Dhai Aakhar: Merely two-and-a-half letters of an alphabet arouse great expectations

Dhai means two-and-a-half, and Aakhar means akshar or the letters of the Hindi alphabet. The title is taken from a doha (simple, moralising poetry written in couplet form) by an Indian saint, Kabeer, centuries ago. The line goes ‘Dhai aakhar prem ka/key padhey so Pandit hoye’ (whoever reads the two-and-a half letters of the Devnagari alphabet, that add-up to mean love, will be a true seer). Co-producer-director Praveen Arora has chosen this name for his film, Dhai Aakhar, based on a script by venerated Hindi and Hindustani writer of plays and books, Asghar Wajahat. In terms of the lyrics, for its two songs, he used the services of modern Hindustani shair (poet) Irshaad Kaamil, to write the only original song in the film, and picked one from the treasure left behind by soofi poet, Ameer Khusrau, who has found a humungous following in India during the 21^st century, 700 years after his death, for the second. Besides songs, there is a lot of poetry in the film.

These two songs and the trailer were shown to a section of the press, yesterday, at a Mumbai mini-theatre, which is situated in the building that houses the Indian film industry’s premier association. Present on the occasion were Arora himself, and many members of his team, including two of the three lead actors, as well as the technical team. Notwithstanding the fact that it is a small auditorium, it was packed to capacity and a few of us had to stand in this house-full event. Something similar was witnessed at Goa, where it was entered in the competition in the International Film Festival of India!

Impressed with the idea of watching a film based on a literary work, involving M.A. degree-holder Praveen Arora and an M.A. Ph.D., Mrinal Kulkarni, I was keen on watching the film, given the chance. A number of other journalists, who were attending the festival, asked me whether the film was worth watching, and I told them that I knew a few things about the film, but had not seen it as yet. I was as keen as them Many of them booked their tickets for either of the two shows scheduled there. So much so that both shows were sold out, and I could not get an entry at either show. Almost a full year later, I found myself at a screening, albeit a sneak-peak only, and history repeated itself. I could not find a seat, and could only participate in the long Q. and A. session that followed.

Dhai Aakhar is a story of a woman who rebuilds herself and her fragmented life after years of being in an abusive marriage, when she starts ‘a conversation’ with an empathetic writer, through letters. The film brings out the conflict surrounding such relationships. It is shot in the mountainous state of Uttarakhand, because the director felt that the tranquility and the locale would be conducive for a writer to put pen to paper. It is set in 1980.

Produced by Praveen Arora, J.P. Agrawal, Kamlesh Agrawal and S.K. Jain Jamai, with Munna Rizvi as Executive Producer, Dhai Aakhar stars Mrinal Dev Kulkarni as the abused woman, Harish Khanna as the writer, Rohit Kokate as the wife-abuser, Chandan Anand, Prasanna Bisht, Neer Raao and Smriti Mishra. Mrinal feels that her character in this film is one of her most satisfying and challenging outings. Although a director herself (Marathi films), she surrendered fully to Praveen Arora’s directions, and was impressed by the fact he came to her with a bound script.

Arora said that he was fortunate that his entire cast and crew consisted of persons he had hand-picked. A couple of them mulled over the project, but after reading the script, they came on board immediately. He also felt that everybody associated with this film had given it their best. It took just about a month to shoot the film, but a lot more time was spent in post-production. This is the first feature of Praveen Arora, who has made numerous non-feature videos.

According to latest reports, the film is releasing on 22 November.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/815N4RZqRMA