Booze Up:
The Government of Madhya Pradesh has been thanked, so it is clear that Dry Day is set in the state, in the nondescript town of Jagodhar, which is notorious for the rampant alcoholism of its men. This by itself is not uncommon in India, but the men of this town seem to do nothing but drink, and there is no mention of anyone dying of cirrhosis of the liver, or even suffering from hangovers.
The town’s MLA, Dauji (Annu Kapoor), owns the booze outlets that sell cheap tharra, as well as videshi liquor. Dauji’s henchman in Jagodhar, Gannu (Jitendra Kumar), starts the day drunk and the guzzling-straight-from-the-bottle goes on from there. His sharp-tongued wife, Nirmala (Shriya Pilgaonkar), cannot control him; and at the beginning of the film, is venting generally, but also because her mother-in-law is pregnant at the same time she is—there is no further mention of this odd situation till the end.
The film, written and directed by Saurabh Shukla, begins as a social satire and stays on the rails for most of the running time. Nirmala decides not to give birth because Gannu would be a hopeless father, so he promises to improve. To pacify her, he claims that Dauji has picked him as the next corporator candidate. But there is the devious Satto (Sunil Palwal), also eying that position, and willing to use dirty tricks to get Gannu out the way. Gannu, for all his posturing as a goon and surrounded by rough-looking boozards like himself, is actually quite clueless about politics.
When he sees a leader in Delhi sitting on a fast-undo-death, he decides to follow suit in Jagodhar, to create a positive image, but when asked what he is agitating against, he can’t think of a reason. Then, in an alcoholic haze, he announces, in public, that his campaign is against liquor. He has no intention of following through on his promise of giving up booze or reforming the town, but the women, fed-up of their good-for-nothing husbands take him up on his word. Led by the fiery Janki (Kiran Khoje), harassed wife of a chronic drunkard, they pick him up, place him in the square and sit down around him to support his mission. When his wife looks happy at the change in him, he decides to go-ahead with the fast, without thinking it through. Satto and Dauji plot to make him fail somehow.
Gannu’s starvation and alcohol deprivation cannot be taken too seriously, because he displays no symptoms—no cold turkey, no fatigue or debility. He remains lucid and clear-headed to counter Satto’s wickedness. The plot, however, runs out of steam and falls into melodrama—unlike the classic Guide (1965), which was undoubtedly the inspiration for this story of an unlikely hero.
Jitendra Kumar, who made his OTT career playing a wholesome characters in shows like Kota Factory and Panchayat, plays scruffy vagabond, and manages to pull it off, with aplomb, considering he is practically in every scene, and he lords it over the unknowns but well-cast hangers-on. There is an authenticity and sense of purpose about Dry Day which is appealing and also the avoidance of sanctimonious preaching.
(This piece first appeared in rediff.com)
