The Humour of Andaz Apna Apna, 30 years on

바카라˜Gobhi ji aapka ghaghra바카라™. 

바카라˜Teja mai hoon, mark idhar hai바카라™. 

바카라˜Murgiyon ka farm kholunga, hazaaron murgiyan paaloonga, jo laakhon ande dengi바카라™. 

바카라˜Aaya hoon toh kuch chura kar hi jaaunga바카라™.

바카라˜Yeh Teja Teja kya hai, Yeh Teja Teja바카라™

Amar. Prem. Crime Master Gogo. Raabert. Bhalla. Raveena. Karishma. Teja. Uncle. Akela. Each character in the film was unforgettable, had their own arc, memorable lines and a certain iconicity. And 30 years on, Andaz Apna Apna enjoys a cult status, that it didn바카라™t when it originally released in 1994. What is in that film that takes millennials back to it again and again for a few much-needed laughs, some warmth and dollops of fun?

Its innocence. Seated deeply in the aspiration and sexism of the 90s, the dream is to be rich despite being lazy by marrying a rich girl. The girl바카라™s job of course is just to be a rich man바카라™s daughter to marry and be the repository of a fortune. Andaz Apna Apna follows each of those tropes. Where its humour sits, is when it laughs at its own protagonists, their ability to scam their own hard-working parents, their frustrations and their own desperate attempts at making their dreams come true. The innocence is in the schemes of one upmanship, the dreams they see of falling in love with actresses, the desire they have of being loved and living a life of comfort and joy. The 바카라˜villains바카라™ are wonderfully innocent too, with dreams, not of being sinister, but of leading lives of respect and opening poultry farms. They don바카라™t want to abduct girls to rape them but to steal diamonds, and are willingly getting admonished for kidnapping the provider and not the dependents. Despite asking for Rs 50 lakhs, they make peace with getting Rs 8535.29 to be exact, and get scared when they바카라™re yelled at. The villains too get confused with the twins of Teja and Ram Gopal Bajaj, and in all this confusion we get genuine hilarity. Crime Master Gogo바카라™s need to steal something, anything is ridiculous and funny too, which doesn바카라™t necessary look at what he is stealing, as long as it is, well, anything. A scooter or a cycle. He goes from wanting to steal diamonds, to asking for one diamond, to wanting just the money that was taken from him back, and even warns Amar and Prem walking behind him to be careful, as he misses a step and slips on a rotating staircase. The innocence of Andaz Apna Apna keeps its heart in the right place with each protagonist being inherently good. It embodied a value system that was deeply prized in the 90s and is steadily lost in the world we live in today. 

The other aspect is nostalgia. The film was already using nostalgia to its excellent advantage 30 years before we discovered the potency of the emotion in pop culture today. Whether it was Shahzaad Khan apprising his role as Bhalla speaking like his father Ajit바카라™s unforgettable Loin, one of the most popular villains of the 70s, of Crime Master Gogo바카라™s introduction of being Mogambo바카라™s bhatija, or the hat tips to Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander with Aamir Khan, the character names of Amar Prem, sound tracks of Tu Cheez badi hai Mast Mast for Karishma바카라™s (Raveena Tandon바카라™s) entry, and so on. The film keeps harking back to an era gone by in more ways than one. Bringing the greatest comic actors of their time back to the screens in Mehmood, Jagdeep and Deven Verma strengthens the comic writing and timing of the film. Even the casting with exaggerated spellings is reminiscent of the Hrishikesh Mukherjee character of casting films, that dropped cues of what the film would be like, and what to expect as we moved forth. Nostalgia offers both comfort and familiarity. And in that, Andaz Apna Apna excels. It gives us those little moments that we can catch, that keep us engrossed, where we find connections from films to films, which only true movie buffs can make. The music of the film also has a certain old-world charm especially with 바카라˜Ello ji sanam hum aa gaye바카라™ and 바카라˜yeh raat aur yeh doori바카라™ with their picturisations set on tangas and gardens and balconies respectively.

The jokes and the writing are constituted by incredible punning and fantastic timing. Writing for screen is an art, and to write comedy is possibly an even harder task within that. The timing of Andaz Apna Apna, with effortless comebacks, whether it is Aila- Jamaila (Govinda), or Teja Mai hoon, mark idhar hai, and countless others peppered through the film, are testimony to sharp writing that run through the screenplay of the film. Puns have almost completely been eclipsed in Hindi cinema바카라™s comic landscape today, and have made way for sexist, sleazy writing in the name of comedy.

As Andaz Apna Apna completed 30 years in 2024, it is a film that one must return to, for that warm fuzzy happy feeling, of a world that is slowly vanishing. Of innocence, love, simplicity and nostalgia.