Rafoo Chakkar

Rafoo Chakkar

This week’s release, B H Tharun Kumar’s Rafoo Chakkar takes its title and nothing else from Narendra Bedi’s 1975 hit.

While the old film was a sparkling comedy-thriller inspired by Billy Wilder’s classic Some Like it Hot, the new Rafoo Chakkar is a disgusting piece of faux filmmaking. Pity it is ruining the memory of the old hit.

Getting nostalgic then, for the film in which Rishi Kapoor masqueraded as a woman, and had people joking that he looked cuter that the heroine.

Dev (Rishi Kapoor) and Salim (Paintal) are musicians, who perform at weddings. One day, they witness a murder and are spotted by the killers. To save their own lives, they disguise themselves as girls—Devi and Salma-- and get on to a train to going to Kashmir with a band of girls. Among them is Ritu (Neetu Singh), who has run away from her nasty aunt (Lalita Kumari), who wanted her to marry an old man Prakash (Madan Puri) for money. This man happens to be the partner-in-crime of Ranjit (Anwar Hussain), who is also Dev’s long-separated father.

Dev falls in love with Ritu, but his disguise comes in the way. Ritu tell ‘Devi’ that she would like to marry rich and handsome man. So Dev masquerades as a rich man. Meanwhile ‘Salma’ gets suitor in the form of Rajendranath, who falls in love thinking he is a she.

The film was a good example of the seventies masala film, a bit of comedy, some crime, lost-and-found, plenty of romance, shot on pretty locations and with great music. The Rishi Kapoor-Neetu Singh pair was also at its peak of popularity. It was the innocence of the times, that no hassle was caused by the drag act or by the romance between two men, even if it was in error.

Kalyanji-Anandji’s music was a hit, with a lot of numbers topping the charts. Remmber songs like Chook chook chak chak Bombay se Baroda tak, Kisi pe dil agar aa jaye to kya hota hai, Dil dena buri bala hai, Tumko mere dil ne pukara hai, Aye zamane, tu karle situm, Bhajan bina chain na aye Ram.

Even today, watching the 1975 Rafoo Chakkar is great fun, which is more than can be said about the new one.