Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui- Welcome to a ‘new normal’ love story

Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui as the name suggests is a love story, albeit an unconventional one, if you have watched the trailer. So first things first- what’s it about. Well, boy meets girl. Boy falls for girl only to realise that girl was a boy before she turned in to a girl. Going by its unusual theme, this film could have gone downhill easily, but because it is led by the Champion Crusader of all Unconventional Love Stories, Ayushmann Khurrana, the film succeeds in engaging as well as entertaining viewers right from Scene 1. The love story is rather convincing thanks to the chemistry between Ayushmann and Vaani Kapoor. The latter seems to be having fun with perhaps her boldest role till date. 

The message of the film seems to suggest that love can conquer all barriers and does so without being dangerously preachy thanks to its regular dose of humour courtesy the supporting cast especially Ayushmann’s two friends and his family. As a basic concept, the love story of a trans girl could have got limited to being a very niche film, to be enjoyed by an evolved audience but director Abhishek Kapoor manages to push the right buttons to make this film as commercial as possible with its peppy songs, pacy editing and blunt dialogues. The film is ultimately peppered with common issues in people’s lives like family feuds, barriers of religion, the struggle to prove oneself, physical imperfections, social impositions, closed or conservative mindsets and so on. While one may wonder if Chandigarh is a convincing backdrop for a theme so foreign even in cosmopolitan metro cities of India, the film’s biggest weakness is perhaps that it tries to make an ambitious statement on non-conformity. To base a film like this in an atypical setting like Chandigarh, to have a  family of Jatts come to grips with the ‘new normal’ love story of a trans girl and a boy, to squeeze in a Hindu-Muslim love angle in the mix and the grand finale where the hero of the film must triumph amidst all odds is all a bit filmy to say the least, taking away from the otherwise credible premise of the main love story. Yet, in post-Covid times, a film like this with its heart in the right place gets my vote for what it is worth.

I would go with *** stars for Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui, definitely recommended for the lead pair’s performances and for the director’s conviction to make a film like this with such unabashed pride, no pun intended.

Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui is now streaming on Netflix.com.