Subhash Ghai, director-showman, launches Trailer of college movie, Days of Tafree

Tafree is an interesting title, being a shortened form of the word tafreeh, which means entertainment or fun in Urdu. The Hindi equivalent is manoranjan. Ahmedabad-based writer-director Krishnadev Yagnik’s debut film Chhello Divas (Last Day, in Gujarati, a college romp) was a hit, and he has written and directed the college romp in Hindi, titled Tafree, with at least two lead actors carried over.

Both producer Anand Pandit (a political bigwig and a well-known builder) and Yagnik are Gujaratis, and Pandit was not even aware of the meaning of the word when Yagnik suggested it to him. It just sounded nice, so they went with it. But just Tafree seemed bare, so Days of... was added as a ‘prefix’. A trailer launch and media interaction was held earlier this week, at a Mumbai suburban multiplex, with eminent film producer-director Subhash Ghai as Chief Guest.

Conceived as a convocation event of the United World College (where it has been presumably shot), the invitation was designed as such. Post event, the cast took pictures with fancy hats. Wonder what the college would have to say about the ‘tafree’ dresses that some of the female cast wore at the convocation. Chief Guest Ghai, who is a trained actor who turned to direction after a brief stay in front of the camera, was part of an eleven member cast in an early film called Umang, a campus story too. On the occasion, he reminisced about his student days, when he, like many of his colleagues, always looked for entertainment, tafree. (Those were the mid-60s. In the post 2000 era, most Indian college/institute students demand that lecturers be funny, entertaining and frivolous, even when they are teaching a subject like law. If you are a stand-up comic, that’s a great help. Any attempt to teach or educate is met with a very hostile reaction). From what we saw in the trailer, the film might prove to be a worthy successor to Pyar Ka Punchnama 2 and Great Grand Masti, both co-produced by Pandit. There are risqué jokes galore, sexual innuendo, and several over-the-top scenes.

Officially, this is the storyline: The movie revolves around the lives of seven friends, showcasing their journey of growing up, highs and lows of their relationships, love and compassion, end of college days and the beginning of a new life. It takes you back to your days of friendship, fun, frolic and ‘fultoo’ (slang for full) time-pass life, taking you back to the days of ‘tafree’, first crushes, naive fights and unending mischief. A host of newcomers form the cast: Yash Soni, Kinjal Rajpriya, Ansh Bagri, Sanchay Goswami, Sarabjeet Bindra (the big, bad wolf), Nimisha Mehta, Anuradha Mukherjee and Mamta Chowdhary. It is scheduled for release on 23rd September.

L to R: After the three leggy ladies are Krishnadev Yagnik, Anand Pandit, Subhash Ghai and Rashmi Sharma, followed by four male members of the cast.

Is it going to be a ‘two in two’ for the other producer, Rashmi Sharma? Sharma’s film Pink, starring Amitabh Bachchan, was slated for release a week earlier, on 16 September, and its trailer was launched a week before the Tafree promo. Pink was a birthday gift to Rashmi from husband Pawan Kumar Marut. A TV Creative Director of repute, Rashmi Sharma’s company, Rashmi Sharma Telefilms, produced its first serial in 2010, Sath Nibhana Sathiya. It currently has six shows on air, on various satellite channels in India, all with good ratings and one that has already completed 1,500 episodes. In March 2016, on her birthday, the company ventured into silver screen space, with the name Rashmi Sharma Pictures, and launched a film, titled Pink, co-produced by Shoojit Sircar. Tafree is her second foray in the theatrical format of story-telling.

Director Yagnik agreed that the film is largely based on Chhello Divas. He went on to add that except for two members of the cast, Yash Soni and Kinjal Rajpriya, who had worked in Chhello Divas, the others are all new, selected from hundreds of applicants, and their selection at the auditions was based on how well they fitted the traits and profiles of the characters. Though he stuck to the script by and large, some improvisation was incorporated during shooting. The cast revealed that they often played pranks. In one instant, the whole cast and crew slipped away, leaving only one girl on the set, who got terrified when she found herself alone. On another, Yagnik kept asking an actor to give dozens of retakes, although he had got what he wanted, and it was the last day of shooting.

Compère Nitin did a really good job. Sadly, no further information was available about him.

As you might notice in the image, the title is spelt in English with the ‘f’ being substituted with a Hindi p-h. At a cursory glance, you might even read it as ‘TAXFREE’. Asked about the rationale behind this graphic design, Yagnik replied that it was just that: a designer’s concept; and he liked it. Incidentally, India levies a high rate of ‘entertainment’ tax on each cinema ticket sold, with only serious, award-winning films, granted exemption. As a result, industry insiders joke about it, saying that any film that has exemption from entertainment tax has to be boring, and devoid of any entertainment, by definition!

Trailer: https://youtu.be/F2kUYPANFKs

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Chhello Divas (Last Day, in Gujarati)

The movie revolves around the lives of eight friends, showcasing their journey of growing up, highs and lows of their relationship, love and compassion, end of college days and beginning of a new life.

Cast: Yash Soni | Malhar Thakar | Janki Bodiwala | Mitra Gadhvi | Kinjal Rajpriya | Aarjav Trivedi | Rahul Raval | Netri Trivedi | Mayur Chauhan | Prapti Ajwalia | Prashant Barot | Jitendra Thakkar

(Released November, 2015)