Kedar Katneshwarkar

Ramsing Charlie:- Director - Nitin Kakkar; Run time -- approx. 1 Hr 45 mins. Ramsing Charlie is story of a person who looses his job, and his strugle for the servival. Ramsing (Kumud Mishra) is an artist doing the performance as Charlie Chaplin in a circus, which is his bread and butter; and as such he is mostly referred as Charlie by all. His wife Kajri (Divya Dutta) is also an artist in the same circus. One fine day, all of a sudden, the children of the owner of the circus (Salima Raza) declare that due to the losses they are making by running this circus, they will no longer be able to run this circus and eventually they are closing down this circus. But as they are doing this all of a sudden, they offer the performers an advance payment of 3 months. Charlie is reluctant to take this payment as he still has some hope that the decision might have a chance to get reversed; but masterji convinces him and gives him the payment and says she thinks Charlie will start his own circus. And then the real circus for the Charlie and other members of the circus begin for survival. Many other members take up whatever job they could; but Ramsing is still looking for the role of joker to imitate Charlie, which no one is now interested. Eventually due to lack of money and struggle, he convinces the pregnant Kajri to go to their home town while he finds a job and settles. He tries to do several jobs, and in one such job he meets Shahjahan (Farrukh Seyer) who helps him with a place to live and do some other stuff as well. Eventually Ramsing starts pulling a rikshaw, and the artist and man in him starts taking the back seat due to the situation. Kajri when returns, finds a totally changed Ramsing and struggles to cope with it initially. What happens next? Can Ramsing start his circus? Can he imitate Charlie again his life? Does he meet his old circus mates any time? you get the answers in the movie. The movie is set as a narrative of Chintu (Charlie's son), and as such a flash back kind of movie; but there is no jumping between the present and past, that does not break the link which is a plus for this movie. You can sense that director knew what he wants to show and does not become melodramatic at any point of time, nor it tries to create a sympathy for the poor and their struggle for daily living. It is a plane struggle story which you can connect to considering that a man can do whatever he can for the survival and for his family. Which is a big plus for such kind of movies. You need not always be over melodramatic as normally most of the people are not like that. Though this is a short movie, you get a feeling of some stretch at times and another 5 - 10 mins of editing could have been possible. This is not a movie you can watch for time pass. Acting wise, Kumud Mishra and Divya Dutta both have done a fantastic job and rest all have chipped in properly without doing anything over. Kolkata is a delight to watch. Background score and songs are also apt, as mentioned nothing goes over in this movie and that is a big plus for this movie. Overall this is a movie that does justice to its content, knowing where to stop.