Ghampani

Genre: Romantic comedy

Director: Dipendra Lama

Cast: Dayahang Rai, Keki Adhikari and Ankeet Khadka

Being screened at QFX Cinemas

Kathmandu

Furwa Tamang (Dayahang Rai) and Tara (Keki Adhikari) are childhood friends who have feelings for each other. Their relationship becomes more intimate when Tara comes to village from the Capital for a vacation. However, their intimacy brings about a conflict. Ghampani is a simple and feel-good movie revolving around an inter-caste love story.

Directed by Dipendra Lama, Ghampani is entertaining. The pace of the film is good. Lama has successfully presented an inter-caste love story between a Brahmin girl and Tamang boy. The first-half of the film revolves around the flirty relationship between Tara and Furwa. Both tease each other about their respective caste — Tara frequently teases Furwa calling him nepte (flat nosed), and Furwa always tells Tara to elope with him. Their chemistry is interesting.

Unlike the other love stories, the lovers in Ghampani do not cry and bring tears to neither their eyes nor the audience’s. The film is more in Bollywood director Sooraj Barjatya’s style — more happy scenes as compared to sad ones. In that sense, Ghampani has more gham (sun) than pani (rain/water).

Lama, also the writer, has presented a simple yet lovable story. This love story has a villain and he portrays the villain in Kamal Prasad Adhikari (Ankeet Khadka) — a policeman (with one star in his uniform) as comically as possible. The film has also shown the social differences between two castes, mindset of the caste system, power of lower rank police in villages, and unity of villagers, Despite the film being about two different so-called upper and lower castes, Ghampani has not wasted time showing and lecturing on ethnic rights. Though Furwa is a school teacher, the storyline hasn’t followed that thread. The dialogues are situational and hold the audience’s attention.

After a long time Rai looks fresh on the screen. From his get-up to dialogue delivery, Rai has looks of smart and desirable guy. His acting is effortless. He has managed to look young and compatible with Adhikari as they are shown to have studied in same class upto SLC.

Adhikari as Tara has done good job. Her dialogue delivery is done with ease and is natural. Her chemistry with Rai is excellent. Both look fresh and a good couple onscreen. Khadka as Kamal is natural. Though an antagonist, as a cunning policeman, he looks more funny and less harmful. Khadka has made his character natural — be it the winking right eye when seeing beautiful girls or trying to flirt with village girls, he has done his part beautifully.

His self-praising of his unheard bravery in front of his colleagues is also entertaining.

Composers Kali Prasad Baskota’s Panchhi and Chandra Kumar Dong’s Tamang Selo are melodious.