Aandhali Koshimbir (Marathi)/Comedy at its best

Cast: Ashok Saraf, Vandana Gupte, Aniket Vishwasrao, Anand Ingle, Priya Bapat, Hemant Dhome, Mrunmayee Deshpande, Hrishikesh Joshi, Akshay Tanksale, Shrikant Moghe and others.

By Sunil Nandgoankar

Comedy has always been the favourite genre in Marathi cinema. Be it slapstick comedy, situational or black comedy, they have all been tried and tested since years and have worked very well till date.
Aandhali Koshimbir perfectly fits into this genre of comedy. The entire cast including veterans Ashok Saraf and Vandana Gupte make the audience laugh. Aandhali Koshimbir in Marathi means ‘hide and seek’, a game played during childhood. In the film too, all the characters are playing hide and seek with each other. The lead character, Bapu Sadavarte (Ashok Saraf), is a higher middle class retired man. His passion in life is to quarrel with anyone at the slightest provocation. He has a son Ranga who is a good for nothing fellow. His neighbour, Shanti (Vandana Gupte) also loves to quarrel. She who lives with her daughter Radhika in lawyer Mr. Marne’s rented house. A man in his fifties, he is poetically inclined and tries to woo Shanti. Meanwhile, in order to extract money from Bapu, both Ranga and Vashya make a plan to instigate a fight between Shanti and Bapu. This leads to many hilarious situations and complications.
Mr. Marne is played by Anand Ingle. Aniket Vishwasrao, Mrunmayee Deshpande, Hemant Dhome and Priya Bapat have done a good job as Ranga, Radhika, Vashya and Manji respectively.
While the camera work, music, set designs, production and other technical details are good, the editing is sloppy. The length of the film could have been cut down. Although the plot offers nothing new , the film entertains largely and one gets to watch some good performances from all the main actors.