A crackling house in perfect order

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If China breeds Tiger Moms, then India has, for centuries, fed, raised and done peri-pauna to Babbar Sher Dads. And it is at the NRI Babbar Sher Dads that Nikhil Advani’s delightful yorker, Patiala House, is aimed at.

Patiala House begins at dusk, in a community playground in Southall, London. A grownup man jumps in through a gap in the wire mesh, plants a wicket and bowls. His voiceover explains that he, Parghat Singh Kahlon aka Gattu (Akshay Kumar), was once 17 and destined to be a star of the English national cricket team. But that wasn’t to be because his Bauji, Gurtej Kahlon (Rishi Kapoor), suffered racist abuse and lost his friend Sahni (Prem Chopra) to murderous skinheads. Since then Bauji took it upon himself to shout at and challenge the goras to demand what was due to him and his community. He became the lone sentry guarding Southall Punjabis from the Englishman. He got gurdwaras and hospitals constructed, made sure all men were gainfully employed and all girls married off within the community.
So when Gattu was invited to play for England, Bauji said, “Over my dead body”. Bauji had compromised once — when little Gattu had cut his hair to blend in. Not again. Many things changed that fateful day — Mrs Kahlon (Dimple Kapadia) learnt to keep quiet and promising paceman Gattu turned into a hunched shadow.
It’s the present now -- the world has changed, Bauji hasn't. His constant confrontations with the authorities lead to several real and hysterical crises for the inmates of his mansion, Patiala House. None can do what they want. All are living the life Bauji has decided for them. And all — buas, chaachis, angry bahus and sulking teenagers — blame Gattu because he is the ideal son who never questions. All are told they must try to be like him. So they taunt him, keep him out of family portraits and don’t see that Gattu withers a little with each humiliation, and then a bit more every morning when he goes to work at his corner shop. No one knows about his cricketing days or his nightly bowling, except his mother.
Into Gattu’s sad, lonely world barges in little Zeeshan and his gabby sister Simran Chaggal (Anushka Sharma), to stir up emotions — about cricket and life in general. Gattu’s inner turmoil is at its peak when one of England’s selectors, Bedi (Tinnu Anand), approaches him.
Simran is persuasive, charming and warm, and engages Gattu’s teary cousins to goad him to give his dream one final shot. Gattu is selected. He is to play for England. But what about Bauji? Even if he is kept away from the TV set, there are newspapers, neighbours and garrulous relatives. We already know that this will be taken care of, and it is, with funny but feeble tricks. Bauji is kept out of the loop long enough for Gattu to have his final face-off with Australia’s Andrew Symonds, and for Bauji to realise that “taaliyon ki goonj” always muzzles “gaaliyon ka shor”.
Patiala House’s story — about a patriarchal NRI joint family where familial and other battles are fought and resolved — hits several nerves, at home and in Little Indias across the world where mummies and daddies live in a time warp. The film keeps man’s love for the game of cricket as its trump card and though in this it carries the genes of Bend it Like Beckham, Iqbal, even Lagaan, its DNA is its own. Patiala House is touching and made me cry, but it is also, always, just one dhol beat away from jerking its shoulders and doing the happy bhangra.
It’s also nice that the father here is given a real grievance — race riots in Southall in the late Seventies and early Eighties. So it is with due respect that Babbar Sher Dad is told that the rules of the race game have changed: One needn’t wave a menacing fist; a good in-swing will do the job. The film even dares to make the father and son undergo the Tebbit test, but the quarterly, not the finals. Desi hero thrashes the West Indians and Symonds, but doesn’t dare to bowl to a Tendulkar, a Dhoni, or even Agarkar. A very obvious cop out, but what Patiala House lacks in guts, it makes up with emotions.
From the first scene itself, when Patiala House’s story is established, we know the outcome, but Advani’s tale of a father, son and cricket unfolds with cute scenes, intense moments, nice dialogues and a peppy and talented supporting cast and we want to sit through it all, to cheer the lad when he will win and cry when the father-son will hug in the end.
The film has Gower, Gooch, Nasser Hussain and others. That's an invitation to cricket buffs to tear apart every ball. But I don’t know the “c” of cricket, I just get its drama and sentiment, and I got that here.
Akshay Kumar, thank God, under plays Gattu. He mostly stays quiet, and reserves all shouting and flexing for the cricket ground. It works. Anushka Sharma’s Simran has her own sad story and struggles. But she goes through life skipping and whistling. Anushka has often played a chul-buli jhalli and she is good at that. I am beginning to really like her.