt moment for revelation in a movie that revolves around bodily transformation. Chinese Army has abducted a 17-year-old from Indian territory, claims BJP MPĪs she tells him what many of us have already guessed, he stands before her bare-chested, his brawniness on partial display.Caught on camera: BJP MLA Vikram Singh Saini chased away by villagers in his UP constituency.Watch: Daniil Medvedev takes aim at Australian Open crowd after beating Nick Kyrgios.