Kabir Singh, the movie. A review by a doctor couple.

Kabir Singh, the movie.

Would you be reaching home a little early on this weekend, begged my wife? We are a doctor couple working at more than a hundred kilometers apart. Life passed on, children grew up and are working away from home. My weekend starts on Thursday evening after a continuous thirty-six hours of rigorous work and ends on Saturday morning. On Friday too, I routinely travel a long distance and return late at night. 
Yes, I should, I told with uncertainty. I will give you company to meet 'Kabir Singh' in Inox Cuttack. Interestingly, Thursday is her out-patient duty day in Medicine department, and she too does Emergency duty after that.  We are not young residents; she was begging me this much of time on the day she turned fifty-two.
She arranged a colleague to manage her absence period.
So a tired doctor couple, tired on the day and tired in life are meeting a doctor couple on screen, to compare real and reel life.
On the day before, she discussed with Professor Bidyut Dash who suddenly remembered that he had to visit Kabir, with his doctor wife, Professor Reena Tripathy.
Sir, we are seeing it tomorrow, told my wife.
But, that is an adult movie, he murmured spontaneously!! Of course, he corrected himself, who is a kid here.
When we were about to move, my elder son called her from Bangalore.
We are visiting the movie, but that is an adult movie she uttered.

“Ha ha mom, am I a kid? Anyway, that is great to know you both are finding time for a movie.”
Children and students never are adults. He was blessed to us when we got our Medical registration number.
Last time we viewed a movie together was "Bahubali one", pretty long back.
I usually liked a movie chiefly basing on the story and direction. Other parameters the songs, dance, action and drama were remote secondary to my senses.
But "Hum Apek Hai Kon" changed my perception. A drama without a perfect story could be so entertaining!
Kabir Singh's storyline is too ordinary a formula that can be scripted by any author. A typical Indian Hero who made the campus his own space of anger and rampage happened to be the most brilliant student who topped the academics and extracurricular activities too. He had close friends who only followed him, not in the other way. A damsel came to his heart. He executed his love, keeping the whole campus under threat. The young woman fell (jabardasti) in love just like a medieval villain like prince picked up anyone to consume on the bed.
Both side parents are rich. The girl's parents are ferocious. A caste issue is to be there. The man moved on professionally; the woman is a junior. The marriage did not happen. The man turned to Alcohol and drugs. His surgeries were the best under the influence of these toxins. His friend kept on taking care. He tried other women just in an attempt if they worked. Neither drugs nor women were of help as the scar is deeper inside, in the heart and soul. He called her dog with the same name as the heroine. He had a powerful grandmother whose blessings had to come true at the end. Mismanagement and time lags spoiled the relationship with no fault of either except the anger part of the hero. He was driven out from home. A typical modern elder brother failed to bring him back to home. Another woman, a heroine, became his patient and got ready to be physical. They went to execution that did not happen (Dadimaki duase). A professional accident had to happen in the OT. Kabir did not save himself with tutored false statements. He wanted to uphold the truth. The court convicted him cancelling his license. Grandmother's death played emotions, and he returned home. He got addicted and de-addicted with ease as if an off and on switch worked. Went on a vacation, everything appeared to regain normalcy except his anger.

Reaching a professional high and low happened in a Guineas book of world record time of fewer than nine months when his ex-girlfriend now married to someone else actually carried Kabir's baby in the womb. And the husband is never seen. He brought her back home. A perfect positive ending with a family celebration happened to make the viewer happily returning from the Inox.
As a creative writer, I would not have written this absurd script at the earliest phase even. So, the film betrayed me on my first line test of a movie, whether the story is good.

People say this to be a misogynist cinema although it starts with a still photograph showing woman happily on top. There ends everything a woman if can be a little happy about the film. The director has used women just like it has used cigarette, alcohol or drugs. Man has the choice to consume alcohol, not the vice versa, although, in reality, man gets consumed by alcohol, cigarette and drugs. Here the man Kabir is consumed by all these and by a woman named Pritee. When a woman is so powerful to influence a man, can it be called misogynistic? Yes still then we can say so as the woman they portrayed like nothing more than an addiction to Kabir.
Pritee falling in love is far away from reality. Threatening, violence, and force can never generate love in the mind of any woman leave aside a Punjabi Kudi who should fire such a man. But all abnormal types of a love affair can happen in Indian cinema.
The violence scenes all looked out of proportion. The anger sequences in the football field or around the Holi celebration looked far and far away from reality as if the director said meri marzee.
The classroom scenes are extensions of mindless presentations. Changes had happened in Indian classrooms but not to this abnormal extent where the teacher is a mere spectator and facilitator of indiscipline of any extent. On this count, the cinema is too irritating for an Indian student or a teacher.
Someone coming to the class, threatening all students, bringing his girl to the front row at the cost of another girl sitting there, taking the girl out of the class regularly; all these looked as nonstop nonsense.
Kabir's approach not only to Pritee but also to every other woman, say it the maid or the actress is too far from natural. Both of these two women are there in the cinema as item characters. The maid was for a low-class comedy and the actress for the joke of a physical relationship in the name of help. Is not it a stupid imagination?
A friend was there to help Kabir all the time unilaterally. Kabir did not get a chance to help him, which did not look good.
The ragging scenes in the college are shows of lawlessness, and there are no words or actions against these. They have shown ragging to be a routine without any harm. They should have shown the negative effects. 
The Cinema is about a medical couple. Study of medicine is one of the most rigorous ones. But they made it so easy. You do a lot of fun and violence and get degrees!
In any cinema, the courtroom and the hospital scenes keep a lot of flaws. An advocate or a doctor usually laugh at these mistakes. Here the director did not bother to make these scenes flawless. The surgeon’s hand washing to OT dress sequences, hand and body posture and all other scenes looked far away from actual. How can a surgeon tie his mask after wearing everything, including the gloves? We are not in a habit to take help to tie the mask. It is an example only. Every such scene looked too abnormal.
There is a dog, a passive one. It is there just to be named after the heroine. Usually, dogs are characters in cinemas, but here it is a mere pet without any personality.
Long back in the eighties of last century too medical campuses were a little more permissive than others. Women relatives, known patient’s attendants, a girlfriend did enter the boys’ hostel. Bringing a woman in the night was also not zero. In places like Delhi, there were hostels where both the sexes stayed together once they were professionals.

That is not a big issue. But men did not enter into the women's hostel. Only on Saraswati puja and Ganesh puja, there was some limited access, in Odisha. In other days visitor room was the only place to visit. I don't think even on today the security factor is so overtly changed. In the film, women's hostel has zero security. Women allowed to stay in men's hostel permanently is flimsy only.
They made the Cinema in a predominantly Punjabi student’s population. Is it a license to smoking, alcohol and drugs? Of course, the medical campuses were not free from these maladies three decades back. We were staying with a few drug addicts. The cigarette was in a decreasing trend. Now alcohol intake has increased, and smoking is almost nonexistent if not absent.
To make the story perfect if they used alcohol, tobacco and drugs, then the society should not mind as a cinema is not a moral discourse. But in this film, the use of these items looked too abnormal. The chain-smoking looked artificial. A medical student to excel with all these habits has no chance. Girls won't be as comfortable with these boys, as shown in the cinema. The campus of today is not as addicted as the cinema presented, which looked disgusting. Yeah, had it been in a casino or a brothel it would not be looking abnormal.
Alcohol intake and smoking were always there with a sense of guilt. A student to have premarital sex was a taboo if not nonexistent. The foreign authored novels keeping lovemaking as a mandatory sequence looked foreign to Indian students. Popular Indian authors of Chetan Bhagat generation presented the changing mores of society. Another way speaking, these novels melted all inhibitions and formalised these forbidden things.
But this movie almost normalised all such things, including drugs. Although there is a statutory warning at the beginning, in reality, the cinema looked like nothing but an advertisement for alcohol, cigarette and drugs even.
The horizon of vulgarity became broader. An adolescent Rishi Kapoor seeing the woman undressing in Mera Nam Joker looked vulgar then but now it is a scene to depict growing up. Mandakini’s breastfeeding looked vulgar then; now, it is a social message. Salman Khan baring his chest and passing flatus on screen looked too abnormal at a time, which became common after that. And what is the purpose of this movie to add to the list?
We know the way we talked to our parents and the way our children did are different. So Kabir explaining his private space to the earlier generation or Pritee saying her physical relation in front of her elders did not look that abnormal. However, they looked abnormal, as if the director just wanted to keep these dialogues artificially.
The film took vulgarity to a new level by showing Kabir under drugs peeing or ejaculating within trousers in slow motion. Also, his putting ice inside the brief or using some machine there looked vulgar.
To be addicted is fun, but to be de-addicted is a rigorous medical process. The film did not give that message. It showed as if being addicted and being de-addicted are equally easy that looked too dangerous. There is every chance; the film can encourage young men to be in contraband products.
There is a possibility that the alcohol, tobacco and drugs lobby promoted the film. It is their ad-film.
Of course, the Enfield Bullet advertisement looked very appealing, and the company owes to the producer.
But the Cinema is going to be a big hit for two reasons. One is the controversy around its misogyny and other points described above. The second one is the clinical acting of Sahid Kapoor.
Did we like the film? That the reader may judge from the discussion but one thing is sure if amended to rationality the story of an angry man and an understanding woman is nothing but the story of the doctor couple who were viewing the Cinema together. Yes, we unanimously identified with Kabir and Pritee.