Dharam Sankat Mein

Dharam Sankat Mein (English: "Religion in Crisis") is a 2015 Indian comedy film directed by Fuwad Khan. The film is produced by Sajjad Chunawala and Shariq Patel under the banners Viacom 18 Motion Pictures and Trigno Media.^[1] The film released on 10 April and met with mixed reviews ^[2] from critics, the film stars Paresh Rawal, Naseeruddin Shah, and Annu Kapoor.

^[3][4] It is the first time a Bollywood movie has 3 National Film Award and Filmfare Award winners in its main cast.

Plot

Dharampal (Paresh Rawal), has a loving wife and two kids, a son and a daughter and owns a catering business. Dharampal starts his day with the old songs of a Punjabi Sikh pop singer Manjit Manchala, who has now stopped producing albums. His son falls in love with a young girl Shraddha. In order to marry her, he has to impress her father. Shraddha's father is a devout follower of a spiritual baba Neelanand (Nasaruddhin Shah). To impress her father, he also regularly visits the ashram of Neelanand Baba offering his services there. To help him out in his love affair and win Shraddha, he asks Dharampal also to pretend to be spiritual and follow Neelanand Baba. Dharampal is an atheist, but a Hindu-Brahmin and detests Muslims and this is indicated on various incidences on how he dislikes the early Namaz offering made over a loud speaker in the vicinity of their house. He also keep fighting with the neighbouring lawyer Nawab Mehmood Shah (Annu Kapoor).

Dharampal's mother Baa has died 2 months back and he hence visits her bank vault to collect her belongings. He find there a sketch, which he had drawing of the family in his childhood and some very old papers. Reading through those legal papers he discovers that he was adopted in 1960 by his parents through an orphanage. This truth shakes him and he goes on the hunt of finding his biological parents. Through the orphanage he finds that his father is a Muslim. He keeps this secret to himself, but later tells to his neighbor Shah. Shah offers help to find out his parents. Shah informs Dharampal that his biological mother soon died after his birth and as his father was poor, he had to take a job of taxi driver in gulf. His father hence hands over the custody of his baby to a relative, who gives away the baby to orphanage. Upon return after 4 years, his father tries to find out about him, but the orphanage strictly doesn't disclose the baby's current whereabouts. Dharampal traces down that his biological father, now in 80s, lives in an old-age home administered by an Immam. The Immam suggests Dharampal to come back later after learning Muslim habits and lifestyle giving his apprehension that the 80 year old father of his would be shocked to see his son raised as a Hindu. With help of Shah, Dharampal secretly takes lessons of Muslim lifestyle, not disclosing anything to his family yet. Dharmpal's son pressurizes him to pretend to be spiritual and hence appoints a Hindu pujari to teach him mantras. Comedy of errors happen when Dharampal mixes his two teachings, of Hinduism and Islam together when he gets worked up by the stress.

The Immam at the old-age home is not happy with Dharampal's efforts of being Muslim and pressurizes him more. Shah suggest that he should not be trying to convert Dharampal into a Muslim by illegally stopping him from seeing his father. The situation worsens when Shah tries to threaten Immam of legal actions. Dharampal's son finds out that his father visits mosque. Meanwhile, Neelanand Baba's followers were attacked in Hyderabad by few Muslims. Hence, the followers organize a protest march. Dharmapal also joins it to impress Shraddha's father. He happens to be wearing a Islamic skull cap which everyone discovers. He hence makes excuse that he brought the cap to burn it. People take his photographs and video while setting fire to the cap. He, however doesn't let the cap burn and slips it inside his pocket. Next day Neelanand Baba arrives at Dharampal's home, impressed by his deeds. Neelanand sings a bhajan for all and supports Dharampal's son's marriage with Shraddha. An outburst occurs outside the home of Dharmapal where many Muslims gather and pelt stones. To stop them all, Dharampal tells the truth of his Muslim birth. This upsets his family, who leave the home.

A case is lodged against Dharampal for burning the Muslim skull cap where the Immam comes and gives character witness of how Dharampal detest Islam. His witness backfires when Shah, now Dharampal's attorney, accuses Immam of trying to wrongfully convert Dharampal. The court gives permission to Dharampal to see his ailing father. But his father dies before Dharmpal reaches him. Furious over the whole situation, Dharampal accidentally discovers that Neelanand Baba's eye twitches due to Blepharospasm, a very rare abnormality causing contraction of the eyelid. His voice and this habit match with the Punjabi Sikh pop singer Manjit Manchala. He reveals to a large audience how Neelanand Baba is actually a born Sikh (non-Hindu) and has been a fraud and characterless pop-singer with various cases lodged against him for adulterous relationships with many women. He gives a speech on how the religion a person follows should not matter as long as they are acting good. Dharampal's family finally returns back and his son weds his love Sharaddha.

Critic Reviews

Bollywood Hungama - 3 stars out of 5 and The times of india - 2 stars out of 5.

Neel Dharma Promotion

Viacom 18 Motion Pictures launched an extravagant teaser campaign to promote the movie. Using Naseeruddin Shah's character of Neelanand Baba, they created pseudo religion called Neel Dharma. Neel Dharma had its own website, Facebook page and Twitter account. Dharam Sankat Mein also used WhatsApp in its mobile promotion where subscribers received updates on the movie from the first person account of Neelanand Baba.^[5][6]

Cast

• Paresh Rawal as Dharam Pal / Dilsukh Kohli / Daulat Khan / Dominic Paul Matthews
• Naseeruddin Shah as Neel Anand Baba / Old Manjeet Manchala
• Annu Kapoor as Nawab Mehmood Shah
• Gippy Grewal as Manjeet manchala
• Auritra Ghosh as Shraddha
• Sharat Sonu as Long Hair Guy^[7]

Soundtrack

The film's music is composed by Meet Bros Anjjan, Sachin Gupta, Jatinder Shah, Kaptan Laadi while lyrics are by Kumar.

References

External links

• Dharam Sankat Mein at the Internet Movie Database