Thursday, December 22, 2016

Dinesh Kamath’s column ‘New movie released in Navi Mumbai’ (Dangal) that was published in Newsband

New movie released in Navi Mumbai
By Dinesh Kamath
Dangal


Dangal (English: Wrestling competition) is an Indian Hindi-language biographical sports drama film directed by Nitesh Tiwari. It stars Aamir Khan as Mahavir Singh Phogat, who taught wrestling to his daughters Geeta Phogat and Babita Kumari. The former is India's first female wrestler to win at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, where she won the gold medal (55 kg). Her sister Babita Kumari won the silver (51 kg). "Dangal" is the Hindi term for "a wrestling competition".
The music for Dangal is composed by Pritam, while the lyrics are written by Amitabh Bhattacharya. Kripa Shankar Bishnoi, a coach with the Indian women's wrestling team, trained Aamir Khan and the entire crew for the wrestling sequences.
The movie has an interesting story. Mahavir Singh Phogat is a former champion wrestler. He is married to Shobha Kaur. Phogat's dream is to win a gold medal for India in wrestling. He is unable to do this. He promises that his son will do what he couldn't do. However, although he loves them dearly, Phogat is disappointed when Shobha gives birth to four daughters. He does not believe girls can wrestle well. However, when two of his daughters, Geeta and Babita, come home after beating up two boys. Phogat realises how wrong he has been and begins to train his daughters in wrestling. The film is the story of how Phogat trained his daughters to become professional wrestlers. Thus Dangal is a biopic based on star wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat’s inspirational life and his daughters’ journey towards International Gold Medal. Hailing from a remote village in Haryana state, Mahavir is natural-born talented wrestler who gives up his career dream due to lack of financial support. When he witnesses this two elder daughters thrashing couple of boys in a street brawl, Mahavir reinstates his goal and turns into a ruthless father cum coach to train his daughters Geeta, Babita in wrestling sport. Rest of the story highlights how the two girls overcome the physical hardship and the social struggle in the rural India where it is a taboo pursuing a career in sports, especially in wresting. Finally, they turn their father’s dream into a reality winning an International Gold Medal and make everyone proud. In reality, Mahavir's daughter Geeta Phogat became the first female wrestler to win a gold at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Her sister Babita Kumari won the silver in the 51 kg group. Thus the film follows the journey of Phogat and his daughters, as they defeat all odds. The film depicts sweaty bodies gripping each other in places strangers should not touch, violence as a form of entertainment, our baser human instincts getting official and mass encouragement. The movie talks about contact sports. Young Geeta and Babita Phogat have far more mundane reasons for hating wrestling: no girl they know does it, so why should they? Dangal is the story of their father’s bulldog-like determination to make them gold medal winners for India, and the girls’ own passage from aversion to passion for the sport. Dangal depicts marvelously Mahavir’s single-mindedness which brings him into conflict with his wife, his community, the country’s sporting establishment and ultimately, even Geeta. In fact, in 2012, Divya Rao, a member of Disney's creative team, read an article in a newspaper about Mahavir Singh Phogat, who trained his daughters to become world class champions. She thought this would make for a great film, and spoke about this to Siddharth Roy Kapoor and other Disney personnel. Disney approached Nitesh Tiwari to write and direct the story. Tiwari met Mahavir Singh Phogat and his daughters, who instantly agreed to tell the story. The story is very dramatic. It highlights the discrimination that is meted out to the girl child in India. The movie is made in a very entertaining manner. The heart of the story is emotional, but it also has a lot of humour.
The film has Aamir Khan as Mahavir Singh Phogat, Sakshi Tanwar as Daya Shobha Kaur, wife of Mahavir Singh Phogat, Fatima Sana Shaikh as Geeta Phogat, daughter of Mahavir Singh Phogat, Zaira Wasim as young Geeta, Sanya Malhotra as Babita Kumari, daughter of Mahavir Singh Phogat, Rohit Shankarwar, Suhani Bhatnagar as young Babita, Vivan Bhatena, Aparshakti Khurrana and Rajkummar Rao as Krishna Singh Phogat, brother of Mahavir Singh Phogat.

The film's music is composed by Pritam with lyrics are penned by Amitabh Bhattacharya. The film has songs like "Haanikaarak Bapu" sung by Sarwar Khan & Sartaz Khan Barna, Saddy Ahmad (additional vocals: Kheta Khan & Dayam Khan), "Dhaakad" by Raftaar, "Gilehriyaan" by Jonita Gandhi, "Dangal" by Daler Mehandi, "Naina" by Arijit Singh, "Dhaakad (Aamir Khan Version)" by Aamir Khan and "Idiot Banna" by Nooran Sisters. 

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