Hills, lovers and fairytale characters

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Mod (A turn) is a bedtime fairytale about a lonely but golden girl who fixes stuff. She mends watches, her drunk father’s life and, eventually, a broken man's heart and mind. In return, she finds happily ever after.
In a mythical hill station, near a one-train railway station, sits the cute house of adorable Aranya (Ayesha Takia Azmi). She has banished her father, Ashok Mahadeo (Raghuveer Yadav), from the house because he won’t stop drinking. But Aranya has a warm heart and so she prepares tea for him every morning and they sip it together. Then she is off to her watch repair business and he to his Kishore Bhakt Mandali, a silly singing troupe which worships Kishoreda, and will only sing his songs.
Sometime in the afternoon, Aranya gets on her temperamental moped and drives to Gigi’s restaurant. Gigi is short for Gayatri Garg (Tanvi Azmi), Aranya’s bhua and, in fairytale parlance, her godmother.
There are two other worthies in town who together add up to two insignificant tangents to the film’s main story. One is Gangaram (Nikhil Ratnaparkhi), the owner of a gift shop who is trying to lose weight in the hope that Aranya will say yes to him. The other is a gentleman from RK Constructions who has devilish plans of razing all the pretty, cosy houses to ground, shave the hills and erect an ugly concrete and brick resort.
Life is slow and everything is as usual till one day a quiet young man gets off the train and walks up to Aranya’s shop with a soaking wet watch. She fixes it and in return he gives her a 100-rupee note folder and twisted in the shape of a swan. He returns the next day, and the next, offers his soaking watch to be fixed. And every day he gives her a 100-rupee note in the shape of a swan.
Aranya is curious, tries to talk to him and he immediately rattles off details of what Aranya, as a student of class 10B, did — in school, after school, how she played the harmonica every time the train came in, and how she would make paper swans during lunch time. He introduces himself as Andy (Rannvijay Singh), a backbencher from her class and says some lines from a love poem.
Andy is shy, weird and vulnerable and never looks straight into Aranya’s eyes. But he loves her and she falls in love with him instantly. They go on walks, hold hands, he tries to kiss her, egged on, he says, by his best friend, but can’t. It’s all rosy and cute till Andy’s best friend makes an appearance in an eerie, even if predicable, twist.

Nagesh Kukunoor likes students and he likes to set his films in schools in hill stations where old flames return, love blossoms and life is one cheery school anthem. His is a world of lovers who play musical instruments, sip steaming stuff and go on long walks or sit by beauteous streams. He also has broken creatures who are redeemed by the love and faith of guru-like characters and are gently pushed out of the nest to soar and sing inspiring, heart-warming songs. Mod is exactly all that.
But where Iqbal was real and Aashayein maudlin and corny, Mod falls somewhere in between. Everything about Mod is counterfeit and yet it is rescued by its sunshine core, a strong lead pair and a twist that keeps us interested in the story.
Mod is a legit scene-for-scene copy of a 2007 Taiwanese film, Keeping Watch. Because the original story was a medico-psycho thriller with a simple heart, it works here as well. What doesn’t work is the mythical setting, fantastic characters, their equally whimsical quirk and ticks. Characters speak and do things that only characters in fairytales do, their essence lost in translation.
The real treat here is Ayesha Takia Azmi who is gorgeous and cuddly and Rannvijay Singh who has given a very impressive performance. Mod is worth watching, even if just to go “oooo” over Ms Takia and Mr Singh.