Penned by Javed Akhtar, one of Hindi cinema's premier screenwriters and lyricists, and starring the dyn-o-mite combination of Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit, with a strong helping of Rakhee in her most ridiculously insane Demented Mother mode, Jeevan Ek Sanghursh ( Life is a Struggle) turned out to be an inoffensive fluff piece with a few genuinely charming moments. Had we just bought a two-in-one faux medieval-done-badly Anil/Madhuri themed DVD? We decided to watch Jeevan Ek Sanghursh first and find out.
Now we at the PPCC KNOW that Rajkumar was hideous, but a mystery Anil/Madhuri movie was just too hard to resist. "And look, it's a two-in-one," he chirped happily, "with Rajkumar!" Who knew what Nephew E was talking about. After all, the Es had just tried to pawn off a movie from Singapore as being Tamil. "Jeevan Ek Sanghursh," he said, enunciating loudly over the thundering rain. "But we have a perverse curiosity to watch it RIGHT NOW!" Gasp! The infamous Jaanbaaz of the infamous roll in the hair hay scene? Isn't that one of those hilariously seedy Miami Vice-esque drug movies, too?! And one of the few films the all-forgiving and always-optimistic Rum. (Never mind that after a YEAR of requesting only the most esoteric Shashi Kapoor titles, the Es pretended to never notice our devotion to Shashilicious. Gosh, he's dreeeamy." We felt a haze of affection coming on. The PPCC smiled with a distant look in our eyes. At this point, assistant Nephew Everything had a brainwave and said, smiling, "I am thinking you are very keen on Anil Kapoor lately."
He's certainly our premier supplier.) Anyway, after a huge disappointment when Uncle E ji's only Tamil films were Aaj Ka Boss (which, as the title implies, is not actually Tamil but Hindi) and an ancient, unsubtitled, black and white film from Singapore (?! again, not actually Tamil, but what do any of us know apparently), we requested our usual binge of Anil Kapoor films. Uncle E ji's really got almost everything, and he prides himself on being the premier supplier of Hindi DVDs in the country. Well, yesterday the PPCC braved a torrential downpour, gushing sidewalks and a broken flip-flop to visit our trusty Uncle Everything DVD-wallah ji.