AUNTY No 1. CAST: Govinda, Raveena Tandon DIRECTION: Kirti Kumar RATING: *

My dear Uncle Kirti Kumar,

Hope this letter finds you in the pink-and-polka of health and wealth.
Actually, I worry that you've been devouring all the wrong curries and thinkingup movie ideas while lolling on uncomfortable furry dhurries. I mean,really, Aunty No 1 gave me such a hellish headache that I had to lie downin bed for an entire day, which is no way to begin the holiday month of May.

Out of sheer loyalty to you (remember you gave the world the slick-chic
Hatya some ten years ago?), I queued up at the theatre for a ticket to Aunty No 1, expecting maha-mazaa-masti.

Believe you me, Uncle, I should have saved myself the trouble. Because it turned out to be a terribly tortuous adaptation of the Marathi comedy drama,Moruchi Mavshi -- or, should I say, the 1899 play, Charley's Aunt,which has also been performed successfully on the Urdu stage as Khalid ki Khaala?

Whatever the antecedents of your manic-panic movie, it's just not done, Uncle!

How could you? Like I nearly fainted on being subjected to jejune jokes about Kader Khan's weak gall-bladder. Sadder still was the melancholic sight of a midget kicking his l'il legs out of khaki knickers. And ladies sitting beside me plugged their ears with cotton bales when you drummed out those intolerable innuendoes about men pointing their 'pistols' and 'lathis' at women. Ugh, ugh,ugh.

Also, please, what's the point in inflicting upon us two bottom-shaking boys (Harish and Rohit Kumar)? When they dared to prance-and-dance, it did seem as if they had imported ants in their pants all the way from France. And who were those two starlets behaving like jumping jelly beans on the Kamalistan studio lawn? Yawn.

Of course, Uncle Kirtoo, you will say that all this knownsense and silly-billy auntics are an excuse for our dulara bhai Govinda to go yo-ho-ho.

Admittedly, he's hilarious during his take-off on Gabbar, cute while riding
pillion with a talkative Sardarji and even incredibly intense while
delivering a speech-a-thon about the heartless ways of Mumbai showbiz.

Fine.

Ever so gamely, Govinda tries to carry off the drag act, too. Lips aquiver in strawberry lipstick, body swathed in shiny dupattas and his chest carrying the burden of tennis balls, one of the best actors in today's cinema continues to be trapped tragically in the worst attempts in auntertainment. Not done, Uncle, not done. Govinda, the all-rounder, definitely deserves much more than this pathetic pain in the brain.

I don't know how you did it. But the outcome is so disjointed, devoid of
continuity and a disaster technically, that I had no option but to drown my
sorrows in tea, coffee and colas at the theatre canteen, especially during the Anandless-Milind songs with lyrics like Bulbula oh oh chulchula and Sonpapdi popdi bopdi. Eeeek do teen, really.
I'm upset, too, over the fact that you consigned Raveena Tandon to a role that's briefer than a bikini.

What more can I say, Uncle Kirtoo? If you care for me and the audience, do desist from making me suffer. After such full-length men-in-drag movies as Raffoochakkar and the recent Chachi 420, there was truly no need to give us a creaky, phikki Antique No 1.

Oh yes, lest I forget Uncle, do get well soon.